"When it comes to multiple processors, particles represent low-hanging fruit. We ran three groups of tests that use particles, One Million Particles, and Particles with Four Goals. In all cases, we found that multiple processors were being called upon to do work. However, we also discovered some unpredictability about how the different software programs handle particle functions. The sizes of the files were the same, the numbers of the particles remained the same and, in all programs, the particles change—either accumulating, or moving in a particular direction. However, particles being what they are, each program accomplished its task a little differently. This is a perfect example of the challenge inherent in creating tasks using actual processes rather than rendered scenes. That said up front, we hope this white paper and these test will inspire participation from the 3D community to help create more tests that can be run across different software platforms."

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"The 1000 cubes turning is a surprise. Maya wins on Windows XP but loses on Vista. Obviously, there’s something going on underneath the hood here. However, Task Manager offers an interesting clue. When the thousand cubes are turning, only one processor is being impacted and there’s only modest demand being place on the processor. We’ll address this observation further in our conclusions."

All the programs performed relatively well in this test. Max and XSI performed rather similarly. Maya performed roughly twice as well on XP compared to Vista.

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"One Million Particles: In the one million particles test, the animation builds as one million particles are generated. Once again, we see that Maya is better able to handle the overhead imposed by Vista but XSI is the fastest in XP. Throughout these tests, it’s clear that Max is challenged by particles. The one million particle tests again highlight the unpredictable nature of the “Vista effect.” XSI and Maya are very closely tied in Vista, but in the case of XP, the win goes to XSI."

Again 3DS Max see's a very large performance gap between XP and vista. XP vs Vista on XSI has a similar gap.

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"1000 Particles with Goals: Once again, 1000 particles are directed towards an assigned path, this time toward four goals. XSI wins on both Vista 64-bit and Windows XP. However the race is a little faster on XP. The 1000 Particles with Goals raises another interesting question about testing different packages against each other and trying to find comparable scenes and procedures. XSI performed faster but Max and Maya performed the procedure most predictably. The particles flowed gracefully to the goals. In Maya and XSI, the particles flowed, but they missed the goals."

"In all cases, the particle tests challenge multiple processors. In the case of XSI, we could see all processors being hit—somewhat equally. In the case of Max and Maya, the CPUs seemed to pick up the slack more intermittently and unevenly."

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