Minibrot Heightfield by MakinMagic

Created using Ultra Fractal.
A zoom into the largest minibrot.
max. iter. 60
bailout 1024
I cranked up the detail level on this to get better render quality (accuracy increased by 2.5* compared to the full Mandy render).
2mins 40secs @640*480 on my decrepit 3GHz P4HT in single threaded mode.

See the full Mandy here:
[link]

lyc Featured By Owner Jul 4, 2009

lol you said it

it breaks my heart to see you saving for an overpriced machine (dual processor mac pro) when a simpler i7 pc will deliver so much more value...

MakinMagic Featured By Owner Jul 5, 2009 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Hmmmm - I checked the price of a comparable system from Dell - it came out around £1000 more than the Mac Pro (£4000 vs. £3000).
The only way I'd get something cheaper is to custom build one - but I absolutely must have a Mac for development reasons (I mean "real" work) so getting an off-the-shelf standard PC or custom building one are both out anyway.
If you've never tried it you won't believe how much easier and more stable developing software is on a Mac than on a Windows system

As an example one of our products is a game called "Tower of Souls", originally written in 68000 assembler for the Amiga, converted to x86 assembler for the PC (DOS), converted to C++ for the Windows PPCs and for the PC (Windows) and finally just converted to C++/Objective C for the iPhone/iTouch.
The C++ Windows/PPC version had major problems - for example Visual Studio refused to compile the program properly - not recognising the existence of some "externs" so that in the end I had to ignore the problem and just define a second copy of the variable (i.e. so it existed separately in 2 source files). When I converted to C++/Objective C developing on the Mac it immediately came up with duplicate label errors because when compiling the "externs" worked correctly and I was able to remove the fudged duplicate labels.

lyc Featured By Owner Jul 5, 2009

you say "comparable system", but it's still a waste of money to buy dual processor systems (why pay 4x as much for less than 2x the performance?), and similarly it's a waste of money to go with a prebuilt machine from dell. i was barely out of my nappies when i started building my own computers, it isn't difficult at all! the parts are warrantied, so there's no issue really (plus you have the control to do things really well), and you have a mac already

MakinMagic Featured By Owner Jul 5, 2009 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Also I've yet to find a decent priced home-built system where the machine is quiet and stays quiet after say 6 months use.
At work all the Dell Optiplex Core2Duo's and the Xeon MacPro are virtually silent as is my Dell Core2Duo laptop.

lyc Featured By Owner Jul 5, 2009

coming from a pentium4 you'll be amazed at how quiet a computer can be

MakinMagic Featured By Owner Jul 5, 2009 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Well I want the speed that 2 I7 quadcores gives and I don't have a Mac at home - at the moment to work at home I have to use VNC (over broadband) which is a pain in the neck when I'm using a PC keyboard/OS to try and control a Mac at the other end so I usually go in to work (34 mile round trip -> approx. £5 a day in my car * about 200 = £1000 pa).
I know I could get a Mac mini (or maybe a Macbook) but that doesn't solve my need for speed issue as far as fractalling is concerned - I'd have to get another system as well for that and I already have 5 tower PCs in this room !
Note that I also want a Mac at home so I can develop my own Mac based fractal software (or maybe produce a Mac version of ChaosPro - I already suggested this to Martin Pfingstl).