The machine used for CG generation of Toy Story is about half the performance of iPhone 6

Silent Venture's venture capital with one picture revealing virtually how advanced technological advances are hugeAndreessen HorowitzTo work inBenedict EvansHas tweeted it and it is talked about.

"I rendered Toy Story's CG published in 1995Render farmThere seems to be 1 billion transistors accumulated in the whole CPU. On the other hand, the A8 chip on Apple's iPhone 6 has some 2 billion transistors integrated, "Evans said.

The whole Sun render farm for Toy Story (1995) had (v roughly) 1 bn CPU transistors.

Apple's A8 SoC (iPhone 6): 2 bn

Unfair, but relevant

- Benedict Evans (@ BenedictEvans)20th August 2016

Although "difference in the number of transistors = difference in performance" is not true, there is no doubt that as the number of transistors increases, the processing performance and functions of the processor can be enhanced.

Intel's technology to support microprocessors

The heart of the microprocessor consists of an enormous number of transistors. Each transistor is a simple and small element that has only the role of a switch, but by combining these highly, you can perform various calculations and control peripheral parts. In other words, as the number of transistors to be combined increases, the processing performance and functions of the microprocessor can be enhanced.

Speaking of the A8 chip, Apple's proprietary SoC manufactured in a 20 nm process. The actual size of the A8 chip is 8.47 mm in length × 10.5 mm in width, very compact.


This is the render farm used for CG rendering of Toy · Story vs. There are dozens and hundreds of machines lined up, and these machines were used to perform CG rendering of Toy Story.

Image: the Pixar render farm in 1995. Half of an iPhone.Pic.twitter.com/5NXaGxWzwm

- Benedict Evans (@ BenedictEvans)20th August 2016

Evans also tweets that "Smartphones two years ago have higher computing power than the render farm used in the Toy Story."

That is, on a basic measure, a 2 year old phone now has more computing power than was used to render Toy Story. Power of compound growth

- Benedict Evans (@ BenedictEvans)20th August 2016

further,IDGIt's online magazineSunWorldAccording to the contents reported at the time of the Toy Story publication, it seems that the workstation SPARCstation 20 was used to build the render farm used for rendering Toy Story.

Sun goes Hollywood - SunWorld - November 1995
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-11-1995/swol-11-pixar.html


Pixar is known as a company that developed a tool for CG rendering called "RenderMan" and this tool is used for rendering CG of dinosaurs appearing in the movie "Jurassic Park" and also used in "Terminator 2" It is famous for.

Because that Pixar uses RenderMan to render Toy Story's CG, the CPU's operating frequency is 100 MHzSPARCstation 20It is said that the render farm was constructed by collecting 87 dual processors and 30 quad processors at the workstation called "Render Farm." This is a supercomputer that was born in 1975Cray-1It is equivalent to 300 times the computing capacity of.

The render farm seems to have had to render Toy Story's CG for 110 thousand frames, so it seems that 46 days of continuous processing time is required to render these.