Pre-game hoopla at the University of Texas Longhorn football games rises to a fever pitch with the team's introduction. Moments before the players trot out onto the playing field, up on a Jumbotron screen, a herd of 3D animated Longhorns charges through Austin's streets, past local landmarks, and into stadium before a throng of applauding fans. Co-produced last year by animation producer Cal Rodgers of VIZIX Digital Studio in Austin, Texas, the 3D show took nearly four weeks to complete. After recently working on a system fueled by AMD's newest processor, the AMD Athlon™, Rodgers suspects fellow animators will stampede to get the Athlon chip

It's crystal clear. The AMD Athlon™ processor-based system was running about 1.5 times as fast as the fastest dual processor system we have," Rodgers said.

At , Rodgers specializes in 3D animation, visualization and special effects. Rodgers takes on "fun" tasks - animation for sporting events such as the UT games - as well as what he calls "depressing forensic animation," such as recreating an accident scene for use in a product liability lawsuit. In most projects, Rodgers relies on a "rendering farm" of computers - a group of computers specifically configured so rendering an animation can be distributed to an entire network.

After receiving his AMD Athlon™ processor-based system, Rodgers immediately introduced it 'down on the farm'. And the system consistently outperformed all the other rendering farm computers.

"We had a very clear jump in performance," Rodgers said.

Timing is everything

In the world of 3D animation, where a 30-second television commercial consists of 900 separate frames of animation, and each frame can take between one and five minutes to render, timing is everything, according to Rodgers.

"Computing speed is the most important factor in my business. Because we render hundreds of thousands of frames of computer animation each year, every second counts," Rodgers said. "A few seconds or minutes difference per frame can translate into days or weeks of savings time in each project."

The quantitative time savings afforded by the AMD Athlon™ processor-based system will pay off qualitatively as well, Rodgers predicts.

"It comes down to the artist being able to refine the product. You're not waiting as long on processing output. You have more opportunities to refine the work. Since you're able to see the results more quickly, the tendency is to perfect the product," Rodgers said.

Any business that requires "significant computing power," such as design companies or simulation companies, can benefit from an AMD Athlon™ processor-based system, Rodgers said.

When he's not devoting time to his business, Rodgers teaches advanced animation classes at Austin Community College. While he prefers to use his fastest systems in the production arena, the educational arena could also gain from the jump in speed offered by the AMD Athlon™ processor.

"It's important to get rapid computer response. Certainly it would be useful to have a faster computer in the lab," Rodgers said.

Additionally, the AMD Athlon™ processor-based system has proven very reliable.

"So far it's been rock solid. We've seen 100 percent compatibility with all our applications," Rodgers said. "I haven't yet found a negative aspect with regard to the chip or the system."