trying to understand the relative differences, advantages and dis-advantages to each. Thoughts? We're in the process of upgrading our print shop and adding a UV printer and would like to be able to operate whatever we get and our existing Epson GS6000 from the same program.
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Onyx vs. Caldera
- Thread starter scenicorp
- Start date
Dave Rowland
New Member
this is why i got a trial of both... so far Caldera has a problem... no top margin from what i can see on my l25500
I want to switch our shop over and at the moment Onyx is leading
I want to switch our shop over and at the moment Onyx is leading
bigben
New Member
I'm in the same situation. I plan to buy the new L26500 very soon and I want to buy the RIP at the same time. I've tried Onyx vs Colorburst on the GS6000 and Onyx take way much time to rip a file. It need a monster computer to run it. I'm not a fan of Mac, but I like the idea to buy all the plugin seperately and it need less power to run (can be run from a mac mini).
I wish I could find someone who tried/used both.
I wish I could find someone who tried/used both.
eye4clr
New Member
just add the 1" in a "workflow". This gives you the option to have a workflow for a specific setup that has the 1" and maybe one that has none or another value. With Onyx you'd have to change the printer setup then remember to change it back if you wanted to alter it.
We made the shift from Onyx to Caldera this year and are very happy with the change. Admittedly, it was a bit weird at first but now that I've got the swing I love it.
Things I like better about Caldera.....
- much smarter nesting
- "Workflows" are more flexible than Onyx's Quicksets
- better color performance, especially with Colorimetric rendering
- MUCH faster ripping
- greater flexibility for mixing cut and uncut jobs into the print Q for the solvents when doing unattended printing
- "Tabs" allow me to keep sample and test files handy without getting in the way of day to day jobs
- tiling is easier and faster (but scaling was easier in Onyx)
- support without having to pay silly amounts of $
- better transparency tolerance even with using the Ghostscript instead of the add-on true Adobe RIP.
I'm not about to look back. I honestly can't think of any compelling feature Onyx has on Caldera other than I could get the job log information from it for my database without having to pay extra, and the information in the log was more complete.
Everyone's millage will vary but I'm sold.
Erikka@Rainier
New Member
I am under the impression that it's not Onyx that takes so much time, it's the lack of CPU power and RAM that causes the problem. That's why RIP stations are so important. You need the right amount of both (I'd recommend a quad core and minimum 4Gb RAM) to operate a RIP properly. I've used Onyx on 4 different computers now and 3 of the 4 had to be upgraded due to only being Dual Cores and having 2-3Gb of RAM.
ForgeInc
New Member
We switched from Onyx to Caldera because we couldn't get gradients to print without step banding in Onyx. Tried for months. Finally downloaded a test version of Caldera and the prints were perfect on the first try, we switched a short while later.
Also, you don't need macs to run Caldera. We are primarily a mac shop but kept the PCs that were previously running Onyx, and just run Caldera on Linux now.
Also, you don't need macs to run Caldera. We are primarily a mac shop but kept the PCs that were previously running Onyx, and just run Caldera on Linux now.
Onyx rip speed is often misunderstood. Caldera rips a line and prints a line etc - Onyx rips it all & then prints it all so it just seems slower. If you take 5 different jobs and rip and print them all you will find often Onyx is faster overall - I have both in the print shop.
Also ONYX IS LINEAR! thus multiple cores are a waste and don't help at all.
You need the fastest single chip you can afford and 3 hard drives to max the speed. One HD for the OS and Onyx program, one HD for the postscript scratch disk (bandhome) and one HD for the printer's Input and Work folders.
Once it is set up like this it will fly - but many are fooled by Calderas "rip whilst printing" trick - its not all it seems when you time a complete workflow with multiple files to work with.
Also ONYX IS LINEAR! thus multiple cores are a waste and don't help at all.
You need the fastest single chip you can afford and 3 hard drives to max the speed. One HD for the OS and Onyx program, one HD for the postscript scratch disk (bandhome) and one HD for the printer's Input and Work folders.
Once it is set up like this it will fly - but many are fooled by Calderas "rip whilst printing" trick - its not all it seems when you time a complete workflow with multiple files to work with.
HulkSmash
New Member
They're both great rips. It seems onyx is more populated around then caldera. I think caldera has gotten to the point where it has passed onyx. The flexibility of files it can print is greater, and it rips much faster. They actually just came out with an update where a 100meg file that's a PDF will rip in like 7 seconds, no joke. It's drag and drop, easy to edit profiles, and template's... the nesting is really nice.... onyx also has great nesting. One thing that bothers me about caldera is that i cannot edit the cut file boundaries. What i mean by that is that if i have to print on a 54 inch roll, and it's going to be dicut, my max print width is 49 inches. Also caldera has a much lower price point.
nashvillesigns
Making America great, one sign at a time.
can't stand onyx. i battled with it trying to get a colorpainter64 to give me the same results everytime. my old boss uses it with his jv33, which i have. my prints come out better than his. i use rasterpro 5. i know that is not the discussion, but just the same. onyx is a pain in the keyster.
happy holidays!
happy holidays!
Bly
New Member
I've used Onyx for years so know it pretty well.
I think noobs will take a bit of time coming to terms with everything it does.
Once it's set up though it can be as easy as dropping your pdf or tiff into a hotfolder from your workstation.
I haven't used Caldera so can't comment on it.
I think noobs will take a bit of time coming to terms with everything it does.
Once it's set up though it can be as easy as dropping your pdf or tiff into a hotfolder from your workstation.
I haven't used Caldera so can't comment on it.
Dave Rowland
New Member
i found caldera demo to be daughting... i had some training on it and liked the idea of dropping things on the printer ... didn't find it lightening fast... found the cropping also a pig (more to do with terms used like "copy")... without the Windows feel it hard to adjust.
Onyx so far is better interface then Wasatch but wasatch is quicker (then again different dots etc, not fair test)
Onyx so far is better interface then Wasatch but wasatch is quicker (then again different dots etc, not fair test)
I am running a HP Latex machine and I started out with Flexi and it was horrible. I then went to Onxy 10 and found it very difficult to operate. I'm sure it's a great RIP program but it seemed as though the learning curve was going to be rather steep. I couldn't understand the overall workflow. Keep in mind that I had no prior dealing with Onyx. I gave it a couple of weeks and finally switched over to Caldera. I wasn't thrilled about having to run it off a Linux (or Mac) machine but once I got that part taken care of it was no looking back. I really like the functionality of Caldera. It is very easy to understand and all the basic options are right at your fingertips. Like Colorado said, it's drag and drop and I have found it to be very fast as well. Give Caldera a chance, you won't be disappointed. It's a great RIP program.
Signspot, your post is helpful to me. I never went the Flexi route, I did not know at the time we bought our machine that a fully useable trial version was available. Plus, I'd read about so many problems with the Flexi and L25500 that I was simply hesitant. Got enough headaches already!
I am giving Onyx a trial still. Fortunately for me (after all the initial stuff... waiting for delivery, getting electrical setup, working through software issues and bugs, then just setting up the right profiles and learning to work the machine) we are finally getting some good prints. I am happy with the printing now, but I do wonder if it is worth a try to compare the Onyx to Caldera. I'm just not ready to buy yet. Fortunately, the people at Onyx are patient and willing to extend the trial out a bit longer. I have appreciated this as I think the learning curve is pretty big.
I feel like I just started to get Onyx to work well, but not using canned profiles for most stuff. So now I am liking what I'm able to print with Onyx, but can't say it was so easy to learn, but learning by trial and error and lots of wasted prints! I have not tried Caldera, so cannot make a comparison yet.
The fact that Caldera needs either a Mac or Linux is really not a deterrent to me. I have used Mac quite a bit in the past. I'm willing to do it again. But Ben at Caldera did tell me that if I load Linux on a PC station, it would wipe out all the PC files. I think that is how he put it. I'm just not sure I want to do that yet! Oh, computers!!
I am giving Onyx a trial still. Fortunately for me (after all the initial stuff... waiting for delivery, getting electrical setup, working through software issues and bugs, then just setting up the right profiles and learning to work the machine) we are finally getting some good prints. I am happy with the printing now, but I do wonder if it is worth a try to compare the Onyx to Caldera. I'm just not ready to buy yet. Fortunately, the people at Onyx are patient and willing to extend the trial out a bit longer. I have appreciated this as I think the learning curve is pretty big.
I feel like I just started to get Onyx to work well, but not using canned profiles for most stuff. So now I am liking what I'm able to print with Onyx, but can't say it was so easy to learn, but learning by trial and error and lots of wasted prints! I have not tried Caldera, so cannot make a comparison yet.
The fact that Caldera needs either a Mac or Linux is really not a deterrent to me. I have used Mac quite a bit in the past. I'm willing to do it again. But Ben at Caldera did tell me that if I load Linux on a PC station, it would wipe out all the PC files. I think that is how he put it. I'm just not sure I want to do that yet! Oh, computers!!
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Is that a pair of boots?
Just kidding!Thanks Wildwest, I will ask about that! You may be onto something,
I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi_boot
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Is that a pair of boots?
Thanks Wildwest, I will ask about that! You may be onto something, do you mean sectioning off the hard drive?
I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi_boot
Yes, you would section off a portion of your HD to run Linux the files that you want it to deal with.
I put Linux on a netbook, I had thought of running it as dual boot, but I figured what the hell, it was a cheap netbook. I was tired of XP anyway as far as looks go, so I just installed Linux and overwritten XP.
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
Linux has two available versions to run if you want to specifically use 32 bit or 64 bit.
I think they recommend the 32bit anyway and that's what I put on the netbook, but they do have a 64 bit version as well. I would just use the 32 bit since that also matches your existing system. I doubt that it would really matter anyway as you are partitioning the drive.