I am getting a new computer and one of the things I really want is to speed up my Bryce renders. Which is more important, a faster processor or more RAM? I'm going to have to make a choice between one or the other. Thinking of going for the 2 mb of ram. Would appreciate anyone's opinion. Thanks! ~Missy~

i think you mean 2 gb or ram, which would really be splendid, but unfortunately bryce is a processor-based renderer. the only plus would be from a ht system, and even then, there's a work-around as neither 5 nor 5.5 don't actually support multi-threading (but you can divide the scene in 2 halves and render it in two separate bryce instances with 30-40% speed increase). so yeah, if you want bryce, processor. drac

Ok, I'll look into a faster processor. Thanks Drac ;)

also i think 2 gb of ram even by today's standards is huge. mind you, nice, but huge :) drac (had a friend with half a terabyte of hard disk space once. couldn't find anything useful for it other than pr0n)

Drac, you're "friend" with all the pr0n is you isn't it?

(rotflmao)

Depends on what kind of work you do. If you just do a little 3D and some day to day stuff, then a gig of ram should be fine. If you edit large photos or edit high definition video or motion graphics then you will need at least two, preferably many more gigs of RAM. I have 2.5 gigs on my home machine, and there are still some photos I have to take to the school lab's computers (they have 8GB) in order to work with them. But on topic, the biggest boost you will get in bryce is with a fast, single processor. Unless you work in opengl preview mode and have a LOT of objects, then the extra ram isn't going to help you too much.

i never had anything bigger than 100gb. in this case, it was a citizen by the name of Chris Gonda :) drac

2 GB will be just okay when Windows 64 really come out. So Missy, invest in future. Although the processor is more important, extra RAM will make it more comfortable to work in Bryce. And if you have big scenes, processor won't wait for parts of the scenes to load from page file to render them. In any case, do not go with less than a gigabyte. max, WTH are you working on? Even the RAW photos from the digital back full-frame cameras (like Phase One H25, 22MP) won't take more than 350 MB. 2.5 GB should be more than enough for that.

I'm now using a Pentium 830 (64 bits) 3,00 megahertz with 2 gigs of memory and a Radeon X800GT ATI video card with 256 megs. (2,000$ Canadian with no monitor)
A scene who took 34 minutes with Bryce now takes 17 minutes, so not a big difference but with other 3d software like Poser it's worth it.
Will add 2 more gigs of memory with the new Windows 64 bits in a few months.

Message edited on: 12/05/2005 08:06

Oh whats its like to have money!! :(

Remember that it takes more than just the filesize in Ram to perform calculations. For things like levels, it's not going to make a huge difference, but the multiple undo's alone have to be stored somewhere, and that somewhere is memory. So every time you perform an operation, the pervious states are saved in the memory for multiple instantaneous undos/redos. I shoot on 35mm slides and scan them in at about 25MP. Sometimes I shoot medium format film and scan that in to 90MP. It the medium format scans that give me trouble. They are 500 megs each and doing anything more than levels takes a WHILE. Especially the median filter, because it averages a certain number of pixels in each direction, and that's a LOT of pixels to average in a lot of different directions, in excess of 128 billion calculations. I was also recently making a large format digital print in which I decided to collage some screen shots I took over a photo of oil drills in the desert. I blew up the oil rig photo to 12,600x21,600 pixels (6x3.5 feet at 300DPI), and then overlayed the screen shots and started working. Layers are especially slow, because it treats each layer as a separate full sized image and must store each layer's pervious state in the history. With layers, the final image size was over 5 gigs, which I wasn't about to save to my ipod LOL. FLattened it and saved as a tiff it was about 800 megs. Cool print too :) Onb that last oe though even the "paltry" 8 gigs of RAM were not helping all that much :)

Ok, here is a different way to consider the problem. 1) the CPU generally speaking is not upgradeable. Doing so requires throwing away the old one (or giving away to another machine). Also, motherboards don't always accept the newest and greatest processor that you buy when it is 2 years old. So, a CPU is a 1 time purchase with no upgrade path. 2) RAM is upgradeable generally speaking. The speed/type is not (motherboard/chipset dependent), but the quantity is. If you have to sacrifice CPU or RAM, get the CPU now, get 'enough' ram and then upgrade later if need be. 3) While RAM prices will go up slightly over time for obsolete speeds/sizes (try finding PC100 memory that is new versus used), for the next 1-2 years, any current ram will get cheaper usually. i.e. buy 1gb now, buy a 2nd gig in 6 months if need arises and price permits 4) Buy the RAM in the biggest memory size you can reasonably afford. If your system supports 2 sticks, don't buy a 512mb now, this will limit your system to 1.5gb later (usually). Buy a 1gb stick. Likewise, buying a 'prebuilt' system means that if you buy a 1gb machine you will probably get screwed by only getting 2x512 versus 1x1024. So, do your homework if you are buying a prebuilt system. Dell and others unfortunately charge a hefty premium to give you the memory in 1 stick versus 1/2 of the total in each of 2 sticks. 5) Know the motherboard. Cheap machines that are prebuilt generally have space for 2 memory cards, most boards limit you to 1gb per stick (2gb sticks are very expensive and boards supporting them are not nearly as common). Hence your system will be limited to 2gb. If you plan to build your own, buy a board with 4 slots and if possible make sure the memory can be inserted 1 at a time (versus in pairs) and they don't have to be the same size. 6) If given a choice, do your research on memory speeds. Don't bother spending a premium on overclocked memory, but know the difference between pc2700 and 800mhz, etc. Great info at www.tomshardware.com. Faster RAM may be good for you (make sure the motherboard supports the speed RAM). 7) Consider hard drive speeds. SATA is better than IDE generally and 7200rpm beats 5400rpm. good luck Ryan

Ryan missed a bit on the know your motherboard item - some mobo's support dual channeling on the RAM (for example those based on nForce chipsets, so they perform better with two sticks of matched RAM eg 2x512M or 2x1g(it's worth going for a big name such as geil or corsair - particulary corsair twinx). And plain and simple AMD over Intel - much more bang per buck! @Madmax_br5, what OS are those babies at school running - most current variants of Windoze don't use more then 4g - the extra 4 will sit there doing nothing :(

As it's a graphics lab we use all G5 powermacs running OSX, the last models supported 8 gigs of ram each, the current line support up to 16 gigs each (drools) haha.

this is all VERY useful information. I am glad I stumbled across this post. Hopefully within the next 3 to 6 months I will be in the market for a new machine.

@madmax, That'd be why then you're using a proper OS (ducks to avoid incoming flames..... :) )

Within the next 3 or six months, there will be Windows 64 (with enough drivers) that can support much more RAM than the XP.

Sadly, there is a 64 bit XP and a 64 bit Win 2003 out there. But, as Erlik mentioned, not many drivers. A coworker just rebuilt his home system: dual core top of the line Athlon 64 bit, high end drives, motherboard, top of the line Nvidia card, etc. He was able to get his $150+ logitech eyeball cam working, printer, scanner, etc. All was fine...except that 1 application didn't work under 64 bit, the virtual private network (VPN) software required to connect to our employer's network. Thankfully he doesn't need to do it often and has 5+ other machines he could use. Until Vista is out and you have 'new' hardware that manufacturers readily support and write 64bit drivers for you may have problems. Side problem: you can not readily buy the 64 bit XP at a store. Microsoft is not selling it in boxed form and don't intend to. You can turn in your 32 bit license for a 64 bit license (1 direction only, no give backs) from Microsoft and possibly your hardware vendor if you bought from say, Dell. So, unless you are ready to save all your info on your hard drive, turn in your license, reformat to 64 bit and hope to hell it all works...I wouldn't recommend it. Yea, I know, sad. If I could get a true 64 bit OS (Windows, sorry) with full software support and hardware support I would upgrade my hardware and get the 64bit...but since I can't, I'll just wait a year to build a new system with Vista and new hardware then.