The rendering time in Bryce is taking way to long! I'm not sure if its a software and /or hardware problem, all I know is that I'm not getting the performance I should and may die of old age before the image is complete. The image I'm now rendering is 900 by 650 and contains a lot of volumatrics. I'm using a 400Mz AMD K6-2 with 128MB of RAM. At present the image is 38% complete and has been rendering for 14 hour to disk! I have no such problems in Poser. There must be something I can do, or trick I can use to reduce this time, please help!!!

I wished, I knew one! Same problem, same sorrow :-( I ordered more RAM (256MB) and hope it will help a little bit. Harie

The volumetrics are the problem. I rarely render with them unless it is a specific thing that really needs it and I try to make the scene as simple as posible. The ram, unfortunately, won't do much other than allow you move stuff faster. Mz is where you see the change. That is one thing I hope to see improve in 5 is the rendering speed.

Such is the nature of volumetrics, it takes forever to render. I've done work with only one volumetric and some transparent objects. It took almost two straight days to render on a system similar to yours (k6-2 366, 64ram). I know people who have had images that took anywhere from several days to over a week...but the end result has always been entirely worth it. -P

I have ran a test with many machines.. And will be posting all the results along with the picture that was rendered.. But from what I can tell it all comes down to "Floating Point Calculations" (ie..number crunching power) and "MHZ", ram does come into play but seems to stop making a difference after 256megs. The K6-2 sadly has very poor FPC, I was running a 450mhz AMD and went upto a 533 Celeron..cut render times in 1/3rd,now I run a much faster CPU and tons of memory but it hasn't really sped up render times that much. So I guess adding another 128megs could help but where I would spend the money is on a better CPU if your motherboard allows it. Keep an eye out for a post coming up in about a week on the differences, it will show the CPU's, Memory and render times they had. Hope that helps you a little.

The fastest cpu you can get :) I have a 1.3 ghz p4 and my last render took days. More ram will help with swapping to the HD while rendering. My last image ate all of my 512 mb of ram and was still using virtual memory. the task manager reported 634 mb ram being used . I allocate 10 gig for virtual memory. Lots of bump, reflections and transparency will slow you down.

As the others said, ram wont help but to open scenes faster. Nor will having a fancy 3D acellorator card Turn off any uneeded programs Shutdown the clock turn off screensavers (along with sleep ect) turn off your monitor (Refresh rates take up a small bit of processor) Allocate Vurtual memory to bryce if on a mac to help keep the render going, and keep bryce open at the same time. To minimize render time scenewise. these are the factors that you should use wisely Volumetircs Bump Lights Transparancy High Detail on objects and figures Imported DXF or 3DS models Sine/noise in textures if your scene doesn't need too much of these - don't over do it :) As for Poser, it runs on a totally different ray-tracing engine. Rgards, Matt

Attached Link: http://www.planet-3d.com/garage.htm

Lon, I hate to burst your bubble, but the P4 is unfortunately not the best cpu for rendering. Like stated above Render speed is mainly contingent on the Floating POint performance of the processor. I haven't tried it yet with Bryce, but recently I tried rendering the same scene in Cinema 4D XL, on several different platforms. I tried it on a 1.4 Ghz P4 with 128 mb of ram and on a 1 Ghz Athlon with 128 mb ram. The P4 did the scene in about 48 seconds. The Athlon did it in 26 seconds. This scene was not memory intensive, rather it used volumetric lights. You can even try it on your rig. Download the Cinema 4D XL 6 demo from www.maxoncomputer.com and render the Inv-vol.c4d that comes with it. Use the following settings: Desktop resolution: 1024X768 at 32 bit Render in main view See the time at the lower left corner. The P4 by the way got the smack down by an 800 mhz duron with only 64 megs of ram, that finished the same render in 36 seconds! Regards Carnifex

Yeah I know the p4 isn't the best for rendering. but you can't use dual processors with the AMD and I really like that option for working with max. I also use my machine for gaming and hear of more problems with the Athlon and games . I also have a couple of other machines to model on while I'm rendering so a few extra minutes or hours really isn't that big of deal to me. I did try that scene 46 seconds. That's kind of a cool program :) I'll have to look into it.

Yeah, Cinema 4D is awesome :) You can check out my gallery here on Renderosity for some small examples of what you can do with Cinema 4D. And I'm a rank newbie! As for the P4 you can forget about ANY kind of multiprocessing for a long time and not at all in it's current incarnation! With the P4 you're stuck with using one processor. As for the Athlon, boards are already in the making and have been showcased at various recent conventions. So there is a better chance of getting an Athlon dualprocessor rig than a P4 one. As for game compatability, show me a game I can't get to run on an Athlon. I have yet to see one. I just don't think that the P4 is mature yet and I have far more faith in the Athlon line. And this is coming from someone that used to be a complete Intel freak.

Carnifex is right... I believe the only issues anyone could run into as far as game compatabilty would be a game that had code writen just for a specific instruction set in the Intel chipset. I too have yet to see a AMD machine that won't run any game that is currently out. Now some older games maybe?? But none that I can think of.

Pentiums are more for multimedia and AMD's are more focused on productivity...at least that's my conclusion with the systems I've tested :] Regards, Matt

Carnifex - I agree with you on the P4 thing. Hell word came out on it after maybe 3 months of the debut of the P3.

MHZ will speed up renders, but on any computer renders will be slow. The computer is forced to process millions of equations and the more speed the better. RAM is not a major factor. If you are just doing sample renders to see what it will look like I suggest using masks, rendering black and white, render with just shading, render without anti-aliasing.