Hi!

After years of Bryce-addiction and years of 'too little time' ;-), I recently purchased Vue and I'm in awe... :-)

I do have a question if I may... Do you preferable tie (as many...?) systems together to render? 

I would like to know to what extend render-time is affected by hardware. For instance, would doubling the amount of RAM shorten the rendering time by half or...? Or is there more complexity to it? (assume there is... ;-)) I would like to know what the best options would be...

My computer (P4 3,4 Ghz, 1024 RAM) already got the hick ups from several quick renders while checking out the eco-systems... ;-)

 Although of monsterous proportions, it is a laptop i.e. tabletop ;-), which I don't like to leave on for days in a row. Perhaps I should buy a desktop system especially for rendering or would bundling all forces be better 'timing'?

 If you are willing to share some experiences it would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks for a possible answer in advance!

Sincerely,

Ine

#1 congrats to your catch and welcome to the club Ine.

#2 you are absolutely right, it is not sooo easy. Double the RAM does not mean half the rendering time. But indeed, as much as possible RAM does help - to work more "fluent" with more complex scenes. And i am sure in just a little time you will create scenes with an amount of polygons you never even dreamed of before.

What is a big help are additional machines to let a render farm do the number crunching in rendering. The more the better. Infinite comes with five licenses for Cows already, so you will be able to reduce rendering times drastically with that. Add the desktop from your neighbor, your partner, your ..., add the laptop, add everything that has a processor and Windows or Mac OS X on it. To install abd bundle those cows is VERY easy, even i was able to do that.

I am amazed at how much faster my new duel core AMD system is compared to the Intel P4!   One of my reasons for building the new system from scratch was so I could get a case that allowed for lots of cooling (plus it has a cool dragon logo on it :)).  Even after a few days of test renders, I can see that I will add that third fan...  Laptops do get very hot.  There are some options for cooling pads, but for Vue, I would lean toward a desktop computer.

I have just set up a render farm with the two computers (one more will be added this weekend as soon as I pry it out of my son's hands) - I have a few tips to share, so hopefully I will be able to write something up.  The hardest part of network rendering is setting up the network.  Once that is done right, it works really easy! 

Peggy

I often use my laptop for Vue renders when I'm not home ( Yes, I'm THAT addicted!), and I leave it for rendering overnight with no problems. Yes it does get very hot sometimes, I make sure the fans are not blocked by the desktop or anything. Do you guys think the heat may be dangerous for the machine?

I use a laptop, it heats up, and I fear that. So, for overnight renders, I put it to the bathroom floor, on books or glasses (standard hotel equipment), and a small fan beside it (out of my luggage). Close the door, I don't hear it when asleep... ;-)

Hmmm... I don't have a fan with me, too much to carry already!

Hmmm...:sad: put it in the shower, watercooling ? :unsure: There exist additionnal plates, rather flat, with two integrated ventilators (only one vent doesn't seem to be sufficient) to put the laptop onto -> air cooling.

Hi!

Thank you so much for all of your responses!!!

And sorry for a late reply! I'm a born digiliterate and proved it by messing up the Windows-drivers of my 'real' notebook (first time ever, but still... ;-( ) Since that is my 'Internet'-computer, I wasn't able to get on the Internet 'til now...

Do 'cows' have to be compatible in terms of system requirements? I.e. the notebook is 4 1/2 years old (PIII 1 Ghz, 256 RAM -you may laugh) -and heavely armoured with 2 virus scanners, slowing it down- and our desktop is ... like antique...

The big notebook is one of those sturdy Acers (1714), which I bought second hand. I've seen test reports in which they questioned if this could be named a 'notebook'... ;-)

It has a huge 17 inch SVGA screen and weights a solid 7,2 kilograms. Therefore it can host 'real' genuine computer parts, hopefully a BIG fan as well. (do like the bathroomfloor option though grin ;-)).

I've heard about the AMD's (we have a friend telling it all the time... ;-)). What is confusing me is how to translate the dual core features to system requirements (for instance World Builder wants 2,4 Ghz the least, 'performs' on 3,2...). Now there are nice! powerful dual cores as well, but to us this is a 'wallet-issue' (meaning 'can't afford' $$$!) and once you are used to working on a notebook... ;-)

So I was considering looking for a heavy duty desktop... second hand. And of course upgrading the RAM to the max. of 2048.

Bryce used to render looooooooooong in the past and I didn't plant a zillion trees and grasses... yet. ;-)  Still it had some effect on my blood pressure... ;-D

I even planned to render at the highest resolution possible...LOL

Could you give averages? Like a so-and-so picture will render 2 weeks on a ........ (?) machine, but 1 week on a ........ and a few hours on several ........?

How long (short? ;-)) will rendering take with the very best scenario and what equipement would be involved?

Is it possible to state times and numbers?

Thanks again!!!

Ine

Cows don't have to be the same type or even the same operating system, as long as they are on a network, put them to work!  I am slowing putting together my farm.  One of the computers is a slower PIII running windows ME.  I will be adding it.  The nice part about farming is that the faster computer will do as many tiles as it can while each of the other cows might only do one tile. 

In theory, if you have 2 computers roughly the same capability, then your render time should be about half.  Add another cow and it should be about a third...  The more cows, the faster it should go. 

How long does a render take?  Depends on too many variables.  What are you rendering, how big, materials, atmosphere settings, render settings...  I can change any number of these and make a render take forever, or adjust them to get the best results in the shortest time...  I have a tutorial on how to set up the render settings.  http://users.tns.net/~mwalter1/Vue_Render_Settings.pdf

Happy rendering!

Peggy