I actually am somewhat new to Carrara 7, so after searching the DAZ forums for... well, a while, I compiled a bunch of tips for optimizing render times and memory usage.  They worked quite well for me so I thought I'd share.

I can't take credit for these tips, I'm just sharing what I found.

1. Set the scene up however you plan it to look (obviously ;P)
2. Go to File -> Preferences -> Imaging, Scratch Disk.  You can either A: Uncheck Texture Spooling, or B: Leave it checked, and slide the Memory Usage to 100 MB or less.
3. In the Shader Room, remove any unecessary displacement maps from surfaces by hitting the Displacement Tab and unchecking Enable Displacement.  (Like for distant objects where the displacement might not even show up in the final).
4. Go to Edit -> Remove Unused Masters, then select Remove Objects, Remove Shaders, then Consolidate Shaders.
5. Save the scene and close Carrara (to free up the RAM).
6. Re-open Carrara, but DO NOT open the scene in the Assembly Room, instead go to the Render Room and add the scene to the Batch Queue.
7. If you're using networked computers, start Render Node.  (Highly recommended as it will use the networked computer's available RAM.  Make sure to follow Step 2 on those computers as well.).
8. Set up your rendering preferences as you want them, then it "Launch."
9. Keep an eye on the memory usage in Task Manager if it seems to be lagging.  If the usage starts eating up the RAM, pause the render and close the program.  Reopen it and relaunch the render from the Batch Queue.  (NOTE: I have not tried this step, but apparently if you do this it will pick up from where the render left off without starting the render over.  If something bad happens, please don't kill me.  hides)

This alone cut down my render time, so maybe this will help other C7 users.

Great tips thanks!  I'll try it as soon as I find my Carrara disk to reinstall it (I just built a new system..)

Quote - I actually am somewhat new to Carrara 7, so after searching the DAZ forums for... well, a while, I compiled a bunch of tips for optimizing render times and memory usage.  They worked quite well for me so I thought I'd share.

I can't take credit for these tips, I'm just sharing what I found.

1. Set the scene up however you plan it to look (obviously ;P)
2. Go to File -> Preferences -> Imaging, Scratch Disk.  You can either A: Uncheck Texture Spooling, or B: Leave it checked, and slide the Memory Usage to 100 MB or less.
3. In the Shader Room, remove any unecessary displacement maps from surfaces by hitting the Displacement Tab and unchecking Enable Displacement.  (Like for distant objects where the displacement might not even show up in the final).
4. Go to Edit -> Remove Unused Masters, then select Remove Objects, Remove Shaders, then Consolidate Shaders.
5. Save the scene and close Carrara (to free up the RAM).
6. Re-open Carrara, but DO NOT open the scene in the Assembly Room, instead go to the Render Room and add the scene to the Batch Queue.
7. If you're using networked computers, start Render Node.  (Highly recommended as it will use the networked computer's available RAM.  Make sure to follow Step 2 on those computers as well.).
8. Set up your rendering preferences as you want them, then it "Launch."
9. Keep an eye on the memory usage in Task Manager if it seems to be lagging.  If the usage starts eating up the RAM, pause the render and close the program.  Reopen it and relaunch the render from the Batch Queue.  (NOTE: I have not tried this step, but apparently if you do this it will pick up from where the render left off without starting the render over.  If something bad happens, please don't kill me.  hides)

This alone cut down my render time, so maybe this will help other C7 users.

Very good tips BUT Carrara will not start a render from where its stoped (only for frames in an animation), If you stop a render this stopped frame will be lost.
Another tip to add here:

For distant objects use low resolution image to map them.

You can compose the final scen in another software like Photoshop, Gimp or... this isnt a bad thing and no one you blame you. All the best images have post production, so dont be afraid to use it!

Quote - Very good tips BUT Carrara will not start a render from where its stoped (only for frames in an animation), If you stop a render this stopped frame will be lost.

Ah, that's what it might have been referencing then.  I don't recall it specifying whether for animation or still-frame.  But thanks for clearing that up!

And I agree... post-work and I are very close friends ;P  I try to do as little postwork as I can, but like any art it can ALWAYS be improved.

(apparently I can't edit my original post?  I'd have fixed that pointer.)*

Thanks for consolidating all that. The DAZ forum, while immensely helpful, can be hard to search for specific information. Now you have done it for me. Thanks muchly.

Quote - Very good tips BUT Carrara will not start a render from where its stoped (only for frames in an animation), If you stop a render this stopped frame will be lost.

If you are rendering a single frame still image and do it from the batch queue you can press the pause button -  the render will resume where it left off - even if Carrara and or the system has been shut off and restarted.

wayne k
guam usa

 I have to check, but I actually remember batch que pausing works for still images as well.
goes checking

 Okay. Tested it. It definitely picks up where it stopped rendering on a still image. Really. Try it :)

 It's all true!

I found another thing (not sure if it still applies, as I'm a bit behind on the versions). The pause-restart thing works great for some things if memory use goes too high, but if you're doing anything with motion blur (where it renders extra for over-sampling) you'll get it stuck rendering the same frame in an infinite loop the next time you restart it. Oddball annoying bug, to say the least.

Thanks for the information. Just catching up with my Renderosity surfing now that I have some free time. Any Who, I just tried Batch Queue for the first time after reading all the information.

In the Task Manager > Physical Memory Available Regains after a short time as before with some really large settings it would drop tell Carrara would stop with the "memory allocation" Long story gets Longer:

Carrara 7.2 render Setting

Batch Queue Render, Full Raytracing no DOF, AA Good, Object Accuracy 0.5, Shadow Accuracy 1, Photon Count 30000, Photon map Accuracy 30%, Light Quality Good, Accuracy 4.

Output

11" X 17" at 300 dpi, pixel Aspect Ratio 1.00 File Format PNG. Alpha Channel, Premultiplied Alpha.

Those setting before would give me a "memory allocation" in Batch Queue the Status is showing Completed 5 hours and the minutes.

I know Carrara 7.2 can do the Scene at lower render settings and the same PNG format settings. Here is the rub, After Batch Queue is finished I have a PNG File of 33bytes it should be around 7 MB finished. Carrara and Photoshop fail to recognize it.

Did I skip something for Batch Queue ?

Did I miss a Memo?

I’m trying it again but the output File Format is Photoshop.

"Thanks all For you time"

Although I'm using Carrara 6 Pro thanks for this info.