Hey All ,

I am currently about to do some massive changes to my pc , the memory being priority it is causing catastrophic problems when trying render high quality work with only 4GB ram but it is also causing the pc to be on long hours (14 hours is the longest to date ! which is not good for the pc or the electric bill and posers slow rendering is behind it.

Anyway while I know about the memory bottleneck I am looking at changing my 250GB HDD with ethier a 60 or 128GB SSD will this make much difference in posers rendering times? considering I dont want to waste tons of money if it is not going to make a bit of difference.

And is there anything Else I could tweak to improve posers performance?.

buy more RAM.

if you are still on a DDR2 platform, then it is cheaper now to buy a DDR3 motherboard and 16 gigs of DDR3 than it is to buy 16 gigs of DDR2.

SSDs have come down a lot in price, and are great when they are working, the problem is that there are still some very serious issues with their reliability/stability.  either way they do not play a major role in poser performance since with enough RAM you will be seeing very very little HDD activity - certainly not enough to justify an SSD just for poser. spend the money on RAM/processor upgrades instead.

IMHO the Phenom II x6 is the sweet spot right now for price:rendering performance.  their price has come down a lot, they overclock to 4ghz easily on air, theyre faster than the '8 core' bulldozer and are up there with the higher end (and much more expensive) i7s in raw rendering performance (but not in gaming and multimedia encoding).  just make sure you either get a board with 8 phase power or, if you do get a 4 phase power board make sure its not an MSI and you heatsink the mosfets - or buy an ASUS board - their BIOS will throttle your processor if the mosfets are about to fry.

ok i will work on the memory , i can get upto 16gb in my current p7p55D pro While , new processors not an option till late next year as i need to update my camera which is aging

ah i assumed you were on some old clunker :P
in that case just buy a 16 gig (4x4gb) kit of DDR3 and dont look back. it should be under $100 w/shipping and taxes.

if you are getting a lot of HDD activity mess around with your bucket size.

if its still rendering slow, then work on optimizing your render settings and reflection quality.

If you are in the States, right now New Egg has 16Gb of Corsair DDR3 1600 for $90, with a $30 rebate on top of that-look under the Black Friday banner on their webpage.  Just make sure your system can accomadate that much.

No affliation, other than I bought all the components of my current system there...

newegg is awesome, i buy 90% of my electronics there.

...but you guys in the states get even better deals and free shipping on practically everything :(

amount of ram available has little if no effect on render times. render time  is dependant on render settings etc and primarily, how fast and efficient the cpu is, as rendering is pure CPU . ( unless you are doing low quality hardware renders, which depends on the GPU)

it also speeds up your overall workflow/desktop experience if windows isnt chugging away reading/writing back and forth from your pagefile constantly.  in normal everyday use i dont notice much of a performance gain going from 8 to 16 gigs, going from 4 to 8 did make a difference.
when doing heavy multitasking with poser, photoshop, silo, bodypaint, etc open all at the same time the difference between 8-16 is night and day. it also means i dont have to worry about having firefox and a dozen tabs open, etc. its nice not to have to juggle programs.  when rendering hires maps in Zbrush its nice not to have to kill every single process thats running so i dont get out of memory errors.

DDR3 RAM is dirt cheap right now. no, its not going to make his computer twice as fast, but its a no-brainer upgrade unless you are on a very tight budget.

all this is, of course, assuming he is on a 64 bit OS, hopefully with Poser 2012.

You don't say what OS you are running or whether you have 32 or 64 bit system.

Just be aware that on a 32 bit system more then 4 Gigs of ram isn't going to do you any good.  

I don't think that a SSD is going to make enough of an improvement to be worth the cost it's not disk speed that's slowing down the process.

Your specs aren't a lot different then mine, I'm running and i7 2.93 Ghx 64 bit and 8 Gigs of ram, but I'm seeing render times in minutes not hours.  1920 by 1200, four lights, IDL on, one figure some props, cloth panes, trans maps fog plane etc, about 4 minutes and 30 seconds at full Firefly Final Render settings.

In preview mode with every thing set to max I can render 1 frame per second at 1600 by 900.  This is what I do for animation; I don't have the patience to wait longer.

I just can't see how 14 hours is possible unless something is really off someplace.

I don't know what to suggest if you had a old computer I'd get it, but not with something new enough to run an i7 processor.  My computer is 2 years old.

Mike 

Quote - If you are in the States, right now New Egg has 16Gb of Corsair DDR3 1600 for $90, with a $30 rebate on top of that-look under the Black Friday banner on their webpage.  Just make sure your system can accomadate that much.

No affliation, other than I bought all the components of my current system there...

That is the big if. Here in Oz, whilst become less expensive, you pay that for 4 gig. Which I have. Oh well. and an i3... lame as. :blink:

So, I'd make an awesome tester for P10/PP20xx on a low-end system! :biggrin:

Unfornatley I am not in the states but I have seen some quite good deals for the memory at uk stores like DAB's and the uk equiv of new egg

In terms of OS I am Running win7 x64 Ulitmate with PP2012 x64

(RobynsVeil)

Quote - So, I'd make an awesome tester for P10/PP20xx on a low-end system! :biggrin:

     I would say that empirical data on how a program behaves on a low-end system is at least as useful as data on how it runs on a hot rod system.

(MikeMoss)

Quote - I just can't see how 14 hours is possible unless something is really off someplace.

     It may only indicate complexity and scale of the project.  Or, yeah, it could be due to a disasterous choice of render settings.  :P    I can recall taking four and a half days to render a wallpaper.  But, my desktop is 5120x1600 pixels (two 2560x1600 monitors linked as one continuous desktop), there was a huge number of polygons in the scene, and lots special effects using displacement, IDL, reflection, etc.

(3anson)

Quote -
amount of ram available has little if no effect on render times.

     That is conditionally true.  The condition is that Firefly won't need more RAM than what is already installed.  In such a case, more RAM won't speed it up.  However, if the scene is complex {lots of polygons, uses materials calling for lots of calcs, the render quality settings are high, and the pixel dimensions are high} so that Firefly starves for RAM and begins thrashing the hard drive to compensate, then adding more RAM would be like nitrous oxide injection:  it will make a huge -and cost effective- improvement.  I've seen Cameron draw a little over 48GB during a maxed-out Firefly render.

     Judging from my experience, a machine with 16GB (dual channel) or 24GB (triple channel) would rarely if ever run short of memory, even if you are a "power user".  Most Poser users will never exhaust 4GB;  hence, 3anson's point.

     To Demon2330, do you see a lot of on-off hard drive activity when you are rendering?  If so, then more RAM may indeed be worthwhile.  If you don't see lots of hard drive activity during a render, then the limitation is likely just processor cycles.  My laptop Pixie has good capacity (8GB RAM), but the processor is a straight dual core (not HyperThreaded) of modest clock speed, so she is pretty slow at rendering, even though Firefly isn't using even half the available memory.  This is OK, because her intended use is to model, work up materials, and do scene setup.  I do the rendering on the big workstations.  More memory would not speed Pixie up.

     On WinXP, you can open the Task Manager during a render to see how much memory is being used.  On Vista and Win7, you can get sidebar gadgets that display usage of both memory and processor capacity.

     Is your operating sytem 32bit or 64bit?  Also, before you buy RAM, you need to check whether your motherboard's controller chipset can read that much memory.  For example, my older worksatation Galadriel has three RAM slots with 4GB in each slot, totaling 12GB.  I had in mind replacing them with three 8GB sticks to total up to 24GB, but the chipset can only read 12GB.  So, it's already maxed out.

I have done another render since I started this thread and I have got down to about 50min a little long still but its better. I am messing around with Asus turbo key and tuner I can get the system up to 3.6GHZ on air but its too unstable at the moment with my setup everything just locks up and really slows down. I have got it up to 2.95GHZ or I7 870 speed at the moment.

My chipset is a Intel P55 running asus 8 phaze hybrid system it supports a max of 16GB in 4 slot's with dual channel.

HD activity can be reduced by monitoring your RAM usage and messing with the bucket size.

with regards to render time, the big hits are reflections/refractions, soft shadows, min shading rate, etc.  depending on what you are doing, you can lower reflection quality to decimal values and still achieve decent results in a fraction of the time.

there is a python script included with Poser that will time your renders so you can render, adjust settings, rerender and see what an impact the changes had both on visual quality and rendertime.

Scripts - Partners - Dimension3D - Render Firefly - Render (Time)

as for RAM being 4x as expensive in Australia - damn, that sucks. i complain about the 10-20% difference in prices here in Canada but you guys really get the shaft.

...but theres always ebay. heres a 16gb kit for ~$125 shipped to Australia.  keep in mind that that is a result of a 1 minute ebay search, im not vouching for the seller or anything.

I was not aware of that script but I will take a look.

FYI - I'm on everything, SSD, HDD, RAM etc.

SSD fastens startups but should not be used for temp storage. It's the place for software and perhaps texture / object library, it does not save any rendertime. SSD has a limit on the amount of writes during its lifespan and writing is the slow proces anyway. And ... please do exclude SSD from defragging!

But, sinced some programs insist in writing to some temp (vue, photoshop) I dedicated some ram to ram-disk (4Gb out of 24). It houses wintemp en ietemp as well. Not only it's much faster than anything else, but it allways starts empty at machine startup. Great!

Another thing to consider is CPU Temp.

CPUs will throttle thier performance in order to prevent themselves from turning into little molten pools of glass.

I replaced the default CPU Fan that came with my processor with a 55 dollar water cooling system from Corsair. I went from borderline meltdown, to being well within the green for my CPU's Temp range . This resulted in a marked increase in the computer's performance.

You don't need to get a huge system that can be used to cool a VW Bug. Just a cheap, little, water coolling system is all you'll need to help your computer.

Hope this Helps.

Download the free;  Advcaced System Care free from iobit, version 5 now
Le it do its one click deepclean.
Run the integrated SmartRam
Run smartdefrag2.2

Run readyboost on some fast SD cards and USB sticks
Windows 7 can run up to 4 x 4GB devices on Readyboost.

Turn off all background garbadge...

Poser is like a horce.
A big animal needs a lot of food.
But when you are feeding a horce, AND feeding 2 dogs, 3 cats, and 50 chickens...
There is less for he horce.

Clean your system, and when you think it is clean?
Clean it again.
And again.

@ejp01: so true. Modern CPUs raise their clock when temperature permits, and vice versa so low temps are a benefit (and increase lifespan as well).

Speccy, the free tool from piriform.com reports CPU and GPU temps.

In addition, take a look at the (free) tools from CPUID.com where especially TMonitor reports on the (self-controlled) overclocking.

have fun

omg, i haz to get me some 64 bitz.

@MistyLaraPrincess

64 bit will brinf the Use of lots of RAm as the main Poser Speed up.

But uning a good System maintainer does wonders to your PC.
Any PC, I run it on all my systems from XP32starter to Windows 7 64

a lot of the CPU throttling going on nowadays is often from the high voltage requirements of modern CPUs like the Phenom IIs (X6's especially) putting a massive strain on motherboard power delivery.  when the mosfets overheat, depending on your motherboard they will either automatically throttle your CPU (ASUS), or potentially burst into flames (MSI).

i had an overclocked X6 that was constantly being throttled, despite ice cool CPU temps. i noticed the mosfets were getting so hot theyd burn your fingers.  some arctic silver thermal epoxy and a heatsink across the mosfets and no more throttling issues.

this never really used to be an issue.  however, with processors voltage requirements outpacing the average budget board's power delivery im seeing it crop up more and more and its one of those issues that people generally dont think about.  worst case scenario your board bursts into flame and potentially burns your house down.  if youre running a budget board with 4+1 phase power (usually micro ATX) then its worth your while to spend the <$20 and add some heatsinks to your mosfets.  if youre running an X6 this is something i wouldnt put off for a day.  if youre building a system from scratch, then spend more money on a non-budget board with 8+2 phase power and preferably heatsinked mosfets. 

everything comes together on a system build to ensure stability. most people just focus on the CPU, but ignore vital components like the motherboard and PSU and just get whatevers cheap. with the amount of wattage some processors are pulling this is not wise :(

I can vouch for the RAM side of things.

Just recently jacked my laptop (Samsung RC512 S02) from 6GB to 8. Made a dent in the render times nicely (I already have an i7 in there). 

PS: IMHO, skip the ReadyBoost in Windows. Unless you have a large USB3 stick in a USB3 port, you're going to see some massive slowdowns whenever the OS tries to use a slower-bussed (USB2 or 1) stick as if it were RAM.

I just upped my pc to 8GB now since I put this thread up its a little unstable but its due to windows because something i got off the internet decided to install bitlord and a nice little virus which has ransacked my pc destroying tons of stuff and disabling my anti-virus at the same time.

Quote - I can vouch for the RAM side of things.

 

Just recently jacked my laptop (Samsung RC512 S02) from 6GB to 8. Made a dent in the render times nicely (I already have an i7 in there). 

 

PS: IMHO, skip the ReadyBoost in Windows. Unless you have a large USB3 stick in a USB3 port, you're going to see some massive slowdowns whenever the OS tries to use a slower-bussed (USB2 or 1) stick as if it were RAM.

ReadyBoost is not used as ram.  It is used for swap space instead of the hard drive.

if your hard drive is faster than the readyboost device, it will not help, but in most cases it will help on swap time (which is less common with more RAM)

http://www.ask.com/wiki/ReadyBoost

Bill

the only time id consider using readyboost is on a machine with <2 gigs of RAM - especially if part of that memory is being reserved for onboard video. 

you are better off spending the money youd spend on a fast USB drive for readyboost on more RAM instead.

Swap = "Virtual RAM", which is the context I used (and goes better with Microsoft's "Virtual Memory" designation).

But yeah, like BH said - you'd be better off spending the dosh on actual RAM.

Most hard disks are going to have a far faster transfer rate (SATA1.0 = 1.5Gbps) than a typical USB2 device (480Mbps) will have.  USB3 is supposed to have a theoretical transfer rate of 4.8Gbps but usually can do only 3. In systems with USB3 installed, you're likely going to have a SATA 3.0 disk,which can do 6Gbps theoretically, but hovers at around 3 with platter disks, and can get 5 with SSDs. This is why I mentioned USB3 specifically up there. :)

Hi Guys

I just don't get it, (and I guess I'm glad that I don't see these kind of render times) but it doesn't take that long to render things for me.

I have a good computer but it's 2 years old, in another year or so I'll be thinking about getting a new one.

Just to be fair, I made a new image and I put in everything but the kitchen sink. I didn't spend a lot of effort on the composition or lighting..

It has 2 Cloth Panes, a Fog Pane, 2 Figures, a lot of props, 4 lights, Trees, about every thing I could throw in.

The building in on one cloth pane and stone wall is on another with a trans map.

I rendered it at 1920 by 1200 pixels, (as high a resolution as my monitor can show) and at Firefly full final render settings.

The only thing I didn't turn on was IDL.

Here is the image reduced in size a lot from the original...

It took 3 minutes to render this in Firefly.

To render is in Preview mode with everything turned up to the max setting takes about 1 second, and still looks pretty good.

My computer specs i7 2.93 GHz, 8 Gigs of Ram, ATI 5870 video card.

How can render times vary by such a large amount, some of the computer specs don't sound a lot different then mine?

I did it again with IDL turned on and that raised the time quite a bit, but it was still under 10 minutes.

I'm sure glad I don't see render times like that, I don't have the patience to wait hours to see what is going to come up. LOL

I can't imagine doing my animation and having it take hours, or even over night to render.

Mike

Try throwing in displacement/bump maps and several transmaps to boot with raytrace lighting plus IDL. 

Try throwing in displacement/bump maps and several transmaps to boot with raytrace lighting plus IDL. 

Ps.  I will add that anyone who is serious about doing 3D graphics should get a desktop not a laptop computer.

Not only are they a lot cheaper then an equivalent laptop, there is a limit to what you can do with a laptop because you just can't get rid of the heat.

My computer pumps out heat like a radiator, I can practically heat my computer room with it, and I chose not to overclock anything to stay on the side of stability.

If everything was jammed into a laptop it would melt. LOL

Mike

*"Try throwing in displacement/bump maps and several transmaps to boot with raytrace lighting plus IDL". *

I did try with IDL.

As I said it ran the render time up to around 7.5 minutes.

I'll add bump maps for Lucy's sweater and the tree trunks and see what happens. 

"How can render times vary by such a large amount, some of the computer specs don't sound a lot different then mine?"

very easily. add reflections, indirect lighting, soft shadows, antialiasing, low min shading rate, etc and the rendertime climbs.

"Ps.  I will add that anyone who is serious about doing 3D graphics should get a desktop not a laptop computer."

very true. laptop CPUs/GPUs run significantly slower than their desktop 'equivalents', they cost much more, and theyre not really user serviceable. ill be travelling again in 2012 so i will eventually need to pick up a newer one, but every month i put the purchase off gets me a much better machine.

the prevalence of laptops seems to confuse people nowadays. they think 'why should i buy a desktop for $600 when i can buy a laptop for $500?' etc. same sortof mentality goes for WIFI - i had a client that was connecting to his router from a few feet away with wireless.... when i told him i could just make him a 4 foot ethernet cable he said 'but why would i want to do that? WIFI is better'. we really need a facepalm smiley.

I've stuck with using a laptop this go 'round for a couple of reasons...

• I can sit out here in the living room with the missus, and play with CG all I want. With the desktop, I had to go sit somewhere else.

• Yep - I have used desktops to heat the spare room, etc. I have the astronomical power bills to prove it.

• My little critter holds up pretty good when compared to desktops of most Poser users (Core i7 CPU, GeForce 550M, 8GB DDR3 RAM (it was 6 until two nights ago), 750GB internal storage...) I can do "serious" CG on this thing without undue hindrance.

• I travel on occasion (every damned job I've had in the past few years... it's like a curse or something). It's kind of hard to shove a desktop through the X-Ray machine at the airport.

• I can plug into anybody's HDMI-capable television - at home, or at friends' homes (which makes taking movies over for friends to watch much, much easier).

Now certainly, I could build a positively badassed desktop, but my days of building an altar to the deities of CG and FPS gaming are over as far as I'm concerned. Also gone are the days of parking my arse in the home office for uninterrupted hours on end.

Such is life, you know?