This option in Bryce is called Priority, and has three possible settings: Low, Normal and High.

THE LOW SETTING:
This option will force Bryce to use only a single core, handy for when you have other tasks in progress from other programs running at the same time as Bryce, and you wish the other programs to have priority over the CPU usage.

THE NORMAL SETTING:
This option will force Bryce to use 50% of the cores you CPU has available.  It's total can be reached from a maximum of sixteen cores, bringing the maximum number of usable cores in Bryce, to eight, no matter how many cores you have.

THE HIGH SETTING:
This option will force Bryce to use every core on your CPU, but again, the maximum number of usable cores is limited to eight.

ADDITIONAL:
The Priority setting is saved on a scene-by-scene basis, meaning that if you load a scene into Bryce, the setting will revert to whatever option was selected when you saved that scene.  You can of course load a scene, change the setting, and resave the scene if you wish to update an old scene.

If you wish to have Bryce automatically use the setting you choose, this is easy enough to do:

Start a blank scene, set it up however you wish Bryce to appear whenever you start a new scene, then set the Priority option to whatever you prefer.  Then save the scene, and when you do so, you must name the file Default which must be saved in the same directory as the Bryce program (the Bryce root directory).  If you then start Bryce without clicking on a scene, it automatically looks for the scene called Default in it's root directory, and uses that.

There are technicalities regarding the Priority settings that aren't mentioned here, but hopefully I got the basics across clearly and that it will give users a welcome speed boost when rendering in Bryce.  Due to the nondescript name and default setting used, it's far too easy to go through hours or even years of Brycing without realising you could probably slice those render times in half, or even less.

Special thanks go to Horo for the recap.

Bryce-test for multi-core processors:

http://www.bryce-3d.narod.ru/bryce_test_multi_eng.html

Thanks a lot pumeco.

@PoserUserFromRussia
Thanks for the link, looks interesting, highlights the effect of those technicalities as well.  I'm glad you posted, you just reminded me I haven't watched your movie yet so I think I'll do that tonight.

@Marcius
You're welcome.  It's bloody frustrating to think there must be masses of Brycers out there that aren't aware of this.  Bobby was just one of endless Brycers out there who weren't.  Not only that, I wanted to add to the thread count here, try to breathe a bit of life into it.

Crazy how quiet it is even though there are plenty of Brycers around!

Here's my test page, using just an earlier beta but this part hasn't changed.

http://www.horo.ch/raytracing/tests/rendertest71.html

Thanks for your test results!

Horo, on that i7 machine of yours with the Hyper-Threading; it's listed as a Quad-Core so does that mean a Quad with HT would have sixteen squares whizzing around if you were to render in a bucket-based renderer?

BTW, cool looking avatar, can't even remember removing mine!

Just tried Horo's scene out of curiosity because there's no AMD machines listed:**
**

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz Quad-Core:

Low: 02:43
Normal: 01:38
High: 00:53

Not up to Horo's i7 performance, but not far off.  The Black Edition AMD's are designed to be heavily overclocked but I've never overclocked mine.  Must admit I'm tempted though, because when I bought it I saw various examples of it running at a whopping 4.5GHz (I think it was that), still stable and still cool-running.

I'll probably read-up on how to do it again, then I'll chicken-out for fear of screwing it up!

OK! I'll add your results on my website.

No, not yet, that was with Horo's test scene!
I'll do yours now and post the result.

**
@PoserUserFromRussia**
Here you go then, the result of your file.

I see you include photos of the hardware as well.  I can't give you one right now because she's used as an audio workstation and is currently fitted in a rack-mount.  But if you'd like one, I can take a photo next time I take her out for a clean, no problem.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz Quad-Core

Low: 01:05
Normal: 00:39
**High: 00:23

Right, I'm off to grab a bite to eat and watch that movie of yours :woot:

**

Thanks for the information. I place a photo of your choice. Therefore, the photo is not required.

If I'm not mistaken, you used DAZ Bryce 7.1

http://www.bryce-3d.narod.ru/bryce_test_multi_eng.html

Pumeco, the processor type for EX58UD3R is a bit misleading as 8-way. I corrected that. It's a quad core with multi-threading, which means Windows Task Manager shows 8 CPUs and Bryce also sees 8 CPUs. DH55TC is also a quad but has got no HT. This was also wrongly listed on the page - as I've just discovered to my utter horror. Now that's corrected as well. Sorry guys and thanks for your interest.

**
@Dima**
Yup, I'm using Bryce 7.1 (latest release from the DAZ site), and I'm running Windows 7 64-Bit.  Have to say I feel really outdated now that it's been listed against those newer machines with all that HT stuff.  I think she'd compete if I overclocked her but there's no way I'm clocking to 4.5Ghz to find out, I wish I could, but can't afford to risk it.

Told you I'd chicken-out :biggrin:

@Horo
Well yeah, that's because you're a peasant

Didn't notice the errors.  I was just curious whether it was solely the HT technology that doubled-up the amount of cores that get listed in the device manager.  When I first saw four squares, I felt that same sort of satisfaction Master Drawbridge did when he saw eight of the things whizzing around his screen.

Imagine seeing sixteen of 'em :woot:

Small note on this one, on macs, and I belive on all pre-intel machines, like my PPC macs, turning that on saves up to a minute to 47 seconds on render times, doesn't sound like much but it does add up in the end times for sure.

I had no idea and am very thankful for all the info here.
Thank you all. :-)

Corrie