What affects bryce render times the most, is it the speed of the pc, the amount of ram or the freespace on the HD. I ask because tame teccie came round with a machine he had put together mostly from bits he had left from other projects. He asked me to put it through its paces. I installed bryce and copied over the file of a scene I was working on. Render time at size 1200x900 was 4hrs 54min. On my own machine same image render time 10hrs 26min. I have an athlon with 71XE4 motherboard, (speed 800) 512mb ram (But only pc100 ram) and 80gig HD partioned and mostly quite full up. The new machine has Athlon duron motherboard, which he tells me is 1.7mh, 128mb less ram but the ram is pc133, and of course there is nothing else on the machine as yet. This is an important question for me, because if he gets some more bits hanging around he may be able to upgrade my machine for absolute minimum cost (he owes me money so needs to keep me sweet because I keep winging at him). So which would be the best way to go?

Processor. More RAM will make it possible for you to open bigger files. Hard disk has no role in rendering, possibly just in opening, if any program needs to use Virtual Memory. Memory speed influences the speed at which programs work in ordinary tasks. BTW, the nominal processor speed has nothing to do with the motherboard. The only problem you might have with that is that your motherboard cannot support a higher-speed processor. Finally, if you have any other program opened and working in while you're rendering, it will influence your rendering time, because the processor has to split its cycles between the programs.

CPU speed seems to be the big thing in render time. Amount of RAM seems to have no real effect, unless you don't have enough to hold the entire file in RAM during render, in which case the render is slowed down cos it has to access your HDD (or these are my findings with my PC). As Erlik says, HDD space doesn't seem to have an effect either.

Thanks, then I will go for the higher speed to start with, if he can manage that. I know that poser likes more ram, but if I do a big scene I usually render in bryce, so want to optimise for that. I must get round to tidying up my HD as well, simply because it needs doing. I have loads of redundant bryce files which take up a load of room. I have a habit of hitting the save as button when working on complicated scenes, so end up with duplicates omnce the ikage is finalised.

I use 512 MB of RAM and that seems to be enough to render most scenes without swapping. Your processor is most important for renderspeed, but if your processor constantly has to wait for the swapping harddisk it slows down the render. Processor is first, but defenitely try more RAM if your harddisk swaps a lot during rendering.

A side note for those wanting to upgrade Memory. Most of us have decent motherboard & processor, yet bare in mind that when you purchase memory that it is compatible with your system. It should be listed with all the specs. I just upgraded from 256megs to 1gig, I had to upgrade my powersupply too, which I've learned is not only a matter of the watts but the delivery in amps. Please do your homework, it can be a pain. Another alternative is to bring it to your favorite tech. :)

That is one thing I have wondered about ICMgraphics, that why I said my ram is pc100. that was what I had in my old system before tame teccie got hold of it. It started life as a P2, ended up as an athlon, but some of my old bits got used, including the ram. I have often wondered if the ram is compatible with the rest of the newer system. When I looked at the features of the motherboard (as stated in the manual that came with it) it says:- memory 3 168 pin dimm sockets supports SDRAM 16mb-768mb(max) supports only 3.3v SDRAM DIMM. Now I am no teccie, so cannot really decipher this, but does it mean that my old pc100 ram is not ideal for the athlon motherboard he put into the system. When rebooting the system always hangs at the "checking ram" part of the screen.

I use a 455p3 with 399mbram. This as it turns out is faster than the 533p3 with 125mb ram that I blew up. You do the math. Oh yes, and my new 40gig hdd is a 7200 rpm which doesn't hinder things either........ The Bryster

PC100 RAM is perfectly compatible with your motherboard. I don't think your motherboard is compatible wih RAM of 266Mhz from what I see in your message. Check the specs of the bus-clockspeed (is it called that way in english?). My motherboard supports clockspeeds of 75Mhz 100Mhz 133Mhz and 266Mhz (and maybe also 200Mhz and 333Mhz). Your motherboard can probably handle 133MHz, but you have to keep in mind that you can't use different types of RAM at different frequencies at the same time. If you have PC100 RAM and you want more RAM you have two options: -Buy another RAM stick of the same frequency. -Buy another RAM stick that is compatible with your motherboard, but if it has a different frequency than your old RAM stick you'll want to replace the old RAM stick completely.

Do you think by allowing my GF4 card to control the antalaising (typo) I would get cleaner image render?

If you put a RAM stick that can run faster then the one you already have (ie put a PC133 in with a PC100) the 133 will clock down to run at 100 on most motherboards, thus you lose the extra speed. The GF4 card will only affect the working window (wireframe, etc) it will have no effect on the rendered image. You can change the AA to premium to get a finer AA.

thanks Aldaron I was wondering

One more RAM issue to watch out for is the MS W98SE problem with RAM in excess of 512 Mb when using some of the new 128 Mb AGP cards. The 'puter may hang on boot! Happened to me (my AsUS MB can handle up to 1.5 Gb RDRAM and I had 1 Gb, dropped in a G4Ti4200 128 and splat!) MS has officially acknowledged this as a flaw (W98 was designed for 1 GB) but has declined to patch, implying I should upgrade to XP. Anyone know if there is any effort to get Bryce under Linux?

I am running Win ME and am incountering a problem with my system not recognizing over 512mb RAM. This is a prb for I have slots on my p4 titian to accept 2 gig ..Do you know of a work around?

Only way I know of is to upgrade to Win2000 or XP. :(

yes this is what I have heard I have XP PRO but its oem and am in the process of returning to Microsoft ...Cant wait to install all the memory when I get a full version in my hands!!