Forester, that is not necessarily true. As I said I also use 3dsmax. Max is optimized for single processor, dual-processor AND Intel SSE, SSE2 and HT instruction sets. 3dsmax does not suffer from the same problems as vue and P4 hyperthreading, yet it also works as expected on dual-processor machines. Not all software sees HT as dual-processors. Poorly written software, maybe, but not all software. Maybe I should do some 3dsmax benchmarks on my machines, to compare the results to my vue results. This would prove 3dsmax is indeed seeing the HT correctly and vue is not. Your arguement may make sense for regular vue, but Vue Pro specifically states on their Vue Pro product website: *Multi-processor rendering support for unlimited number of processors. *Optimized for G5 & P4 HT. You're saing it's not E-On's fault that hyperthreading sucks on their software, yet right there ON THEIR PRODUCT PAGE they claim to suppport HT technology. You're probably right though. Vue didn't bother to update Vue Pro to correctly use HT and instead figured "well, hyperthreading just makes the software think it is two CPU's...we already have dual-processing code, let's just slap a 'HT certfied' sticker on it and be done with it." I call this deceptive product labeling, but that isn't a first for e-on...ie the "pro" moniker of Vue Pro...what a joke...this app is anything but "pro." About the CPU cache, the older Athlons have a !256k! cache, not 2 mb. My P4 prescott has a 1 mb cache, 4x the cache on my AMD chip...so I'm not sure where you got that bit of info. Maybe you're thinking of the operton processors?

"rule of thumb -> don't replace you cpu unless you double the speed." Yeah I'd been following that rule for years but I wanted to add another machine to the render farm anyway. Looks like I chose poorly but at least it is another machine chugging along on those long vue renders...

Attached Link: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040201/prescott-18.html

I don't know how reliable tom's hardware is, but in my experience, they have fairly even reviews. The 3dsmax scores for the AMD chips looks a little off though. the 2700+ faster than a 3000+??? Maybe the cache is different on those models. I dunno...anyone find any other benchmarks? Edit: Maybe vue is more like lightwave or mathmatica on those toms hardware benchmarks...the AMD chips do much better on those software tests...

Message edited on: 08/17/2004 01:38

Attached Link: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Products/vue4pro/index.php?Page=11

*Optimized for G5 & P4 HT

I'm not sure but I think "Optimized for P4 HT" means optimized for Pentium IV hyperthreading... ;)

Now whether that is the truth or not, and what exactly "optimized" means...

I still don't know why I get such poor render times on my P4. The ram is even dual-channel tested on a 800 mhz bus, and I think it has the intel 875/g chipset (I'll have to check for sure tomorrow). I'm wondering if it has something to do with the prescott core. I remember Tom's Hardware reviewed the prescott when it first came out, and it actually did worse in some tests than the previous P4 core, the northwood. But it was only in one or two tests, and in other tests, it did better than northwood, and those tests are at the same clock speed for both prescott and northwood. Anyone have a 3.06 ghz northwood they can render the Amazon scene with at broadcast quality, 640x480 and post the times?

Funny this thread topic came up as I had just ordered a P4 3.0 prescott system and it arrived today. I have two older athlon machines, a 2100+ with 1 gig 133 ram and a 2400+ with 768 meg DDR 266 ram. The new P4 3.0ghz system has 1 gig DDR 400 ram. I loaded Vue Pro (I only have Pro, not regular) onto the machines to test. I didn't run the test on the 2100+ because I was working on something else, but I use it for network rendering. I was rendering the "Amazon" sample scene found on the first disc of the Vue Pro 3 disc set. I updated all Vue installations to the latest beta before trying this. I also tried rendering on the P4 machine with hyperthreading on and off. Here are the results (rendering 640x480, broadcast quality) AMD 2400+: 24'25" P4 Hyperthreading: 22'35" P4 No Hyperthreading: 30'42" So obviously Vue Pro uses hyperthreading. But the alarming thing is how close the AMD 2400+ and P4 HT are in render times! This is absurd! The AMD machine is at least 2 years old, maybe older! And it barely loses out to a brand new P4 3.0 ghz processor!?!!? This really sucks. I had a hard time deciding between the P4 3.0ghz prescott and the AMD XP 3200+. I chose the P4 because on most benchmarks you can find on the internet, the P4 wins soundly (at least over the AMD XP 3200+). Now I wish I had gone with the 3200+. I went with the P4 because of the hyperthreading (which e-on specifically states Vue Pro supports, and obviously it does) and the SSE2 and SSE3 instructions, but it seems that it doesn't make a bit of difference vs. AMD processors. The AMD system would have been $20 cheaper too... So then I set the machines up to network render. Luckily it does seem that the P4 is doing a little better here. It's hard to tell but it seems it's rendering faster on my network with my homemade scenes (not vue demo scenes). Maybe the Amazon scene is a bad test scene, I'm not sure. I guess I'll have to do some more tests but right now it doesn't look good for my new P4...

Try disabling hyperthreading on the P4 machine. There was a post about this earlier. Apparently Vue 4 regular doesn't like hyperthreading (it actually slows down rendering) but Vue 4 Pro works well with it. The graphics card has nothing to do with rendering, only displaying the viewports.

I don't see anything wrong with the post either. Nice products. It is nice to see everything available right now for this character in one thread anyway, and I'm on cable so the images don't bother me. Anyone know where that gun in the "kickin ass for fashion" pic comes from?

Model looks nice to me! Will be great for some sci-fi renders I'm sure.

Thanks! I was going to ask you if you could do something like this for that model. All the attempts I made came out pretty bad.

You can't copyright your face, per se, but actors have some sort of right preventing you from using their image or likeness without permission. It may have something to do with defamation laws. Impersonators get away with it because it is parody.

You should look at the "Van Helsing" characters at Runtime DNA. They are obviously similar to the movie, but not too similar as to be copyright infringement. I think they call the Van Helsing character "Beast Hunter." The point is you can't copyright a "vampire hunter" but you can copyright "Van Helsing." A model with Hugh Jackman's face would obviously violate copyright (or Hugh Jackman's right to promote his image), but a guy with long hair in a trench coat with a crossbow? Not copyright infringement. The reason people get busted for aliens ripoffs is because the models are pretty specific and exact copies.

The new update fixes the two bugs I mentioned here before: 1) Poser animations repeat - fixed 2) Open GL bugs in mover wizard - fixed Update is working fine for me now...well except some more bugs I've found with the mover wizard...

Looks good! I like the rain effect in the opening shot and the shots of the ninja running. Very anime like. Looks nice!

Here's an idea. May or may not work for you. Poser 5 allows multiple runtime folders. I'm not sure if you can have extra runtime folders outside of the poser directory or not, but if you can: 1) Get another hard drive in your machine that stores the the poser models. Put the models on this drive. Assign it a drive letter of "Z:" - it shouldn't be a D:, E:, or F: etc. drive because your other machines may have these mapped for the CD-ROM. 2) Map the Z: drive on that computer as the z: network drive on the other machines. 3) Update your Poser 5 installation on all the machines with the new runtime folder on z: Again, just a guess, but worth a try I think (assuming poser supports runtime folders outside of c: - I've never tried it)

Thanks for the tips. Actually it looks to be CD-ROM related. I switched out the CD-ROM and now Vue installs and runs. I never thought about that, as I've installed plenty of other software on that CD-ROM. I don't know what the CD-ROM buffer has to do with it but that looks like the problem. Thanks for the motherboard models too...I'll get one of those when I upgrade. Thanks again.