Vue has always been faster on AMD than on Intel. It uses raw floating-point calculations that are more efficiently handled by the Athlon XP architecture. With Vue 4 Pro, hyperthreading helps, but still the P4 is not terribly impressive.<< True, but so far this applies only to Vue. Everything else I've tested smokes my Athlon system, as I expected it to. As I said elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if an XP 3200 with a 400 FSB eats my P4 Vue times. The bottom line is that if Vue is you primary modeler, then stay FAR away from Pentiums.

I reported that my P4 3.0 prescott had an 875 chipset but actually it has the 865G chipset<< It's thin line between those two, so I wouldn't rule out the chipset yet.

If you pay close attention to these figures, it shows that Vue is having a hard time with Pentiums. Notice louguet's times between the 3 gig P4 and the XP 2400. That's just way too close for machines with such differences. louguet, if you have a chance, can you post your chipset and bus/ram speeds for you XP 2400 and 3 gig P4? Does anyone have an XP 3200 machine running on a 400 meg dual channel buss? I bet any amount of money that system would eat the 3 gig P4. There's just something that's not right with Vue and the P4 systems. What's not certain is whether it's a CPU issue, a chipset issue, or both. I should add that all the other software I've tested so far show significant speed gains on my 3.2 gig Prescott system with 2 gigs of ram, as of course they should.

OK, so it appears you may have a Northwood-based CPU. I think you can get that info nn Aida32, but if you downloaded CPU-Z it definitely tells you. After reviewing my own times, I realized that overall you're getting the same results I did. Your Athlon is a slower chip than mine, so the time difference I initially saw aren't really any different from what I got. So the song remains the same. Vue just seems to have a real problem with P4s for some reason. If not the P4 itself, it may be an issue with the 875 chipset. By the way, if you want to generate a full report on your system, click on the little fouth icon on the upper right of the Aids32 screen and follow the steps. I typically save 'em as HTML docs.

Unfortunately I'm not a hardware person so I couldn't tell you what the chipset and buss specs are...<< You can download the freebie app AIDA32 from the site below. Aida32 is, as the blurb says: "AIDA32 is a professional system information, diagnostics, and benchmarking program. It extracts details of all components of the PC and can display, print, or save it in various formats like HTML, CSV, or XML. For corporate users, it offers command-line switches, network audit and audit statistics, remote system information, and network management." Aida32 can create, among other formats, an HTML report of you system and what makes it tick. It will tell you more about your machine(s) than you ever knew, and of course it will give you the lowdown on what kind of CPU, CPU core, ram, ram type, chipset, graphics card...well, you get the idea. While Aida32's creator now has "a real job" and there is no more software development on it, this version is still recent enough to give you the info that you need to know about your machine. You can download a copy here: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1033800563 Here's some mirror sites if the above link craps out on you (the two top links at the mirrors are dead, but others underneath are active): http://www.filemirrors.com/search.src?type=contains&file=aida32ee_393 Another great little freebie app is CPU-Z. If you ever read hardware reviews at places like Tom's Hardware, motherboards.org, etc., you've seen a screen grab of CPU-Z. While not as extensive as Aida32, CPU-Z will tell you what kind of CPU, ram, and motherboard chipset, you're running, among other things. You can download CPU-Z here: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php I recommend using Aida32 so you can see what you buss speeds are as well. So download these and let us know what you're running. Enjoy.

For the record folks, when I did the original Waiting Room scene (my thread is the one that started this whole shebang), I also was missing the plant textures, but I ignored that and rendered the scene without it. I simply wanted a relatively complex scene to test the rendering speed. So don't worry if you're missing the textures. If everyone wants to be onan even keel with the original reference, simply use Waiting Room without the textures at the resolution and render settings I used. If you go through the original thread, you'll see that the problems apparently lies somewhere in either the chipset and/or the Presscott based P4 and how Vue interacts with it. There maybe similar problems with the Northwood P4 core, but that's not clear at this time. nanotyrannus, what are the motherboard chipset and buss specs for those systems you worked on, do you know? You've gained roughly a 20% increase in rendering speed, which while better than the figures I've had, doesn't appear to be that great a difference considering the obvious hardware diffferences. thomllama, considering your hardware specs, I would imagine seeing something in the upper 40s at least, but you may be experiencing multiprocessor overhead. Either that, or Vue isn't all that well compiled for the new Mac architecture either. It'd be interesting to see what a dual Xeon sytem with similarly clocked CPUs would give.

Yeah, the Athlon 64-3000+ is one I've loked at. I also considered an FX, but it's still a bit too pricey. I don't have any probems using the "older" XP-3200 either, as I think it's still a strong contender. Certainly a lot cheaper at this point as well. As for problems with the Vue and the P4, I was referring to the Precott when I said "present-day P4s". I suppose I should've been clearer on that. I plan to use the earlier Northwood chip on the next system. I'll be very curious to see how Vue runs on that core. One annoying aspect of the prescott is the fan noise. It's a loud fan that's needed to cool down that reactor. Personaly I don't recommend a Prescott to anyone who's considering a P4 system for this reason alone. Still, no doubt Vue has a serious problem with Prescott and/or the 875 chipset, as I will now add Maya to list of programs that I've tested on the Prescott that smoked the old Athlon. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it's a problem with Vue. Unfortunately I think E-ON's reply on this issue will be the typical "we'll fix it in the next version" routine that most software publishers use. Now,as long as that next version is given to us who complain for FREE, I won't have a problem with that. :-)

OK, but if you shut off HT, then it isn't an issue, right? When HT is shut off on my machine, Vue is WORSE than not only with it on, but also worse than the Athlon, a significantly older machine. This fact simply cannot be ignored. Additionally, I have now performed tests so far using Photoshop and combustion with and without HT and the the P4 system is smoking the Athlon, as it should. Although I haven't had a chance to test Maya yet, I'm not going to be surprised if it too renders significantly faster on the P4, with or without HT. There is no doubt in my mind that all roads lead back to Vue. Now, in all honesty, I SHOULD have built a new Athlon system. That would've taken care of the problem. :-) However, for some video and compositing processes the P4 has proven itself to be at an advantage, and that was my primary reason for going this route. What I've discovered here is simply that undfortunately Vue is not well coded for the P4 and/or the 875 chipset. Fortunately for my relationship with Vue, I still have two more machines that I will be upgrading. Although one is already slated for another P4, I will see to it that the existing XP 2600 system is updated to either and XP 3200 or some Athlon 64 variant. :-) Nonetheless, this issue needs to be brought up with E-ON, as there is obviously a SERIOUS problem with Vue and present-day P4 systems, and this apparently applies to Vue Pro as well.

That still wouldn't explain the massive difference between the rendering times. Those old Athlons aren't THAT good. Just look at the busses. That's 133 megs versus 400 (or 800 if you look at from the dual channel mode). Even if the Athlons were that good, the buss would hold it back. The fact that the Vue render times on the P4 without HT on is so miserable has to do with Vue not optimized for the architecture. I shut HT off again and ran the Photoshop tests again and the P4 machine still smokes the Athlon. All roads lead back to Vue. I don't doubt however, that Vue will run better on an Athlon if I had built, say, an XP 3200 system (or even an Athlon 64). I probably would've recieved another 50% or better increase in performance. But that's because it's an architecture that Vue recognizes. There's something about the P4 and/or the 875 chipset that's freaking Vue out.

Here are the results (rendering 640x480, broadcast quality...<< OK, step back a bit and look at what you have. Now look at my figures again for the 1600x1200 "Waiting Room" scene with the "final" render setting: XP 2600 - 1:24:00 P4 Hyper - 1:20:23 P4 Hyper off - 1:42:27 What's wrong with this picture? OK, so let's accept the fact that Vue makes use of hyperthreading. Um, so what? The Athlon has no such feature, 'know what I'm sayin'? Look how absolutely MISERABLE a render time we're getting from Vue with the P4 acting as a "single chip", just like the Athlon. Also, as I mentioned earlier, my Athlon system, like yours, is also a relatively dated machine. The Athlon system is a machine with a 2.1 gig chip with a 256 meg L2 cache and a 266 meg FSB being fed from 1 gig of 133 meg ram, while the P4 system is a brand spanking new machine with a 3.2 gig chip with 1 meg L2 cache running on an 800 FSB, using 2 gigs of 400 FSB dual channel ram. Do the math. There's something SERIOUSLY wrong here, both with Vue, and apparently as you've now comfirmed, with Vue Pro as well. I finally got my Fire GL T2 card installed today, so I will now perform some tests with Maya and combustion, and possibly Blender if I have sometime. As I also mentioned earlier, other than Vue, I've only tested Photoshop with the new machine, and it's responding as it should when running off a monster like this. So I guess it's time to have a word with E-ON about this, no?

You've stumbled onto the dirty little secret of hyperthreading...<< Well, I guess you're damnned if you do and damnned if you don't. It's terribly disappointing not to see any significant increase in performance in Vue with this new machine. Last time when I upgraded to the XP 2600, I was coming in from a 1.4 gig T-Bird Althlon, and I experienced a 45% increase in renderng speed! All I did was change the chip, no less. Here is a whole new system, I was hoping for even better now, and it's horrible that this app is just choking on this architecture. I knew I should have built another Athlon system. Not that Vue is my primary 3D app, but it's always a handy thing to have around when you need to whip up some quick scenes. I was just hope to whip 'em up faster. :-) Oh well. I did see a new upgrade at the E-ON site (version 4.22). I've downloaded it, and although I doubt it'll really make any difference, it doesn't hurt to try it. >>How's that Prescott behave thermally?<< It's a cooker alright, although the Intel-supplied fan appears to be up to snuff. Considering it's the size of a house, I suppose it's par for the course. :-) I was hesitent to leave the heat transfer tape on and use some silicone grease, but I figured if Intel feels comfortable with it, I'll just let it do it's thing. I'm not overclocking it, and you'd definitely need serious cooling if you're considering that. There's an article about this over at Tom's Hardware abuth this very topic, using the DFI Lan Party board no less, over here: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040517/index.html

Well, I shut hyperthreading off, and render times increased by 20 minutes! What's going on here? I think the problem may be with Vue. The only other program that I've tested so far on the new machine is Photoshop, and everything was indeed faster there, with the exception of two processes (who's complications I believe were graphics card related). As I mentioned in my first message, I'm using Vue 4 v4.20-02, build 265846. Are there any newer updates for Vue? Perhaps Vue doesn't know how to effectively communicate with the newer 875P chipset and/or Prescott architecture. No matter how "off" the settings could be on the system (and I don't think anything is amiss), there's no way in hell that a machine with a 3.2 gig chip and 1 meg L2 cache running on an 800 FSB, using 2 gigs of 400 FSB dual channel ram is going to slug along as slow as a system running on a 2.1 gig chip with a 256 meg L2 cache and a 266 meg FSB being fed from 1 gig of 133 meg ram! During this week, I will perform some additional rendering tests with Blender, Maya, and combustion to see how the system fares overall. I hope the problem is indeed with Vue, otherwise I'm going to really regret building this P4 system! Something in the back of my mind kept telling me to build another Athlon system, and I now wonder why I didn't.

Thanks for your reply. I thought about that later. I have subsequently perofrmed some Photoshop tests, and although there were some performace improvements, I've been similarly disappointed by what I'm seeing. As far as I know, Photoshop should work with hyperthreading. I think Pentiums may be overrated. So far I'm not impressed by what I'm seeing.

Thanks so much for that link. The Taschen book was what I had seen.

OK, I figured out set to set the principle point of focus (thanks), but why does anything out of focus look like it's processes through a mezzotint? It doesn't look like something that's out of focus, it look likes something that has fractal noise added to it. My render quality settings are presently at broadcast, and I've made test renders up to 1600x1200, and it still looks like crap.