Hardware upgrade is now due: motherboard, CPU, memory and possibly graphics card. I know about OpenGL optimisation but before I make any mistakes..... Does anyone have any advice on what to get (or avoid) when using Vue 4, please? Also does Vue 4 support dual processors? Any advice / horror stories much appreciated. Mark

The only problem stuff I've heard is with nVidia cards and OpenGL. Even when they don't cause problems, they seem to be very slow at the draw in OpenGL mode... -SMT

I'd rather stay in my lane than lay in my stain!

E-on notes there's a problem with the GEForce 3 and the OpenGL, too. One thing I'd suggest is as much RAM as you can stuff in! It will still perform with even as low as 32 or 64 mb RAM, but the more it has to work with, the much happier it'll be -- and you, too! :D

And yes, Vue 4 is dual processor-enabled. I think you have to have at least Win 2K or maybe even Win 2K Pro for that to work though, since it's the OS that actually determines whether both CPU's can work together.

I have ATI 32Mo Rage Pro Fury that doesn't go well with OpenGL either :(

Well... I was about to make you buy an ATI based graphic card, but for Odyssey, it looks like there is a problem... I've got a Rage 32 Magnum, and there is absolutely no problem... with vue3.1 ! I could agree, yet, that when ATI sales a new graphic card, you only have "beta" drivers... and must wait for final drivers... But, if you can wait for drivers, ATI graphic cards are really wonderfull !!! MotherBoard ? I'll suggest you Asus cards... but it's my point of view ! :-) CPU ? Well... I'll suggest you to take an Intel CPU for more stability... RAM ? As Varian said, the more you have, the more it is !!! But I'll suggest you 128 Mo or more, if you want to make real good work... maybe 256 if you planed to run your computer with winXP... Well, that's all...

heyas; my crappy voodoo blaster banshee doesnt do open gl, either. but i dont expect you'd be shopping for one of those, at any rate. so but is geforce 2 good? (voodoo used to be good until they hit version 3, too. must be a video card curse.)

HEY! I have a Voodoo 3! It works great... as long as you don't try to update the driver..... Seriously, no Open GL crashes or anything. My Voodoo 3 even makes breakfast for me. Really . :) Burns the toast though......

Really, MikeJ ?!? My ATI never bring me breakfast at bed... even never have a thought, nor a sweet word for me... Do your reaaly think I must not upgrade it ? Even if I have OpenFL chrashes with it ? :-)

GEForce 2 = good. Just don't go for v.3 on it. Apparently they added a bunch of extra goo-gahs for 3, and 3 is conflicting with all kinds of programs, I've heard.

I use an NVidia Card and OpenGL. No problems at all, no crashes and Vue renders very fast, even for "heavy" scenes. Guitta

Hi, Here is anyway the preliminary purcahse schedule for myself...depending on when I finally decide to buy... September: AMD 1,4 + 768MP-1 GB of fast DDR SDRAM, Geforce 3 October: AMD MP 1.53 + Geforce 3 Ultra...(Heard rumours that the MPs will be released first week of october, and that the Ultra will be released around 17/9). December/January: The new generation of P4 (Northwood)...with DDR support I hope. Today I have only a Geforce 2 MX and have no problem with the drivers. Anyway Nvidia is releasing a new 20.x driver within weeks that is said to boost the performance a lot on the whole geforce platform. Enjoy Your Day Ole

Wow. Many thanks for the responses: this has helped me focus on what's important: raw grunt power. Looks like I'll go with a "safe" (known, stable) option of dual 1Ghz PIII's in an ABit VP6 board with 2Gb of RAM. The RAID is appealing plus I don't have to change my beloved SuperMicro case or upgrade the PSU. I'll keep my "old" ASUS GeForce card and ATA66 drive for now. All this to render animations faster. Maybe I should have chosen a cheaper hobby, like diamond collecting. Thanks again, Mark

Athalons outperform higher clocked Pentiums in many benchmark tests. And cost less too. But it's up to you. Can you upgrade cheaper than buying a new system outright? I just bought a 1.4 GHz Athalon with 256 MB of RAM, CD-RW, DVD, 30 GB 7200 RMP disk drive, GE Force 2 Pro with 64MB and a 19 inch monitor all for less than $1500. A P-1000 or A-1000 would be even cheaper. And when you upgrade some old components may slow down the newer stuff. You might have slower hard drives, for example. Some people just really love digging into the hardware and choose upgrading over new. Just thought you should consider another option. I downloaded the Vue demo and ran through the quick start demo with my GF2 card by the way. I know that probably is not much of a Vue test, but it ran fine. jon

 
~jon
My Blog - Mad Utopia Writing in a new era.

Jon, Thanks for the input. A single Athlon processor is a good option especially as a lot of apps only use one CPU on dual systems. Trouble is most CPU tests I've seen use 3D benchmarks for gaming: it's all polygons and fps and not fpu calculations for rendering. One real world test by a post production company using a dual Athlon system highlighted problems with power supply, cooling and, worst of all, stability. I need to know that the system is reliable enough to leave rendering an animation overnight or a weekend. I don't think that the Athlons are there yet. After three cutting-edge self builds in as many years I want a break from hardware config problems to do some creative stuff! The dual ABit/PIII system is known therefore "safe". I'd be interested to know what kind of times you're getting with your current system. Maybe I should just get a G4?:-)) Mark