Drunkenbear Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 I know this has probably been discussed before but I need some feedback for a presentation with my bosses about trying to speed up render times and the cost implications. We are a small architectural practice that are doing more and more render and fly throughs for clients, but cost is obviously and issue.From my understanding increasing RAM should reduce render times? is it that simple? Also I eed to find a new graphics card that can run dual monitors so that i can still work on other bits whilst i wait for the renders to tick over, again budget is an issue so no £800 cards please...as much as I can hope lol oh and lastly my monitor is on its last legs so Im thinking the Iiyama ProLite X486S or the iiyama ProLite X481S again its a budget thing but any other suggestions would be welcome here is the spec of the machine I am using currently to render on so any sensible suggestions? Windows XP SP2 Intel Pentium 4 3.2ghz 1GB RAM Radeon X600 Series 256mb thanks for the help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arnold Sher Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 ...well for starters you might want to double your RAM to 2 gig as that just will smooth the way for you. RAM won't speed up your rendering time, your processor will and if i were you i would stay away from Intel. If you want value get a amd dual core 4400 or 4800 for about the same price and watch your money work for you. The difference is staggering and as far as i am concerned it is the only way. We actually did a test the other day and the same scene on AMD 4400 and on pentium 3.4 HT with 2gig of RAM. It was a joke cause AMD killed at twice the speed and it cost fractionally less than Intel. Go figure... Anyway my two cents worth.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Smith Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 RAM will only increase render times when your system runs out of RAM and spends too much time moving data from your hard disk rather than crunching numbers. The way to tell is checking Task Manager and seeing if you're processor is running at 100% and if PF Usage exceeds the available RAM you have. If you're processor is topping out at anything less than 100% usage during a scene, you're wasting time. With the cost of RAM as cheap as it is, it doesn't make sense to have less than 2GB when you're working on decent size scenes. But hardware is only a part of the picture. There are numerous ways to increase your render times without even using faster hardware. As an example, if you use Ray Traced shadows, you'll notice a setting called Max Quad Tree Depth. By default it's value is 7, but if you change it to 8, you can often double your render times. Increase it to 8, double it again, and again, all the way up to 10. A scene that would render in 10 minutes, can render in 30 seconds sometimes. It depends a lot on the particular scene, but before going out and buying new hardware, I would learn the many great ways to increase render times through use of the right settings and procedures. There's tons of em! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woody Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Why don't you buy a new machine specifically for rendering, so no need for an expensive graphics card, sound card and a few other things. All you need is lots of ram and good possessor. Once you've got that network it to your machine and using Backburner farm the images and ani's to your slave machine, freeing up your machine allowing you to work. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShaunDon Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 I second Woody's remarks -- definitely get a dedicated machine if at all possible. As far as best price/performance, nothing beats the dual core (Italy) Opterons. You can install two of 'em on one board, have four processor cores, and they're very power efficient and cheaper than the equivalent from Intel. We recently bought four dual Opteron 270 render nodes and I would not consider any other processor on the market after seeing them in action. Shaun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Also I eed to find a new graphics card that can run dual monitors so that i can still work on other bits just a side note, a dual card won't do you any good if you don't have the processing power to perform other operations simulataneously. We use high-end Boxx workstations in our office, and when I multitask 3dsMax takes up the entire system and maxes out all four processors @ 100% You can go into your task manager and turn off an affinity on max to free up a processor to do other work, at the sacrifice of a slower render but the benefit of multitasking. Otherwise you'll just be working on a super bogged down system. All the dual card is going to do is give you more desktop space. don't get me wrong, dual cards rock and I hate working without one, but I just don't want you to confuse the ability to multitask based on your graphics card and not the whole system as a whole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 if budget is such a concern, build a couple of X2 AMD based rendernodes for under $650 each. the good part about having dedicated nodes out of a single dualcore is that you don't have to deal with the issue of diminishing returns that is present on dual and quad socket systems... i.e. ~ logistics (heat, electricity,...etc) aside, 2 dual x2 4400 nodes would be a better choice than a single, dual opteron system. You also conveniently sidestep the issue of having to purchase expensive ECC/REG memory and a stout dual12v PSU. but if you want an all-inclusive, multi-core workstation that's a whole 'nother ballgame with Intel's woodcrest and AMD's socket F on the horizon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 29, 2006 Author Share Posted June 29, 2006 if budget is such a concern, build a couple of X2 AMD based rendernodes for under $650 each. the good part about having dedicated nodes out of a single dualcore is that you don't have to deal with the issue of diminishing returns that is present on dual and quad socket systems... i.e. ~ logistics (heat, electricity,...etc) aside, 2 dual x2 4400 nodes would be a better choice than a single, dual opteron system. You also conveniently sidestep the issue of having to purchase expensive ECC/REG memory and a stout dual12v PSU. but if you want an all-inclusive, multi-core workstation that's a whole 'nother ballgame with Intel's woodcrest and AMD's socket F on the horizon ok so whats a good total spec for that kind of machine and wheres a good place to get one from? I've obviously seen the boxxtech stuff and other render nodes but they all seem to cost quite a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 29, 2006 Author Share Posted June 29, 2006 I second Woody's remarks -- definitely get a dedicated machine if at all possible. As far as best price/performance, nothing beats the dual core (Italy) Opterons. You can install two of 'em on one board, have four processor cores, and they're very power efficient and cheaper than the equivalent from Intel. We recently bought four dual Opteron 270 render nodes and I would not consider any other processor on the market after seeing them in action. Shaun so how much would one of those cost roughly and whats a good complete spec for a CHEAP lol render node Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 so how much would one of those cost roughly and whats a good complete spec for a CHEAP lol render node I spec'd this system a couple of months ago and since then the price of the 265's has gone up... they're still the cheapest opterons but for less than $100 more per processor you can have 270's:D cd burner: LITE-ON Black IDE CD Burner Model SOHR-5239V BK RT - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16827106997 case: CHENMING CMUI-P-601AEB-0 Black 1.0mm SECC Server Computer Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16811125480 Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16822144102 Vid Card: SAPPHIRE 100945L-BK Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814102447 Motherboard: ASUS K8N-DL Dual Socket 940 NVIDIA nForce4 Professional http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16813131059 Power supply: AMS PP-5503EPS EPS12V 550W Power Supply - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16817101108 HSF: (not needed if you by "retail" CPU's) Scythe FCS-50 Heatlane CPU Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16835185107 Memory (x4): CORSAIR 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) ECC Registered http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820145309 Alright ~ I got Lazy and Newegg'd everything... shop around (and e-baying) and you may be able to get for closer to $700: ----- $790 subtotal system on an Asus K8N-DL with 265 processors @ 357 each = 790 + 661 = $1504 fwiw: MSI also make a dual 940 motherboard that's slightly cheaper then the K8N-DL but doesn't have as good a reputation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 29, 2006 Author Share Posted June 29, 2006 I spec'd this system a couple of months ago and since then the price of the 265's has gone up... they're still the cheapest opterons but for less than $100 more per processor you can have 270's:D ok so just so i can explain this to my bosses who hold the money whats the comparison of the AMD opteron 270 to an Intel chip as we have always used them. and how much would a system like this speed up our rendering compared to my original spec above, just a rough estimate as a percentage would do they obviously need to know how much bang they get for they're buck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 what generation/type of intel chip have you been using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 29, 2006 Author Share Posted June 29, 2006 intel P4 3.2ghz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 this is easy : ) that's what my laptop runs and by upgrading to just dual single core opteron 248's (my boxx) my rendering benchmark scores doubled. caveman math would say to expect about a 4x improvement in rendering times with 270's but considering each core only opterates at about .8-.9 efficienty (dim. returns) your overall improvement (reduction in rend. times) would be less than 4x ... probably closer to 3.5. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=dual+core+opteron+rendering&btnG=Search Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 a dual 270 system would be slightly slower (but not much) than the quad 848: http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000284 edit: it's not too often you find a p4 compared directly to a dual core opteron... it will take a little digging but just record your findings and make a cute little spreadsheet for your bosses good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 29, 2006 Author Share Posted June 29, 2006 well that sounds impressive all ive got to do now is squeeze the money out of them but if it saves a few days of me twiddling my thumbs over the course of a year it make good sense, at the moment i have to leave my machine running over the weekend and hope it comes out ok which is never a good thing when it doesn't lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 no hardware in existence today can make renderings an "instant" operation... all you can do is make aims to assure it doesn't take days or weeks. Get them to buy ~ no "invest" in 2 dedicated dual dualcore machines and you'd be able to see that rendering in the same day:cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 29, 2006 Author Share Posted June 29, 2006 er yeah so thats about what $2500 or about the same in pounds over here as we get ripped off on prices for practically everything i'll be lucky if i get one lol id be happy for doubling my initial ram to 2gb whilst im thinking about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 er yeah so thats about what $2500 or about the same in pounds over here as we get ripped off on prices for practically everything i'll be lucky if i get one lol id be happy for doubling my initial ram to 2gb whilst im thinking about it definitely go with 2gb... if the node runs out of ram then it has to start thrashing the hd, which slows the rendering way down and offsets the point of having all those cores! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigroo Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 er yeah so thats about what $2500 or about the same in pounds over here as we get ripped off on prices for practically everything i'll be lucky if i get one lol id be happy for doubling my initial ram to 2gb whilst im thinking about it I'm not sure if you know these guys but take a look and see if they have anything that may help. http://www.overclockers.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 Maybe you should wait to see what happens with CORE2 DUO, I guess they come out in July, I just noticed they were 64bit, aren't the core duo laptop chips 32bit ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cesar R Posted June 30, 2006 Share Posted June 30, 2006 ::subscribed:: and yes the curent Duos are 32bit... =( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 30, 2006 Author Share Posted June 30, 2006 I'm not sure if you know these guys but take a look and see if they have anything that may help. http://www.overclockers.co.uk for cheap components or for a complete render node? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 30, 2006 Author Share Posted June 30, 2006 ::subscribed:: and yes the curent Duos are 32bit... =( when are they coming out as we really need to get the system asap as we're taking on a larger render job, the main reason for sorting out a render node and how much more is that going to cost me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkenbear Posted June 30, 2006 Author Share Posted June 30, 2006 ok just found out that my system can support upto 4GB of RAM 184-pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC3200) from reading on here XP only recognises 2GB? or 3GB? if you change the registry?? so why have the option for upto 4GB? how much of a benefit would an upgrade of memeory to 2GB give me of upto 3GB or even 4GB whilst were talking about it all Original Spec: Windows XP SP2 Intel Pentium 4 3.2ghz 1GB RAM Radeon X600 Series 256mb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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