RAM usage >2Gb, render crash

[AJLynn]

W7 is excellent, but designed for faster machines than the Q6600.

 

I disagree. I have Windows 7 64 running on my 1.2GHz dual-core tiny laptop and it's no worse than XP would be on that, and Windows 7 32 on my Bootcamp partition on my 2006 2.16GHz Core Duo Macbook Pro and it's as good as XP was. You can certainly use 7 on a Core 2 Quad.

 

You can use XP64 or Windows 7 64 (we need a shorter way of writing that - I propose 7.64), either is fine. iTunes requires a bit of a hack to run on XP64 but is fine on 7.64, and aside from that I haven't really run into any compatibility problems.

[mfured20]

I switched all of my computers, including my 1.4G P4 laptop, to 7.64 and have had very few problems. There are some quirks that get on my nerves [Run as Administrator, Run as XP, etc.], but overall I have been quite pleased with it. It does run heavy, and my workstation [Quad@ 2.4, 4G RAM] is pretty slow between 7.64, Max2010, and poly-heavy scenes. Its on the verge of a huge upgrade tho, assuming I actually get paid for the work I am doing now.

 

The thing that I have really liked with 7.64 is the networking... I had no end of troubles with XP32, and I never really pinpointed the culprit. But I after setting my systems up, 7 has worked great across the network. Very pleased.

[TheAllusionisst]

Thanks guys, the networking comment is very valuable as on XP it seems like everytime there is an upgrade or something, to software some of the stations quit talking to one another and it is very frustrating. Glad to hear W7 is working pretty well for most.

[nodar1978]

If you can, get a "system builder" copy of Windows 7 64-bit - it's a better solution than the /3gb switch and it will run on your Core 2 Quad system and allow you to upgrade to 8GB later if needed. (You don't need a new computer.)

 

Watch for glitches with your drivers when using the /3gb switch! I've had drivers fail to load because the 1GB of system accessible memory was not enough. The 8800GTS driver was one of the problems. If you have problems, you can replace the /3gb switch with a /USERVA switch. An example of how this works: if you use /USERVA=2700 it will assign 2.7GB to the user space and 1.3GB to the system space. (/USERVA=3000 is the same as the /3gb switch.)

 

Thank you Andrew for your kind advice, which can help save my budget, it will work definitely. and I will do this on this PC.

but i've got only one working machine now, there i do project and rendering as well, and i'm getting more and more busier now, so i have to get second one, which will be busy only with rendering works, and this one (which is not bad as well) will be working machine in projects, it is really good, i never had a problem with this during the work in project, except that it has a vista, and i hate vista, because of lots of ''designing'' things, animated windows and etc, which is annoying some time, when it's a working PC and not a pc for gaming. also vista is a RAM eater.

Also thank you guys to all of you, it's really nice to read those discussions, about economic as well, it is really hard at this time, but because of this problem, i often asking other guys to make only the render work for me, so i pay for this, and i'm definitely going to buy new one, it will save lots of time. money, and will give me much more nicer renderings then i can get now, because with good PC, you don't worry too much about high settings, which gives you best renderings.

i'm just in process to find out good PC with good price. and i think i'll get something like this which is down here. or maybe better one. there are very good PC's as from company which is specialized in rendering machines, but all of them has a vista 64, don't know why, also are much expensive So here is a one i'm going to buy, something like this, i think better one becouse price for this halfen year ago was about 1250euro, and now it should be more cheaper, so i think I will spend about 1500 for PC. if you guys have some better options, for render machine, in around 1500euro, and have a time to write me, please do this, i think in 1500 there should be some good machine, not best of course, but good enough for good and high quality still rendering

 

 

1 Ahead Nero Essentials 7 Suite 1.0 OEM

1 Asus Videokaart PCI-e Radeon HD4870 1GB DDR5 DVI/HDCP

1 Cooler Master Midi Tower Elite 333 ATX No PSU (zwart-zilver)

1 Corsair 6x2GB DDR3 SDRAM PC12800 CL9.0 XMS3

1 Corsair Voeding CMPSU-550VXEU 550W

1 Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P iX58, SATA2 RAID, GLAN

1 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2c UK 1u 64bit OEM

1 OCZ Solid State Disk 2.5", 30GB SATA, Vertex

1 OCZ SSD Bracket 2.5" -> 3.5"

1 Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SH-S223B 22x/22x/12x Bulk (zwart)

1 Western Digital 640GB SATA300 32MB, WD6401AALS

 

it was about 1250, half year ago

 

thanks again

[AJLynn]

I don't know what CPU you're thinking for that PC but the rest looks basically fine. The OCZ SSD... well, it's too late here for me to figure out whether that's a good idea The 12GB of RAM may be overkill.

 

If you take a look at the midrange recommendation on 3datstech.com, that's at about the price point you're talking about - though, if what you want is to add render node power, a strategy I might suggest is to buy two of the budget system, but put the 8800 card in one of them and make that your workstation and make the other, and the Core 2 Quad, the render nodes.

[Tommy L]

I think you already have a reasonable graphics card with the 8800. I dont know anything about radeons, but maybe you could get by just having on-board graphics if you are using one machine as a pure render node. The graphics card tends to be one of the most expensive components in a PC.