What's the optimal PC spec for C4D 8?

[LucentDreams]

The OTHERS you mention are idiots, since the graphics card doesn't affect render time (though your interface speed would be faster with a better card, this has nothign to do with rendering) Your system isn't bad at all, definitely no where near best, but your systmes better then mine in some areas, I have less then half the ram you do, which is very important, RAM makes a good difference in jsut what you can render, but for pure number crunching speed, you will need a processor, but even with a new processor and R8, PC and shave and the likes will still be slow. Reason for that, they are slow. Unless you have some money free, I"d seriously consider learning how to optimise rather then worrying about needing better parts, I mean if you have the moneu go for it get a PIV with hyperthreading, or a dual athlon system, those are your best two bets, but thats also a fair bit of money. R8 is considerably faster, not sure how much that will affect PC directly, but everything else in the scene will be faster so PC won't seem as bad :)

[sebek27]

Kaiskai: currently I have an Athlon XP 1700+ with 512mb DDR ram PC2100, I was thinking about getting a gig more since memory is cheap.... would it make a huge difference if I get an Athlon XP2600 (333FSB), 1gig total ram PC2700, and a new motherboard that will support this chip, in rendering speeds ??
or just get that extra gig and should be ok ?

[LucentDreams]

Okay things to understand are how ram and processing affect things, things like caustics, hypernurbs, shadow maps are all ram intensive, as they hold a lot of information (as do textures) so the more of this stuff you are doing the more ram will be important, ram doesn't really affect speed as much, untill you get to the point where a scene needs more ram than you have, in which it will start to make page files which are slower as they have to be written onto your HD. So RAM mainly helps to store information faster and better, and then access it again faster and better then page files, the processor is what really affects speed though, thats what will give you the super fast renders, so you need a bit of both. so what I"d ask is what are your doing more of, for me, I'd probably be happy with 512 ram simply because I don't do large scenes or lots of caustics and scuh, I'm usually dooing small scenes and character stuff, so RAM isn't as essential, so personally I'd opt for a a good processor first. If I was doign environment work like pupii or Simon Wicker, then I'd be sure to have the max ram I could fit into my system (and then the best processor I can get. As an awesome processor only gets you so far before you run out of memory and page file giving you that horrible out of memory error. First concern shoudl be can the scene render, then how fast can it render.

[astrofish]

[Edit: Post semi-redundant since Kaiskai beat me to it... ]

Be aware that extra RAM only makes things faster if you're short of RAM in the first place (lots of disk swapping being the giveaway for this)...

If your entire scene fits in memory already, then more RAM won't make it any faster.

In this case a faster processor, faster RAM, or a faster motherboard will help. (And yes, you do get fast and slow motherboards, and its worth the effort of finding a good one).

_However_, as your machine is a reasonable spec already, I'd be inclined to follow Kaiskai's advice and look into optimising the scene where possible.

There are a lot of things that are slow to calculate, but don't really add much (or anything) to the final image. See whether you can get away with switching off some of the 'expensive' options. Have a look at this page (http://www.imashination.com/speed.html) for some tips on this.

Kaiskai's also right about the graphics card - it has no effect on render time, only on the speed of the editor redraw.

(In the future when we've all got programmable graphics hardware and C4D uses it - things will be a bit different, but not yet).

Cheers - Steve

[LucentDreams]

actually this brings up a good point, AA. I catch students using best AA on test renders. even worse, best AA at like 4x4 8x8 which is crazy. I keep telling students never use AA in testrenders, unless its really messy, then use either geometry, or 1x1 1x1. the idea of test renders is to get the idea not see the perfect final results since the scene isn't perfect or final. this is part of what makes pauls sniper pro so great, its just using C4D's built in render engine, but its super fast cause its design to only use whats needed, no 6 raydepth here, it uses like 4 or 2,no huge shadow depths either, all these things can really make a difference, 1000x1000 soft shadow map? WHYYYY? Until your ready to try final renders leave it at 250x250.

[Brucie Rosch]

I catch students using best AA on test renders.
HA! That would be me, too -- a time-wasting habit I'm trying to drop. I'm using Sniper and getting more accustomed to seeing fuzzy test renders.

It's the "Ah" factor of best AA that I have to get over!

[LucentDreams]

Well I think because sniper pro is so well optimised and thus so darn fast, people are more willing to put up with the lower quality, its also nice as you dont' have to change your render settings later.

[imashination]

http://www.imashination.com/hardware.html

Hmm, I need to update the current top end PC stats again :-O

[LucentDreams]

yep, you and I both have seen systems with way better OGL hard lighting performance. man not too long before someone reaches 3000. and here I am trying to reach 1300

[Demonslayer]

I think my system is pretty good, but I'll get a professional opinion (Kaiskai) :).

AMD Duron 1.2 Ghz
1.0 GB CL2.5 DDR Ram
GeForce 2 MX

Don't think the rest matter too much...

Thanks :)

[Kirl]

That computer in Geneve would be optimal... :buttrock:

[brasco]

Thanks Kai, i'll go and smack the "others" on the head, just in time too i was about to go and buy new card.

I think the problem may be the motherboard, along with an exhausted HD!

I've already got into the regime of optimising especially cutting down or out Anti-A.

On a few final renders though i've toyed with Radiosity which is a great render, but so slow, is that processor?

:beer:

ps.thanks astrofish, gotta be the most useful site i've seen for a while!

:thumbsup:

[LucentDreams]

Editor = Graphics card

Render = processor

Radiosity is going to be slower when rendering, the thing is what are your settings thats likely where its fails the most, is bad settings.

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