Time to go 64

[MGebhart]

Tired of this....time to buy a bigger and better box.

[choronr]

Way to go Marc; consider building your own. This way you don't get all that crap on your system - this is what those commercial guys always do; and, it seems you can never get rid of that stuff. Look into those relatively new SSD drives.

[RArcher]

For what it's worth the scene that crashed looks pretty cool. 

[Volker Harun]

I switched from Win to Mac, using my old Windows license with parallel desktop ... after 2 months with a Mac the time of using this Windows installation went from 99% to about 10% ...
Else agree with choronr about building your own machine.

Regards, Volker

[cyphyr]

Good decision and definitely consider building your own system, take a look at Overclockers if your in the UK.
However do remember that even though you will get increaser performance Terragen is still not 64 bit yet (its in development but I don't know how advanced)
Good luck with your new rig

Richard

[Henry Blewer]

In the meantime, go to Microsoft and download their Windows 7 compatibility program. See if your machine will handle 64 bits. I did this and found out it was capable of using a 64 bit OS. I bought Windows 7 (32 and 64 ship together) and have been much happier with my machine.
Tom's Hardware has a fix for setting the Large Address Awareness flag on XP and Vista. This will allow T2, which is built to use this, to address more than 2 GB of ram.

[MGebhart]

I think I found out what lights a fire in you guys.

Great advice. Yes, building my own has always been the option for me. I'll put one together that will have a fire extinguisher mounted on the side. SMOKIN'.

Thanks for the link Bob, I'll check it out.

[choronr]

I think I found out what lights a fire in you guys.

Great advice. Yes, building my own has always been the option for me. I'll put one together that will have a fire extinguisher mounted on the side. SMOKIN'.

Thanks for the link Bob, I'll check it out.

You're welcome Marc. If you go this route, make sure all components are compatible. Tiger Direct is helpful in this respect. If that link I sent to you still sells the book and/or the CD, get it since it is real helpful - step-by-step. My only area where I needed help was setting up the BIOS.

Make sure you get a full size case for the best cooling. I went with a mid size and are really cramped for room. Lian-Li makes great aluminum cases. As I said before, consider the SSD hard drive; the 'i7' processor and 8 to 12 GB of RAM. SLI (two video cards) should be a consideration. 

[jaf]

Not sure I agree with an SLI configuration, but maybe that will work in the future with openCL (GPU processing.)  I believe it's mostly used for high-end gaming.  It takes a lot of power to run SLI and I don't know of much advantage with 3d apps. like TG2.

[Oshyan]

There's no real advantage in TG2 for SLI graphics cards right now. I wouldn't recommend bothering with the expense for now, but it can't hurt to get an SLI-capable motherboard and power supply - that will only add a few extra dollars. Lian Li does make nice cases, though I personally find them a bit overpriced. Coolermaster has some very nice mid-range cases though...

- Oshyan

[Henry Blewer]

CNET has some very helpful reviews on cases, mobos, power supplies, and other hardware. I also like Tom's Hardware site.

[sjefen]

When I saw this thread and the title I hoped it was started by
some of the Planestide staff, but it wasn't. Hehe

Anyway.... 64 bit is the way to go

- Terje

[Mandrake]

When I saw this thread and the title I hoped it was started by
some of the Planestide staff, but it wasn't. Hehe

Anyway.... 64 bit is the way to go

- Terje

Boy oh boy, so was I......
Win 7/64 helped for a while..

[Henry Blewer]

Maybe turning off double sided polygons in the object dialog might help?

[MGebhart]

This looks like the one. Still doing some home work, but getting closer. I don't think I'll build one due to time constraints.

HP
Operating system: Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit   
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-980X six-core Extreme Edition [3.33GHz, 1.5MB L2 + 12MB shared L3 cache]   
Memory: 12GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [6 DIMMs]   
Hard drive: 2TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive   
Graphics card: 1.8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters]   
Primary optical drive: Blu-ray player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner   
Secondary optical drive:   16x max. DVD ROM (player)   
Networking: Premium Wireless-N LAN card and Bluetooth   
Front Productivity Ports   15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio   
Sound Card: Integrated sound   
Keyboard and Mouse: HP deluxe wireless keyboard & wireless mouse
Duel HP 2310m 23-inch Full HD Widescreen Monitor