PC Spec to make Terragen fly

[richiev4]

Hi All

I'm new to these forums, but have been playing with Terragen 0.9.43 and previous for quite a while, if you want a laugh here is my picasa page of the attempts I have made.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/richiev4/MyTerragenPics

I have now downloaded version 2 to play with but find my current laptop a bit too slow.

I would like a new one that would make Terragen fly but am not really sure what would be that best spec. If anyone could advise me I would be very greatful. (for the time being lets pretend that money is no object, just that it must be a laptop)

Thanks in advance

Rich

[moodflow]

Well if money was no object, I'd purchase a laptop from http://www.alienware.com. 

I'd get:

Quad Core
4GB RAM
1920x1200 resolution screen

You'd be a one crazy renderin' dude...

[Will]

Well that is once Terragen 2 is optimized for multicore machines.

[NWsenior07]

My Dell with a 2 Ghz AMD processor, and 2 GB of RAM does fairly well but I'd suggest an even faster processor and more RAM if feasable.

[dhavalmistry]

these arent bad at all actually....

Well if money was no object, I'd purchase a laptop from http://www.alienware.com. 

I'd get:

Quad Core
4GB RAM
1920x1200 resolution screen

You'd be a one crazy renderin' dude...

I wouldnt do that if I were you...2 reasons...

1. It is a ripoff
2. Alienware simply sucks....I have one and.....let me put it this way!....they are only meant to work untill your warranty expires...$4000 down the drain....thats right....4 GRAND for a damn laptop!

[rcallicotte]

My Alienware rocks.

[Orangebugpro]

A friend of mine just got an alienware laptop, the huge widescreen one.  It's got dual Nvidia cards in Sli.  He says he has to wait for alienware to release drivers, direct from nvidia drivers crash the card.

[Tangled-Universe]

A friend of mine just got an alienware laptop, the huge widescreen one.  It's got dual Nvidia cards in Sli.  He says he has to wait for alienware to release drivers, direct from nvidia drivers crash the card.

A laptop with GPU's in SLI? Never heared of that before...

I've just replaced my AMD 3500+ with 2GB RAM with a quad-core 2,4GHz with 4GB RAM (considering to add 4 more for heavy/serious populated scenes).
Seriously, it's about at least 7 times faster with rendering. Currently I'm running an image which first took 15 hours, but is now already 65% finished within 40 minutes
Ok, it's not a laptop, but compared to my last machine this machine really flies

[moodflow]

these arent bad at all actually....

Well if money was no object, I'd purchase a laptop from http://www.alienware.com. 

I'd get:

Quad Core
4GB RAM
1920x1200 resolution screen

You'd be a one crazy renderin' dude...

I wouldnt do that if I were you...2 reasons...

1. It is a ripoff
2. Alienware simply sucks....I have one and.....let me put it this way!....they are only meant to work untill your warranty expires...$4000 down the drain....thats right....4 GRAND for a damn laptop!

Yea I have to agree Dhaval.  Thats a boat load of cash and I've heard their support is horrid.  But if I had unlimited amounts of cash, I'd buy one just to test it.

[moodflow]

Another option to make TG2 fly:

I was looking at the quad core shuttle PCs.  I built one (using their online tool) for about $1200 with their top of the line quad core CPU and 4GB of RAM.  It could likely be done for even cheaper if you build it yourself piece by piece.

This will work nicely when multicore is supported.

[moray]

Don't be ashamed of your terragen gallery...there are some great images in there!  NEVER low-rate yourself.

[DanD]

Well..I've been rendering and modelling on this alienware laptop.
and its freakin sweet. Havent had a single problem,other than
a heating issue...but,cmon..its got 2 processors,2 video cards.
and 2 drives,all of it stuck in a laptop. once I elevated it,using a simple
stand,then the heating issue,wasnt an issue.

[otakar]

I've just replaced my AMD 3500+ with 2GB RAM with a quad-core 2,4GHz with 4GB RAM (considering to add 4 more for heavy/serious populated scenes).
Seriously, it's about at least 7 times faster with rendering. ...

Could you elaborate a bit? I thought multi-core systems are not yet being utilized by TG2? Unless you have access the the alpha build, maybe? Or is this performance improvement due to the faster processor and your doubling of RAM? It sounds interesting as to what kind of performance can be experienced after upgrading. Seems very significant in your case.

[buchvecny]

I've just replaced my AMD 3500+ with 2GB RAM with a quad-core 2,4GHz with 4GB RAM (considering to add 4 more for heavy/serious populated scenes).
Seriously, it's about at least 7 times faster with rendering. ...

Could you elaborate a bit? I thought multi-core systems are not yet being utilized by TG2? Unless you have access the the alpha build, maybe? Or is this performance improvement due to the faster processor and your doubling of RAM? It sounds interesting as to what kind of performance can be experienced after upgrading. Seems very significant in your case.

the deal is AMD 3500+ is not better than 2,4 GHZ from intel. So basically the solo core is better compared to his previous setup. However... the multi cores are not yet supported so he doesnt benefit from his quad much

[Tangled-Universe]

I've just replaced my AMD 3500+ with 2GB RAM with a quad-core 2,4GHz with 4GB RAM (considering to add 4 more for heavy/serious populated scenes).
Seriously, it's about at least 7 times faster with rendering. ...

Could you elaborate a bit? I thought multi-core systems are not yet being utilized by TG2? Unless you have access the the alpha build, maybe? Or is this performance improvement due to the faster processor and your doubling of RAM? It sounds interesting as to what kind of performance can be experienced after upgrading. Seems very significant in your case.

the deal is AMD 3500+ is not better than 2,4 GHZ from intel. So basically the solo core is better compared to his previous setup. However... the multi cores are not yet supported so he doesnt benefit from his quad much

You're right about AMD 3500+ being inferior to a single 2,4 GHz core from the core 2 quad.
However, I really DO benefit from my quadcore already because I render in 4 instances of TG2 at the same time