Quote from: gradient on January 18, 2007, 03:04:13 PM
Based on the render time benchmark database...even IF a CPU was 3x as fast as my machine....that same render would still take 210 hours! Keep in mind, my render had NO clouds and NO objects, few shaders....it was technically very simple!
Your render was technically simple *as far as you know*, but from it sounds like in your description earlier in the thread it was actually the land under the water that took much of the time in rendering. The culling of features that will be rendered over will be improved in the future, so that will speed this sort of thing up a lot, but the real question is whether it's truly the water that took so long, or something else in your scene. You have described the detail settings, but they are by far not the only thing to really impact render time. It's clear you have used very extreme displacement for example, which will take a while to render in itself (even without water). If you used an additional Compute Normal/Compute Terrain for some purpose that could help explain such long render times.
It would really help to see the .tgd file to determine whether there is some issue here, a bug, incorrect settings, etc., and I think it's only fair not to assume it's a fundamental TG2 problem without a full review of the settings used. You may send to
support@planetside.co.uk if you would like us to take a look and see if there are any notable issues.
As far as hardware upgrades go, I'm afraid you'll just have to accept the reality of this as a necessity for working with any modern application - TG2, Vue 6, etc. Programs are developed to take advantage of the hardware of their day, not yesterday's and only occasionally tomorrow's. The latest games that are released require good hardware for good performance and the same is true for Terragen 2 or any application, particularly a 3D rendering system.
It's unfortunate that you have to work with an older computer (a 2.2Ghz P4 would have been new perhaps 5 years ago, which is quite a while in the computer industry), but the simple fact is that the advanced capabilities of programs like TG2 are not possible to accomplish in reasonable time using older hardware. TG2 is capable of so much more than TG 0.9 - displacement alone is a huge difference - and these capabilities must naturally come with an increase in rendering time. Doing more in the same time would be a rare miracle of coding and I think you can count the number of times this has happened in commercial applications on two hands.
Fortunately I think it's fairly cheap to upgrade to something decent, which would give you a great speed boost. Since TG2 is not multithreaded at present you could get a very cheap, fast single core Athlon 64 (2.4Ghz for perhaps $80, equivalent of a P4 at 3.2+Ghz) - an entire system upgrade would be less than $500, and if you kept your hard drive, case, optical drive, etc. it could be much less. Or you could go dual core and still keep it very cost-effective - $700 or less for a fully new dual core Athlon 64 X2. Yes these are not really small amounts, and I wouldn't recommend you only upgrade for TG2, but if you have a need for better performance overall the price can be justifiable. Many people spend much more than that for computers that hardly do more than email.
In any case I think it's pretty clear though that any modern program is going to be making greater and greater demands on your aging system and it would be good to upgrade for your overall computing experience, if possible. I hope it's something you can do in the near future.
As far as optimization goes, well it's very difficult to give any specific numbers. I can tell you that there are many areas of optimization, from improved culling (not rendering parts that will be covered up) - which will effect all aspects of scene render time - to improvements in specific areas of the renderer such as reflections and volumetrics. The latter two will of course only affect scenes that have those features - water and 3D clouds, specifically. So the improvements may depend in part on what aspects of TG2 you focus on, or that impact your current render time the most.
Another area of optimization is multithreading, which will probably create the greatest improvements, at least on multi-core/multi-CPU systems. Fortunately multi-core is the way of the future and dual core systems have already surpassed single core for new purchases (even for laptops), and will quickly become the dominant CPU in modern systems (systems newer than 3 years). There are also possibilities in optimizing for SSE/2/3 and other specific CPU features, although I don't expect these to necessarily show large gains. I won't place any kind of official number on any of these optimization paths as there really is no way to know, but I am confident that overall TG2 render time will improve a great deal even in single threaded rendering, and I'm sure my dual core Athlon will really crank out renders once TG2 is multithreaded. Anyone running a dual core or better CPU should see an amazing difference in the final version with mulithreaded rendering.
In regards to professional use, although it's true that most "professionals" have access to more powerful computer hardware, it's also true that they are often much more demanding of low render times than the average hobbyist. A professional would never put up with 69 hours of rendering time for a single frame. Even the 20-30 hours Gradient and others endured under TG 0.9 would usually be unacceptable for professional use. As we are indeed partly catering to the professional market optimization is definitely a great concern for us. In a way you can perhaps thank the professional users for they probably set a higher standard than anyone, and we do need to live up to it if we hope to compete. I think in general you will only benefit from the work done in catering to this market - it will mean faster render times, more power and flexibility, broader interoperability, and better ultimate image quality.
Finally, let me make clear that nobody is being "shut out of the game", certainly not intentionally. We are trying to make a modern, powerful, flexible 3D rendering system with broad appeal. The simple fact is that this is a demanding task for a computer. Any application that even comes close to what TG2 can do is going to be taxing on your system, that's just the way it works. We are doing our best to make TG2 accessible and enjoyable to all, and that includes optimization as well as UI improvements and potential simplification.
It is unfortunate to hear that any of our users feel we may be abandoning them as that is certainly not our intention. I hope you can understand the difficulty here - we want to support those who were used to TG 0.9, both in user interface and performance, but these things present a problem for the improvements that are necessary for TG2 to compete and excel. It simply wasn't possible to make "TG 0.9 with more" or we would have. To get the kind of power needed we had to basically start over, so many things will be different. We are balancing it all as best we can and I do hope you'll stick with it, at least on the sidelines, to see where it takes Planetside and the community. I have a feeling you may ultimately enjoy where we end up. I certainly hope so.
- Oshyan
