just wondering how much the render time would benefit from having 2.5gb ram instead of 1gb.....
would it at all? or is it more my cpu speed that counts?
Im sure it would help but currently Terragen 2 is not optimized and relys mostly on the CPU (as you can see if you look at the task manager).
Regards,
Will
Currently rendering a scene and TG2 is only using 150MB roughly.
how much CPU 3dguy?
regards,
Will
Quote from: Rich on January 15, 2007, 02:24:59 PM
just wondering how much the render time would benefit from having 2.5gb ram instead of 1gb.....
would it at all? or is it more my cpu speed that counts?
More RAM is always better, but 1GB should be enough unless you are running several instances of T2TP at the same time. You shouldn't notice much difference in the render times with more RAM.
Quote from: 3DGuy on January 15, 2007, 03:01:46 PM
Currently rendering a scene and TG2 is only using 150MB roughly.
I've seen it use over 300MB...
Quote from: Will on January 15, 2007, 03:05:27 PM
how much CPU 3dguy?
regards,
Will
100% usage. I would be surprised to see something different. :P (I've got a single core, no hypterthreading).
But I'm running it in low priority so I can still use my computer normally heh.
Quote
I've seen it use over 300MB...
Still not nearly 1GB, so upgrading from 1 to 2.5GB won't do much. Maybe if you're rendering very high resolutions.
Yea I ahve 1 gig and I do fine so I think you are fine Rich or at least for the time being.
Regards,
Will
Quote from: 3DGuy on January 15, 2007, 03:12:04 PM
But I'm running it in low priority so I can still use my computer normally heh.
Quote
I've seen it use over 300MB...
Still not nearly 1GB, so upgrading from 1 to 2.5GB won't do much. Maybe if you're rendering very high resolutions.
Don't forget that to run your computer normally you need some RAM as well.
Yea but Im runnign T2TP Itunes, Steam, Xfire, Microsoft word, Zbrush, and others and Im doing fine.
Regards,
Will
I have noticed that from upgrading from 512 MBs to 1 Gig there was a very noticeable difference in render times, at least in my case. I will double this by years end.
Well i think the more ram you have the more it uses. it seems some of you mgiht only have a Gg and say its enough. is this becuase its not using all of your ram? becuase on my machine I use just over Gg and sometimes heads up to 55 - 65% of my ram(and I have 2Ggs)
I think it might have to do on how complex the render or scene is.
Regards,
Will
Quote from: Rich on January 15, 2007, 02:24:59 PM
just wondering how much the render time would benefit from having 2.5gb ram instead of 1gb.....
would it at all? or is it more my cpu speed that counts?
Hi Rich, i see Tg2 render going from 300 to 400 mb of memory in task manager, btw i think some other swap file on disk is being used:
that's why total amount of memory used vary from 1 gb to 2 gb due to the amount of obj population like plants.
So may be that having more ram reduce the swap period and boost a little bit performances.
Anyway the best improve you can have is increase the cpu clock or in the future number of cores for sure.
Btw I think that 2-4 gb is a good amount to render without pain with TGD.
Regards Max
yea definitely 2GB atleast. Secondly, having a dual core processor is great. I was able to play Oblivion while rendering with no noticeable loss in performance. ;-)
Just wait for Crysis and try to say the same thing ;) But I think the point is made, its CPU over ram at least until Terragen 2 becomes optomised.
Regards,
Will
Hi,
If you find that you are running into problems with the hard drive "thrashing" while you are rendering, which shows that the OS is having to use your hard drive a lot for virtual memory, then you would probably find that more RAM would speed up your render times. That's because TG2 would be able to use more real RAM as opposed to the OS having to swap stuff from RAM to the hard drive and back. More RAM is always good, especially if you're rendering complex scenes. There's no way to quantify the potential benefits of adding more RAM, for example to say "Add 1 GB more and rendering will speed up 50%" or something, it really depends on the scene. I think 1 GB is a good minimum amount, 2 GB is a good amount and at this stage 3 GB is probably a bit much solely considering TG2 ( not that it would hurt ).
Some people mentioned that your CPU is more important that RAM until TG2 is more optimised. In this situation the two aren't really related. Your CPU speed does make the biggest difference, and if you could afford to upgrade your CPU then that would be the most worthwhile optimisation. You wouldn't get the same jump in speed from adding more RAM as you would from upgrading your CPU. That's always going to be the case whether TG2 is optimised or not. However RAM isn't all that expensive and having more is always good.
As TG2 gets more highly optimised you might even see the RAM usage go down, which would mean you could then make more complex scenes with the same amount of memory usage.
Regards,
Jo