Rendering extremly slow

[oscarr]

Hi,

On my system, a Pentium D 3.0Ghz with 2 Gig ram and a Matrox G550 Pci-Express vga card i experience extremly slow rendering. The file is around 7mb. Every line takes about 10 seconds to load and then there comes antoher one. Rendering the whole file takes about 40 seconds or something. I hope this is not normal and something can be done about it. It's a clean windows xp pro system with nothing on it except vw12 and quicktime 7.# (tried 7.01, 7.02 etc.) I have the system settings in control panel set to adjust for best performance. Also disabling dual head function of the matrox doesn't make a difference. Please help me

[grant_PD]

I don't think you're going to get much sympathy from us out here. I've had files take up to 6 hours to render. Things to look out for:

Rendering quality

Levels of recursion

Number of complex objects in the file

lit fog effects

A multitude of light objects

As I've progressed down the computer rendering path, I'm much more able to prejudge the length of time a file will take to render. In the end, it's all about budgeting how much time you can give away to the processor vs. a reduction or re-evalutation of your final rendering needs. Photoshop can save your life!

[Kaare Baekgaard]

oscarr

Are we talking about a specific file here - or a general observation?

I just had the same problem with a specific file. I had to inspect my objects by test rendering groups of objects until I found the group, that caused the problem - then object by object within that group. The culprit turned out to be 5 'invisible' objects. I have no idea how they became a part of my file. After I deleted them, the file rendered normal again.

Also I have found that extremely large objects that go all the way around and behind the camera/view will slow renderings exceedingly.

[oscarr]

Hi Everyone,

It's with all the files.

I clocked one rendering of a file wich is 7mb and it took the comp. 45 sec.

The strange thing is, that on a notebook with a intel pentium m 2.0ghz with an ATI Radeon 7500 mobility the rendering is 14 seconds faster than on the desktop pc!

So i believe you guys that rendering takes sometimes very long, but this is something i cannot explain.

Will the ati 7500 be that must faster than the matrox g550 pci-express?

[Jim_Allen]

Grant,

I am relative new to RW and I have seen several references to Photoshop. You said in this thread that Photoshop can save you life. How does one use Photoshop with RW/VW?. I just got PS and would love to know how to use it it get aroung the long render times I am experiencing.

thanks for some help.

Jim

[Jim_Allen]

I got a CPU monitor and when I am rendering the meter is running around 50-53% of CPU usage. It jumps to 80% as the picture starts to appear on the screen. After it goes back to the normal 3-5%.

It indicates that I have 68 processes running.

I get the same CPU reading with Custom Render and Fast Rad.

Both renderings take about the same time.

My question is:

Why is it only using 50% CPU and not more to render faster??

Is this the issue with dual core?

I was thinking of buying another Gig of RAM but do I need it??

Is there any relationship to CPU usage and the amount of RAM?

Jim

[islandmon]

There are utilities to 'force' feed the CPU and keep it running at close to 100% clock speed or better while using a specified app like VW/RW.

I used to active one for OSX10.3 when I required dedicated rendering.

It really worked great !

As OSX evolved>Panther>Tiger offering improved memory paging/process threading , it is no longer required.

[grant_PD]

If you're looking under the hood of your computer to check engine performance....

Antivirus software kills performance. I shut it down when things get intense.

Autosave function in VW will hang your renderings. I've mentioned this to VW a few times.

Anything that is doing background checking ( a lot of software does this now, constantly scanning the internet for updates ) will eat up CPU space.

A lot of people like to keep programs open in the background: email, photoshop, whatever. Specifically with programs like photoshop, they will eat up CPU and RAM space.

[G_Hannigan]

I think the hype about rendering speed in promotional materials may be creating unrealistic expectations. If you think you are going to get a photo-realistic render of a complex scene with shadows, radiosity, high poly count, lots of textures, etc. - forget it. Expect rendering times in hours, not minutes.

George

[Dave_Donley]

Hello oscarr:

What render mode?

Note that only OpenGL render mode makes use of the card, RenderWorks modes use the CPU. If RW mode it may be as simple as showing more pixels on the desktop than on the notebook.

Dave Donley

dave@nemetschek.net