Hardware recommendations

chango70 · 10 Jul 2008, 10:13

Wow I can't believe my suggestion bore fruit so quickly! Thanks guys!!! The Ruby suggestion sounds great! Incidentally I am thinking of getting a quadro FX 1700. Whats the biggest model anyone's done with it?

chango70 · 10 Jul 2008, 10:14

Plot-Paris

Are you using a Intel Xeon processor?

juju · 10 Jul 2008, 10:53

Using Jackson's model, on the third run using "Test.time_display" typed in the ruby console I got 17.2 fps.

Intel Q6600, DFI P35 "Blood Iron", 4x OCZ 1GB DDR2-800, nVidia FX 3500 256MB (driver: 169.96_quadro_winxp2k_international_whql), programs HDD = WD 36GB Raptor (10000RPM), data HDD = WD 250GB Caviar (7200RPM), 22" Samsung 226BW at 1600x1050. Hardware acceleration and Fast feedback on.

plot-paris · 10 Jul 2008, 11:38

@chango70 said:

Plot-Paris

Are you using a Intel Xeon processor?

no, it is the Intel core 2 Duo E6850

plot-paris · 10 Jul 2008, 12:26

I just played arround a bit with the cube-test model.

at first I achieved 18.6 fps(1.8 slower than this morning, when my computer was relaxed )
then I grouped all the cubes, with no significant difference.
then I created a component out of all the cubes. now I got 16.4 fps
I made 24 copies of this component, put it in a hidden layer. now the result was 17.5 fps

now I am completely confused does anyone have an explanation for that?

remus · 10 Jul 2008, 12:43

Id suggest that there is a degree of random (or seemingly random) error in the test. i.e. having the components on a hidden layer doesnt really affect the results, its just a bit of +/- either way. The same would explain the difference between your first test (when your comp was relaxed ) and the second test.

plot-paris · 10 Jul 2008, 13:19

I just did some tests and found out, that the consistency increases immensly with the poly count.

some figures:

my city-model, scene 1 (3.328 polygons):

framerate differed from 53.7 fpsto 56.9 fps(maximum difference in time 0.093 seconds)

the same model, scene 2 (180.496 polygons; more than 50 x bigger):

framerate always was 2.5 fps(maximum difference in time 0.067 seconds)

here we see, that the dime was more precise than in the low poly scene...

brodie · 10 Jul 2008, 13:56

@jackson said:

How did you find out about that? That's fantastic!

It came from some random little post on these boards actually. I think I'd searched for "benchmark" or something and in a conspicuous thread about benchmark's someone was just like...um, why don't you just run this ruby? Didn't look like anyone even took note of it at the time.

-Brodie

brodie · 10 Jul 2008, 14:30

@plot-paris said:

I just did some tests and found out, that the consistency increases immensly with the poly count.

some figures:

my city-model, scene 1 (3.328 polygons):

framerate differed from 53.7 fpsto 56.9 fps(maximum difference in time 0.093 seconds)

the same model, scene 2 (180.496 polygons; more than 50 x bigger):

framerate always was 2.5 fps(maximum difference in time 0.067 seconds)

here we see, that the dime was more precise than in the low poly scene...

I think that would be my reason for wanting a semi-complex benchmark. I like your idea about having a number of scenes with varying complexities and a script that would run the Test.time_display script, log the results, cycle to next scene, etc. and give you a final report at the end (in a txt file would be great). Also like you said, in conjunction something that could along with that log your settings would be fabulous.

I'm thinking 8 scenes. First 4 would be a pretty simple model which would run the 4 combos of textures and shades on/off. The next 4 scenes would be the same thing but with a more complex model.

I think something like your city model would be fine although I think all those punched openings are probably more intensive than necessary for the shadows. Also adding textures so we could get a feel for that as well.

I think what that would do would give us a better idea of the affect that the CPU and GPU have on the varying geometry, materials, and shadows.

As far as settings the following is what I'd consider standard...

GPU Settings
Clock Speed: Default
Fan Speed: 100%
3D Settings: Default

SU Settings
Anti-Aliasing: x0 (or perhaps x4?)
Hardware Acceleration: ON

Display Settings
Resolution: 1200x1024

CPU Settings
External Programs Running: NONE

-Brodie

brodie · 10 Jul 2008, 14:38

@unknownuser said:

I'd missed this post before with your benchmark file. I ran the ruby I mentioned ( Test.time_display ) with shadows and textures on (although I don't think there are any textures) a few times and got an fps between 23.0 and 23.5 in scene 1. In scene 7 I got a 0.2 fps which took an agonizing 404 seconds to cycle through. Even without shadows on I only got a 0.5 fps which took 158 seconds.

-Brodie

I'm beginning to question my sanity. Nothing seems to make sense with my results. On my home home computer which is in every way inferior to my work computer I actually got better results. On scene 7, for example, my fps was still 0.2 but it took 377s instead of 404s which is noticable.

The only thing I can think of is maybe there's a fair sized difference in performance in running on a lower screen resolution. I'll test that later and see what I get.

-Brodie

bellwells · 11 Jul 2008, 01:02

On the city block test, I got 9.1 fps on scene 1 and .2 fps over 451 seconds on scene 7. On the cube test all three runs were generally the same for me: 5.4-5.6 fps and 12.95-13.06 seconds.

Looks like I'm the slow kid on the block with my 4 year old Sony Laptop, 1.73 Ghz, 1Gb, GeForce Go 6200, hardware and feedback turned on and AA at 4x.

plot-paris · 11 Jul 2008, 07:06

just to cheer you up...

my 5 year old laptop with a Celeron-processor and 1 gig ram achieved 1.7 frames with the cube test!

chango70 · 11 Jul 2008, 09:36

Oh my my, sounds like processor speed is of lower priority...

Jackson · 11 Jul 2008, 13:37

@bellwells said:

Looks like I'm the slow kid on the block with my 4 year old Sony Laptop, 1.73 Ghz, 1Gb, GeForce Go 6200, hardware and feedback turned on and AA at 4x.
The AA will make a huge difference, I'm amazed you have it turned on at all on your laptop. My lappie is coming up for 3 years old and I always have AA turned off- I can't afford the slow frame rate when working and as much as x 4 AA'd lines look lovely I much prefer the fine crisp aliased lines- I find them much easier to select. Of course I apply AA or resize in PS for presentation images and animations.

brodie · 11 Jul 2008, 13:42

@jackson said:

@bellwells said:

Looks like I'm the slow kid on the block with my 4 year old Sony Laptop, 1.73 Ghz, 1Gb, GeForce Go 6200, hardware and feedback turned on and AA at 4x.
The AA will make a huge difference, I'm amazed you have it turned on at all on your laptop. My lappie is coming up for 3 years old and I always have AA turned off- I can't afford the slow frame rate when working and as much as x 4 AA'd lines look lovely I much prefer the fine crisp aliased lines- I find them much easier to select. Of course I apply AA or resize in PS for presentation images and animations.

I'd be interested to see what your fps results would be if you go back and forth between x0 and x4 AA. I ran the script both ways and was shocked to find almost no difference at all (x4 was actually fasterbut probably well within
the margin of error).

-Brodie

plot-paris · 11 Jul 2008, 14:07

just tried it out with the city-model, scene 6 (more than 400.000 polygons).

the time-difference was 0,5 seconds at more than a minute duration.

that means the time improvement when switching from 4x anti-aliasing to 0x was only 0,7%.
the framerate was practically the same.

so it doesn't seem to make much difference, if anti-aliasing is switched on or off (strange, I believe to remember having switched off aa with a particulaly big model and getting much better framerates some months ago... )

richcat · 11 Jul 2008, 17:38

Tried the cube model on Dell Xeon dual 1.866Mhz core 2 quad with 4MB (basically giving 8 processors) - firms rendering machine.

Graphics card Quadro 3450/4000 sdi 256MB

Original cube - 14.3 fps

Select faster transparency quality - 21.1 fps

Turn off transparency - 41.6 fps

Jackson · 11 Jul 2008, 18:31

Really interesting to finally see some genuinely comparitive results from different setups. As much as I long for a quad or octo setup for rendering, it's amazing that 4gigs of RAM (you did mean 4Gb didn't you?) only produces 2.1 more fps than my measly 1.5Gb- perfect example of how imperative it is that SU should be able to multithread! I'm sure it helps in many other ways though- especially as I abuse my lappie ridiculously, it's rendering pretty much 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, while I'm modelling in SU 8 hrs a day and surfing in between. God I would love an octo core setup- oh those rendering times!

bellwells · 11 Jul 2008, 18:52

I turned off AA and the fps went up to 11.2; a significant increase from 5.5. I haven't tried the city block test.

Edit: I ran the city block test with AA off and scene 7 took 355 seconds at .2 fps. With AA 4x, it was 451 seconds and .16 fps (the script rounded up to .2; I just did the math for a more accurate reading). This is a 20% improvement.

bellwells · 11 Jul 2008, 19:12

@jackson said:

@bellwells said:

Looks like I'm the slow kid on the block with my 4 year old Sony Laptop, 1.73 Ghz, 1Gb, GeForce Go 6200, hardware and feedback turned on and AA at 4x.
The AA will make a huge difference, I'm amazed you have it turned on at all on your laptop. My lappie is coming up for 3 years old and I always have AA turned off- I can't afford the slow frame rate when working and as much as x 4 AA'd lines look lovely I much prefer the fine crisp aliased lines- I find them much easier to select. Of course I apply AA or resize in PS for presentation images and animations.

I probably should turn AA off when I model. However, the largest my models get is around 7 Mb. But even at that size, my laptop is a little sluggish sometimes. I have to admit, I never think to turn off AA.