Newbie!

ivalls

AMD 4000+
241 GHZ
nvidia GeForce 7600gt
2GB RAM
XP pro.
Sketchup + Vray

Hi,
I complete newbie and not really techy sort of guy. I want to specialize in architectural rendering. I am pleased with my first serious render. Is it worth updating my p.c. what would be the best way forward, taking cost into account?

Cheers

solo

Welcome to SCF Jan

@unknownuser said:

I complete newbie and not really techy sort of guy.

Good to hear as it takes an artistic eye to create a great render.

@unknownuser said:

I want to specialize in architectural rendering. I am pleased with my first serious render.

That's a bloody good first render, you are a natural.

@unknownuser said:

Is it worth updating my p.c. what would be the best way forward, taking cost into account?

Hmmm, if you are serious about getting into rendering then I'd say yes, your machine is capable but not optimal. As far as costs goes depends on your country, here in the states $1000 would get you a decent rig.

thomthom

Really good render. And for a first! I'm green with envy!

As for hardware. V-Ray is all about CPU power. VfSU runs under 32bit SU - so you won't have much user of putting more than 4GB ram on your computer - in relationship with VfSU.

But, what I think you could have more use for. A little renderfarm. At work I have grabbed every old computer as they've been replaced. They are old worn computers, but they do help when deadline looms. Currently I have 5 in my farm - just got 3 new (old) ones.

But I have been looking at home-brew renderfarm. Get a set of all-in-one motherboards (graphicscard and networkcard). Get a PSU for each board, and mount it on a DIY rack (or IKEA filecabinet - saw that on a interseting site) You can get a decent set of cheap quad-core motherboards with 2-4GB ram - maybe totaling in about 20-30 cores for the price of a single high-end desktop computer. That will help greatly.
You don't even need Windows on them - just install Ubuntu, and run the V-Ray Render Slave under Wine.
http://helmer.sfe.se/

ivalls

Cheers guys, very helpful, Thanks