Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => Arts & Talents => Topic started by: bobthedinosaur on March 13, 2003, 07:33:26 pm

Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: bobthedinosaur on March 13, 2003, 07:33:26 pm: I currently have a P4 1.8Ghz with 256 PC2200 ram, and i was wondering what do you guys think? another 256 PC2100 ram, or buy a 512? i heard 768 is over kill, but is it really if i have lag problems when using lightwave and rendering scenes? or maybe i can boost my systems speed some other way?

just wanted some klightwave users advice, hell any modeler or renders advice?
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Carl on March 13, 2003, 07:36:57 pm: 768 overkill? ha! some GFX people have 2 or 3 megabytes.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: DragonClaw on March 13, 2003, 07:42:14 pm: Quote
Originally posted by Carl
768 overkill? ha! some GFX people have 2 or 3 megabytes.

I think you meant gigabytes.....

Btw, I have 512mb DDR, and that works fine for me.... if you're doing mainly extremely high-poly models then you might want to upgrade to 1GB DDR or something like htat
Title: typo?
Post by: bobthedinosaur on March 13, 2003, 07:43:56 pm: youmean gigabytes? i know graphics artistssometimes use up to several gigs of ram, but will i benifiet on lightwave with that?
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: StratComm on March 13, 2003, 08:15:42 pm: 512 is probably plenty, so long as you know not to run a lot of other programs in the background while rendering or working on high poly models. If you are going to go for detailed stuff, and renders with billions of polygons or more, then you might want to look at something a little more powerful.
Title: Re: typo?
Post by: Warlock on March 13, 2003, 11:16:19 pm: Quote
Originally posted by bobthedinosaur
youmean gigabytes? i know graphics artistssometimes use up to several gigs of ram, but will i benifiet on lightwave with that?

Benifit,...yes,....need ,... depends on what you're working on .

I can handle doing a render with multiple models over 100K polys each easily on just 360-something SDRam with a 800Mhz Processor. Basically higher ram will help the render go faster,...not better,...but faster.

Like say a render of three ISD models in a group could take 15 minutes with 128 meg Ram,... yet with 256 Meg it could take about 8 minutes. (Numbers are not exact lol)
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Razor on March 14, 2003, 04:39:52 am: Gigabytes? You mean over 2? As far as I know, there can be up to 2 gigs in 4 ram modules. 4*512 anyway, those people who have that much ram are geeks. Why would I waste my money om that much ram. It costs a least 250 EUROs to get a quality 512-er so that is 2000EUrs for that much. Right now, I have 256 RAMBUS and it is great but maybe I should buy some 256 or 512 extra. By the way, how much would 512 cost? 1 module or 2*256?
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: kode on March 14, 2003, 05:10:38 am: the limit is about 4 gigs for the normal XP's.

there are 1024mb sticks...
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Nico on March 14, 2003, 05:29:04 am: Quote
Originally posted by Razor
It costs a least 250 EUROs to get a quality 512-er so that is 2000EUrs for that much.

you crazy? I don't even wanna know where you buy your stuff :doubt:
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Stunaep on March 14, 2003, 07:35:34 am: I have 512 megs, plus a medium-high end video card, but I still get mighty slow FPS in viewport rendering starting from 300 000 polys. So more is good,.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Darkage on March 14, 2003, 08:47:33 am: I pay around 80euro's for kingston 512SDRAM PC-133. And you pay for DDR-PC2100 110/120 euro's.

Your prices are imposibly high. Unless you travel to Japan to buy your components no wonder it's so exspensive, you need to pay your plane ticket:D
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: StratComm on March 14, 2003, 09:50:13 am: Quote
Originally posted by Razor
Gigabytes? You mean over 2? As far as I know, there can be up to 2 gigs in 4 ram modules. 4*512 anyway, those people who have that much ram are geeks. Why would I waste my money om that much ram. It costs a least 250 EUROs to get a quality 512-er so that is 2000EUrs for that much. Right now, I have 256 RAMBUS and it is great but maybe I should buy some 256 or 512 extra. By the way, how much would 512 cost? 1 module or 2*256?

2*256, RDRAM only works in pairs. In fact I think it only comes in pairs. Look at the 512 pack and see if it actually has two chips in it before you buy 2 256 packs though, the packaging on those things is wholy confusing.

I should also mention, for those who may not know, that RDRAM (or RAMBUS) is incredibly expensive, on the order of $.50 - $1 or €0.50 - €1 per megabyte. It's high performance though, so it will run better than DDR any day.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Warlock on March 14, 2003, 10:22:57 am: Actually look around online about Rambus,... it's got its advantages ,... but not for anything any of us would be doing.

One example I read compared Rambus and Sdram with a Rocket (Rambus) and a 747 (Sdram) saying imagine you're going from one state to the next state over,... while taking a rocket (Rambus) is faster,... by the time the engines warmed up the 747 (Sdram) is half way there.

Basically Rambus is best if you're doing work that will be to access and sustain memory for prolonged timeframes. Hence why I switched back to using Sdram ;)

Plus it's not sold it pairs,...you do have to use it in pairs thou.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: StratComm on March 14, 2003, 01:35:33 pm: It is sold in pairs, but maybe not always. When I bought more ram for my machine, that's what I ran in to. As for modeling, RDRAM may not be the worst, as you have to hold the model in memory for as long as you are working on it. It's just that its biggest advantages are not really usable by most consumers
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Warlock on March 14, 2003, 01:40:46 pm: Heh you're lucky then.... when i was using RDRam I never found it in pairs.
Title: RAM
Post by: bobthedinosaur on March 14, 2003, 03:25:40 pm: well i currently have a DDR SDRAM 256 PC2200 likei said before, and an Intel graphics chip (dont worry im buying a 128 or better AGP card) but i still dont know if i should go another 512 or 256? my mobo can only hold 512 a slot.
how do you make polls? this would have been alot easier?
it just seems like imgetting mixed responces some say go with 512 and some say as much as you can cram in there?
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Warlock on March 14, 2003, 03:38:54 pm: Basically as much as you can afford and feel like putting the $ into getting is good. High Ram is pretty much a matter of opinion, in that some of us get by just fine running around 256 Meg and doing render work,... others prefer to have 512 or higher.

Your processor does most of the work ;)

But if you don't want to get more ram ... I think you're going to be fine with 256.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Kazan on March 14, 2003, 04:05:42 pm: RDRAM sucks goats - it's newest fastest RDR2 bus is 16bit!!!! DDR RAM is running on 128 and 256 bit busses!

i have a gig of pc2100
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: bobthedinosaur on March 14, 2003, 08:53:28 pm: is 79 US $ good for a 512 PC2100?
maybe its crap RAM? any one here of Crucial Tehcnology RAM? maybe its cheap? i dunno...
http://www.crucial.com/
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Razor on March 15, 2003, 03:08:24 am: Quote
Originally posted by venom2506

you crazy? I don't even wanna know where you buy your stuff :doubt:

*knock* *knock*
I said QUALITY not some piece of crap. Do you guys ever read my entire posts or just what you are interested in?
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Razor on March 15, 2003, 03:10:29 am: Quote
Originally posted by StratComm
It's high performance though, so it will run better than DDR any day.

Are you trying to tell me RAMBUS is better than DDR? How and why?
I always thought it was the opposite.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: J.F.K. on March 15, 2003, 04:52:12 am: My understanding is that if it's affordable (ie. not beyond the price/performance barrier), go for as much RAM as possible. If you're looking to complete modelling, it's immensely useful to have more RAM than the actual program (plus the model loaded into memory) requires. That way, you can run all sorts of other things at the same time (eg. an image editor, for textures) and not worry about excessive system instability.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: Nico on March 15, 2003, 06:34:05 am: Quote
Originally posted by Razor

*knock* *knock*
I said QUALITY not some piece of crap. Do you guys ever read my entire posts or just what you are interested in?

yeah, like I buy crap.
Title: Rendering Memory
Post by: kode on March 15, 2003, 07:28:30 am: Quote
Originally posted by Razor

Are you trying to tell me RAMBUS is better than DDR? How and why?
I always thought it was the opposite.

it is, because of the RAM-bus... some speshul bus to communicate with the ram...