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Thread: X3 Ray Trace

  1. #1
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    X3 Ray Trace

    The first thing I dove into was Raytracing.

    I was attempting to raytrace this kitchen on "Quick" Raytrace....32 minutes???

    So then I tried a standard setting and I'm getting 16hrs 7 min.

    Tell me it's my graphics card or something....this can't be. I just updated my graphics card a couple of months ago.
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  2. #2
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    sorry to be a bearer of bad news,

    that video card is acient. i first used a gtx 8800 when i built this computer for hi end online gaming over 2 years ago. sorry to include that im a big counterstrike fan!

    i notice that a lot of guys now days are almost standardizing the use of twin graphics cards in gaming and rendering work...i would argue its almost an absolute requirement.

    i have an nvidia gtx 260 video card with almost a gig of memory and the bloody thing actually gave me an error message this morning (when using chief) saying it had run out of memory!!! (i wasnt even raytracing)

    i dont know about what things are like i nthe states, however, here in australia, i never go to a computer shop to buy a decent video card. i alway go to computer markets where all the online gamers go. they are right up there with cutting edge stuff all the time. when i first brought my 8800, it still wasnt available in computer stores over a year later.

    btw,

    you might want to seriously consider upping your computer ram a lot, 4 gig is the absolute minimum to run windows these days. (most guys are running at least 8 gig)
    Last edited by adamjedgar; 06-09-2010 at 04:44 PM.

  3. #3
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    Adam,
    Then why is my graphics card ok for Kerkythea or Thea Render? I can render pretty quick with those 2 render engines.
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  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pat1217 View Post
    Tell me it's my graphics card or something....
    It's not your graphics card. The raytracer doesn't use your graphics card at all. Performance in the raytracer is most affected by the amount of RAM your computer has, the number of cores your processor has (quad core is better than dual core is better than single core) and processor speed.
    Chris Tenbrink
    Software Engineer
    Chief Architect, Inc.

  5. #5
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    Pat, I have been getting WAY faster times than that. Mostly I have been doing exterior raytraces. There are 3 default levels of speed; quick, standard, and High Quality.

    Quick I'm under a minute, Standard I'm around 5 minutes, High Quality I'm at about 40 minutes.

    Of course I can get longer times by increasing the sampling number, and therefore getting better raytraces.

    I would love to get one of your interior scenes, & I will raytrace it for you, and we can compare times. I have a pretty good grasp on the settings by now, so I may save you some time.
    Allen Brown
    Indy Blueprints
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pat1217 View Post
    I was attempting to raytrace this kitchen on "Quick" Raytrace....32 minutes???

    So then I tried a standard setting and I'm getting 16hrs 7 min.
    Don't believe the initial time estimates given to you by the ray tracer. It almost always overestimates the time at the beginning, sometimes by an extraordinary amount.
    Keith Jeffery
    Software Engineer
    Chief Architect, Inc.
    http://www.chiefarchitect.com

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Allen Brown View Post
    Pat, I have been getting WAY faster times than that. Mostly I have been doing exterior raytraces. There are 3 default levels of speed; quick, standard, and High Quality.

    Quick I'm under a minute, Standard I'm around 5 minutes, High Quality I'm at about 40 minutes.

    Of course I can get longer times by increasing the sampling number, and therefore getting better raytraces.

    I would love to get one of your interior scenes, & I will raytrace it for you, and we can compare times. I have a pretty good grasp on the settings by now, so I may save you some time.
    Allen,
    I'll send you the kitchen scene tomorrow. I've got a "quick" raytrace going now and it says 37 min. I'm going to time it. I'd like to run a higher raytrace overnight to see what the higher setting will look like.

    I'm using my laptop with the dual core. I haven't added X3 to my quad core desk top yet. I can do that, can't I...put X3 on 2 machines? I can't work on X3 on my laptop while Raytracing on my desktop, can I?
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  8. #8
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    Pat,

    I was amazed at how much faster the new Ray-tracer has been so far but I built my current PC looking ahead to this day of 64bit, multi-core architecture and the future is now.
    I only have two cores but I did max out my mother board with RAM before I recently installed Windows 7 x64 (I still have the old video card I started with which only shows the ray-traced results and as has been said has nothing otherwise, directly to do with the creating the Ray-Trace, only the viewing of the results).
    Compared to my old XP Prox32 set up X3 running within W7x64 is a Sports Car compared to the four-cylinder-four-door sedan of X2 on XP32.
    I second the veracity or lack thereof of Windows-Based estimations of time-lapse, whether uploading or downloading a file or any other "Estimated Time Left" that runs within any Windows Based Operating system; when I want to know the time I look at my PC and then a real clock just to be sure.

    DJP
    Last edited by David J. Potter; 06-09-2010 at 11:42 PM.

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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pat1217 View Post
    Allen,
    I'll send you the kitchen scene tomorrow. I've got a "quick" raytrace going now and it says 37 min. I'm going to time it. I'd like to run a higher raytrace overnight to see what the higher setting will look like.

    I'm using my laptop with the dual core. I haven't added X3 to my quad core desk top yet. I can do that, can't I...put X3 on 2 machines? I can't work on X3 on my laptop while Raytracing on my desktop, can I?
    Yes, you can. Just deactive one, activate the other.
    Wendy Lee Welton
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  10. #10
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    Pat, check "show screen redraw time" in preferences, and the completed time will show when your done
    Allen Brown
    Indy Blueprints
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  11. #11
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    you know so many designers make claims about how their product is theoretically supposed to work! they sit up there with the latest technology telling us all how well the thing will run...we all know that in reality it will work the bloody way it wants to on the machine it is being run on

    truth is...old is old! a computer that is a little long in the tooth, a wee bit slow...well... whilst we could say, "its maturing gracefully"... perhaps its time to tell it like it is...gone from pimples to wrinkles!

  12. #12
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    I had a raytrace going all night but for some reason my laptop shut down. I don't have the laptop settings to auto shut down for any reason so I don't know why it did. It apparently shut down before the render was finished. I had the render set to "save" after it was done and nothing was saved.

    I have another render started. "Standard" raytrace...says 13 hours. We'll see what the real time will be.

    The only time I've ever seen a render take this long is when I've rendered a huge image size (5100x3200) in Kerkythea.

    If I need more Ram, can I add more Ram to this laptop?
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  13. #13
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    If I need more Ram, can I add more Ram to this laptop?



    Yes

    unless you have already maxed its capacity ???


    Lew
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  14. #14
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    X3 is designed to run on multi-core systems. We have tested extensively on systems down to dual core and a little on older single core P4 systems.

    Performance is tuned for newer hardware not older hardware. This means that performance on older hardware, especially P4 systems, may suffer a little. It also means that if you invest in newer hardware you should be rewarded with much better performance.

    Our design goal was to make dual core or better as fast or faster than X2. I don't think we achieve that in every case but we have in many.

    A quad core system or better is what I would recommend. If you can't afford a quad core system then a dual core system is a good choice.

    Even though Chief will run on single core systems, these systems are not recommended.

    Ray tracing in particular speeds up dramatically the more cores you have.

    Ray tracing is a bit tricky to benchmark because certain settings can make a huge difference in performance so it is critical when comparing speeds to make sure you are comparing the same things.

    Ray tracing is a very computationally intensive operation. Computers that we typically have available to us today can do ray traces in minutes that a decade ago would have taken hours or days.

    I'm curious to see how X3 runs on 6 and 12 core systems.
    Doug Park
    Principal Software Architect
    Chief Architect, Inc.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Park View Post

    I'm curious to see how X3 runs on 6 and 12 core systems.
    12 core??? Oh dear!!! I do have an antique!

    I'm going to have to sell a lot of renders to afford that.

    I do have a quad core desktop but I use my laptop to do my Chief work so I can take it with me when I go out of town.
    x4
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