will just more ram shorten my rendering times?
 

Hallo all,

I have a computer with the following specs:
-MSI KT4V ATx
-AMD Athlon 2400+
-512 MB DDR
-ASUS V9560 (GeForce FX 5600, AGP, 128 MB)
-Maxtor 80 GB
-Samsung Syncmaster 913v
-XP sp2

I agree, it's running old...
I don't know very much about computers and would therefore like to know of you guys: if i buy more RAM, will that significantly speed up my renderings? Or do i need a new cpu too if i want to get serious improvements?

A related question about Alias' ImageStudio (i know, it's not Maya, but i couldn't find a nice forum and thought i'd try my luck over here...): I downloaded the trial version of ImageStudio, just to check it out. It freezes during test rendering, but it works fine while rendering from renderqueue. Does this have anything to do with my "shortage" of RAM? If so, why doesn't it resort to virtual memory then?

Thanks,
Tiz

Rendering by nature is Processor specific.

More proc cycles to spare = faster render times. Period:)

I've got 3 gigs of ram on my boxes, and MR doesn't touch it.

I use the mem for caching realtime playback.

So, yep, faster (more) proc/bus speeds are the way to go for faster rendering.

Here is an article that might also help you in the future if you cant afford a new proc/mobo combo, but you still have a bunch of older boxes laying around not doing anything:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1815797,00.asp

Thanks for the reply ragecgi!

This is just what i needed to know. (not what i wanted to hear though haha). Problem is my motherboard is rather outdated, so upgrading my cpu, means upgrading my motherboard and possibly my graphics card. Don't know what i will do now..., but i will defenitely check out that article. It is an alternative. I'm not that good with computers though. Well, i'll see.
Thanks a lot for the info.

tiz

No problem:)

Good luck!