CompuServe Thread

I'd get a Micron, cheap memory, lots of ram slots, good performance, good support, and good prices. Tell them you're running 3DS. JNJ

Reza: With very little data to use for comparison, the P5/90 is running from 4 to 10 times faster than the 486DX2/66 VESA. The more complex the render task, the better the Pentium performs relative to the 486. These numbers are extremely rough, for several reasons. The P5/90 has 64Mb, the 486 only 32Mb. The P5/90 memory config is absolutely bare bones, the 486 is not (the 486 is a network server and loses something like 40K to this, and sometimes I boot it with CD-ROM drivers so that it'll sing to me while I work, sacrificing another 25K or so (don't quote me on these numbers)). Render times on the P5/90 are between 2 and 4 minutes, on the 486 they're from 8 to 40 minutes per frame. Setup was not really painful, it was simply a matter of stripping config, autoexec, and the network to their bare minimums. 3DS ran fine before, just 30 times slower. If you want pain, try adding a Sound Blaster or any digital video card to the mix. Now that's pain! I call it Studio De Sade. It's possible, and I've done it with several different video and sound boards; but only for beta test purposes. All extraneous hardware gets ripped out (and from now on, all absolutely unnecessary drivers) when I go into a serious 3D Studio session. As to what I do, right now I'm working on a multimedia CD-ROM game. The software end of things is done and ready for beta test (this was my original task) as soon as the artwork is complete. I've moved into the position of animator/3DS model refiner to allow our artists more modeling time. On any given 14-hour day, I also wear art direction, marketing, and tech support hats. In between, I like to walk, camp, and photograph the wilder areas of our country's national forests (but don't get the idea that I support Al Gore and his legions of armchair environmental fascists–Big Bro scares me more than bulldozers). As far as recommendations on a machine goes, maximize your RAM (my P5/90 was running dog slow whenever it hit the swapfile–I eliminated the need to go to swap, but haven't had time to go back and find out the whys and wherefors of the problem). Go with a vendor you trust. We stuck with Gateway on the P5/90 because we have a bunch of Gateway machines, some in service 24 hours a day for several years. I've never had a quality problem, nor a problem returning product, and I know how to punch through their automated phone system to get to a human when necessary. Someone else did the research on the P5/90 purchase, so I can't speak to how thorough a job they did, but it was reported to me that Gateway had the best price with a barely acceptable delivery time. Also, it very much depends on how many roles the machine will have to perform. I've been told by several more-or-less reliable sources that the Gateway motherboard works with several soon-to-be-released PCI-bus digital video boards. This was another plus in their favor. Hope this helps. Tom!