#Compaq 486/66m
13 messages in this thread
What is the NULL paramater? I've never rendered to Null before so I don't know
if it makes any difference or not but with a Pentium 60 8MB I rendered the
Racecar.3ds with Medium Antialiasing, 640x480x1 aspect ratio in 1:38.
Haven't compared that to a 486-66 yet so I don't know if that was good or bad.
That is by the way using my stock 3DS configuration and I didn't change my
Config.sys or anything from my typical day to day use. The CPQVesa driver was
loaded and rendered to a 640×480 VESA display.
Rendering to Null means using the Null device driver for your output. (Select
Renderer/Setup/Configure, click on the button beside "Display:" and select NULL
from the driver list. When you use the Null driver, no output is sent to your
display device. This speeds up rendering slightly, depending on the device, and
has been used for rendering speed comparisons so that the different output
devices don't skew the results.
– Jack
Ok, no wonder I never did it. I always want to see what I render <g>.
I can't imagine why. <g>
– J
Hi Larry,
The NULL parameter is located through the Render/Setup/Configure dialog.
Hmmm, 1:38 is 98 seconds which is a bit better than half the 185 seconds my
DX2/66 takes. You say thats a 8MB machine? I do believe that the file in
question needs more RAM than that to render. So I think you were swapping to
disk which will pretty much invalidate any test time here. Pretty much in line
with an ALR that I tested today. Could you check for Page Faults and if it was
swapping, is there any way to add more RAM?
Thanks for any help…
-Alan
Alan,
Why would swapping invalidate any time test? I mean with swapping it was still
twice as fast. I think that's pretty impressive. Although a true test with
enough RAM would be a better indication of the actual speed of the Pentium. But
it is a screamer huh? We've had a 5/66 on order for about 2 months and can't
get one. Damn Compaq. I tell ya ever since they went to that direct line thing
– they are terrible at getting equipment to their dealers. Makes me want to
sell Dell or something.
Oh well. Just thought I'd jump in.
Dave Mennenoh
Hi David,
Yeah, I agree that twice as fast even with swapping is pretty fast and an
indication of some serious floating-point processing going on! However, I guess
that I wouldn't really call it a true test while trying to accurately compare
the Pentium's rendering speed with a *non-swapping* DX2/66 rendering the same
file. I'm really hoping to duplicate AnaF's 4-5 times faster result, as this
would make a fabulous addition to my client's rendering farm, especially when
you consider RAM prices right now. Think about it — each Pentium could not
only be maybe 4x faster than a 66, but only needs *one* machines' worth of RAM
to achieve the performance. Pretty cost-effective solution, eh?
I hope that you get your Pentium soon, David! Please let me know how it works
for you. BTW, the ALR I "tested" (not much RAM again) had a bizarre habit of
sending PharLap into swapping as soon as 3DS booted up! A quick installation of
himem.sys seemed to fix the problem, but this may indicate that the Pentium
platform just might be quite memory-manager-sensitive, when it comes to 3DS.
Just a thought…
-Alan Iglesias
Alan,
Know what you mean about the RAM thing. Yeah, I think the pentium will be quite
the addition to our network. We have about 100 machines on our WAN and I can't
wait to see the rendering speeds with R3. As soon as we get the Pentium I'll
let you know how it goes. Boy – we ordered the thing months ago. It's the 66
though and I'm not sure if those are really our or not. Seems like a few people
have 60's but I don't know if anyones gotten a 66 yet? We used to sell ALR's
and had nothing but problems with them. It'll be interesting to see if the
Compaq does the same thing with Pharlap. Did you have any memory manager at all
loaded when that happened? Just wondering.
Dave Mennenoh Office Tech.
No, David, there was no memory manager running when the Boot/Swap problem
appeared. Just a clean DOS5 config. If the machine was mine I would test
rendering times with EVERY possible MM and configuration, just to see if there
is any difference!
-Alan
Alan,
RAM is a main factor in rendering times. In our 3ds tests, the Compaq have a
better time in the still 1024×768 truecolor phong aliashigh tga, but have only
8Mb (up to 136 in the cpu board) vs. the 16Mbs of the Dell. This result really
gives the point about the better compaq performance. If you look to the
animation times (60 frames FLI file) DELL wins. That could because the Compaq
have to swap to disk and then, loss seconds. There's have to be a math scheme
to calculate the necessary ram for render birdwalk to a fli WITHOUT swapping.
But if we can do the same test to tape, then you will have that the Compaq have
the better time. Compaq performance, remember Triflex, is obviously better. Of
course 66 times will be better. Anyway, Pentium outperforms any 486 in town…
in floating point intensive task. 0:58 vs. 486/50's 2:19? 8:15 vs. 34:54?
There's a clear winner for 3ds, I think 🙂 However, take a test with
Wordperfect 5.2 for Windows (too long to explain 🙂 0:11 with Pentium vs. 0:17
DX2/50 vs. 0:22 VLB 486/33.
But, for everybody, if you can hold your buy for a while, wait. With Apple
taking PCI 2 for their MPC based Macs, and specially with all this chips going
arround
Ana
BTW, anybody has hear something about Apple's QuickRing at Siggraph?
Ana,
Re: PowerPC
This may soon be the most cost-effective solution for general purpose
computing, but it will not help us 3DS users at least until there is an NT for
PowerPC and a 3DS port to NT (with a PowerPC binary).
What I am drooling over is the idea of a 3DS for Dec Alpha NT. The Alpha blows
away everything else on floating point.
Bailey
FYI, the direct sales have no effect on your 5/66. You can't buy high end
systems direct.
And the direct sales group is treated just like another dealer. They have
backorders too. The real problem is parts suppliers can't send us enough parts
to build enough computers.
Larry,
thanks for the info. Could you maybe build enough to just send me one? <BG>
Dave