Recommended processor or video card?

[ExTaZ]

yea i know what you mean about renders they can take for ever

[MrTom]

Thanks for the info about the ram Amotea, that's the kind of stuff I need to know.

This has been mentioned in the forums before, and although it may not apply directly to you, I think it's worth another mention.

XP (32bit), will only support upto 2gb of RAM, but if you have the facility to install more, you obviously want to be able to use it.....right?

Well you can...to a degree....by using what is known as a 3gb switch. It's very simple to do and only involves adding '/3gb' to the boot.ini file.

This is done at your own risk and a back-up should be made before proceding.

Here's how:
1. RIGHT click 'My computer' on your desktop, and select 'properties' and then 'Advanced'. If you don't have 'My Computer' on your desktop then go 'Control Panel', 'Performance and Maintenance', 'System', 'Advanced'.

2. Under 'Start Up and Recovery' click on 'Settings'.

3. Under 'System startup' click 'Edit'....this will open the 'Boot.ini' file in Notepad.

4. Add /3gb to the end of the last line so it reads:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn/3gb

Note: You may or may not have NoExecute=OptIn in the line. If not don't add it. Just add the /3gb to the end of that line.

5. Save the file......File>Save....in notepad.

6. Close everything and reboot your system.

You should now be able to access more than 2gb of RAM....if you have it.

Regards.

[ExTaZ]

Yea but i got a friend who have 2gb of RAM, I he never use it all. It's impossible you can see that it's like 1 gb of RAM that is not used...

So my opinion is don't do that you can never use all of the RAM, but i guess unless if you have started 3Dmax 2 times and a game or something like that...

[MrTom]

Well Iv'e no idea what you said there ExTaZ......but an application will only use the amount of RAM it needs at any one moment in time.......you can't make it use more.

The /3gb switch just allows XP access to more than the statutory 2gb should it be installed and subseqently needed.

Regards.

[Amotea]

Actually 32-bit Windows does support 4GB, it just uses 2GB of that for kernel mode processes, which leaves 2GB for user mode processes. But you'll definitely want to use the /3GB switch so that you can use 3GB in user mode.

[Podge]

I got you some recommendations from 3D world magizine issue 95.

Feature Comparison:

Alienware Mj-12 8550i : Intel Xeon 5150(2.66ghz, 1333Mhz FSB, 4MB cache) Quadro FX 3500 score 6

Deob Aeon R2 : Intel Xeon 5355(2.67GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 8MB cache); Quadro FX 4600 score 8

Xworks X20i-64 : 2x Intel Xeon 5355(2,67GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 8MB cache); Quadro FX 4600 score 7

ERA HP xw8400 : 2x Intel Xeon 5355(2,67GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 8MB cache); ATi FireGL V7350; score 8

CAD2 Imagine DQX : 2x Intel Xeon 5345(2,33GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 8MB cache); Quadro FX 4600; score 9

"The utter dominance of the Intel's latest chips did surprise us a bit, there's clearly no loyalty to AMD. It's the performance that counts, and you only need look at the difference between dual- and quad-core chips to see what this means to your work. If an application is properly mulithreaded, those extra cores can easily halve your rendering time, while the top-of the-range graphics cards make modeling your ideas a joy in the first place."

Hope this helps...

[ptm]

Thanks Podge, I was going to ask if anyone knew of any 3d magazines to which I could subscribe. Perhaps if anyone has any opinions of that and/or others, they could make a new thread about it
Also thanks for bringing up the second part of my initial inquery. nVidia Quadro FX and ATI FireGl are the two brands of video card designated for graphics workstation. Does anybody have any opinions or preferences in this area?

[ExTaZ]

ok i will try to simlify it there. if you press ctrl+alt+delte the RAM memory shows up some where. And when you let's say use 3Dmax you only use some of it mayby 500 RAM.


Is that any clearer?

[Podge]

Yep np PTM, it will make a difference and reduce stress knowing your pc can handle almost anything you can though at it

[Turdy]

PCIe 2.0 motherboards are going to be out soon. They are supposed to be backward compatable.