** image from sodahead.com
I got my computer parts yesterday and put everything together. The first program I installed was Blender and quickly tried to test render some files.
As a reminder, my old system was an imac intel core duo at 2.4 mhz, onboard video, and 3 gigs ram. My new system is intel i5 3.3 sandy bridge, 8 gigs ram, and nvidia gtx 550 ti video card with 1 gig vid ram.
Yes… it’s faster. A LOT faster. The scene I mentioned in my previous post from Blender Diplom is the winter frost tutorial using cycles. On my old system, it took 6 hours 13 minutes to render 3,000 cycles. On my new system with the CPU, it took approximately 3 hours. I rendered it to 300 cycles and then calculated the time. I couldn’t find the setting in cycles to let my GPU render it. After reading on the internet I found that I needed to update the video card driver. After doing that, I set the renderer to GPU and it took… 1.2 hours!! That is so awesome.
I also did some test renders on other files I had before. In my portfolio there is a grass scene. The tutorial suggested 100,000 grass particles. On my imac I couldn’t get above 45,000 before Blender crashed because it ran out of memory. On my new system, it took about 10 minutes with 100,000 particles. The original 45,000 particle render takes approximately 15 minutes on my imac. It takes 6 on my new system!!
I’m so excited. Depending on the scene and the render settings, my new system is cutting the time down 50-75%. This makes animation possible without having to pay for a render farm!
I really am stoked about this. Oh, and with the 8 gigs of RAM, the 3d view is super smooth.
I have a lot of tutorial catch up to learn. I’m in Blender Guru’s Nature Academy and haven’t done the last two weeks because I’ve been frustrated with my system. Also, the download link to my preorder for the CG Cookie Animation Fundamentals was just sent this morning, so I have that also. AND, I’ve been working through the CG Master’s modeling a ninja tutorial.
Anyone want to come to work for me so I can concentrate on learning Blender? Haha.
As I work through these things, I’ll be posting progress reports and reviews.
