My Computer Is Too Small and Too Slow

I am sure that the number one rule for computers, at least for me is:

"Regardless of how big or fast your computer is, you will find a program that will bring it to it's knees and cause you to go out to websites and check for bigger, faster and more expensive hardware!"

Two years ago, which is a lifetime in computer hardware, I bought a top end gaming computer from Dell. It was a thing of beauty with 2 - 2.8 Gigahertz CPUs, 2 Gigs of RAM, 500 Gig Hard Drive, 2 Video Cards and a 24" Monitor. I put the most demanding game I could find on the market, Oblivian and stress tested at all the highest settings and it handled it no problem.

This little experiment also ended my high end gaming career. I found out that it was so seamless and immersive that I actually got motion sickness playing any of the real time games. So, my big plans for spending my time playing those cool new games were put on the shelf. I have tried and tried various games and basically found out I literally couldn't stomach them.

So, I got into virtual worlds and now 3D modeling. The virutal worlds like Second Life and Multiverse were child's play for by big computer rig. They were not as demanding as the games I had been playing. But, then I got Poser and started doing 3D modeling and animation. Now, I know why the big digital studios are some of the favorite customers of the high end hardware companies. The 3D applications of which I primarily use Poser are very demanding on computers hardware. The idea of having "Dreamworks on your Desktop" is just a pipedream.


I was getting very disapointed when I started to render a picture that it took 5 - 10 minutes to render a shot. So, I looked at render options within Poser and hoped I could change the settings to maybe speed it up. To my suprise, I discovered that the 5 - 10 minute shot was already set to the lowest settings! That was the best I could do. So, just wondering, I decided to move up from "draft mode" to some of the higher "final modes". I first tried the highest setting. I started it before I went to bed. I got up the next morning to see the expected spectacular results. It was about 10% rendered and both CPUs were pegged to 100% and had been all night. I rebooted and started trying lower settings.


Forget it, nothing above the "draft mode" which didn't include smoothing, ray tracing, ambient occlusion and all the other cool toys of the 3D artist would work. So, I got on the message board and asked what others were using for PCs. I now officially have PC envy. The 3D hobbiest is a gold mine for hardware manufactures. The "average rig" others had on the message forums were qaud core machines with at least 12G RAM! Price tag in today's market ....... 5 grand.


Also, it kicked off a lot of debate about the use of render farms versus your own PCs for rendering. Companies buy hardware and then rent out space to 3D artists to render on their hardware. It requires special software like Poser Pro (another $200 on top of what I have) that can do network rendering. Suprisingly a number of the other people on the message forums were using "home made" render farms, where they had strung together 2 or 3 high end machines. Render fames are expensive, but, if you build your own, the hardware soon becomes out of date.

So, with all my research their is no easy fix for getting "Dreamworks on the Desktop" for Mojo. Of course the easy answer is just not to worry about high end rendering because after all it is just a hobby. Yeah right! That sounds like me, don't spend a lot of money on hobbies or vacations. So, the real question is how to break the news to Nancy. :)

Render Farm At Pixar