Help.

[fishtank]

Didn't know where to put this so.. here we go.

Im studying animation and have an alright computer. But it sucks for rendering my 3ds max videos and stills and takes ages with raytrace on. Where it is fine for running CS Source with about 50fps on a normal HDR map.

This has annoyed me and I'm saving up to buy a new computer over the summer. With the new Direct X coming out and the new graphics cards also. Im stuck between getting a Ati firegl ( i have only read it is good for rendering etc.) or if I got a new nvidea card would it cover it. I would love to be able to do both on my PC but do I have to choose?

Any advise would be great!

Thank you,

fishtank.

[Flake]

Render speed isn't really influenced by your graphics card, if you want to render faster you need a fast cpu and as much ram as possible, all a good gfx card will really do is enable you to move around dense 3D scenes with a good framerate.


Edit: Better hardware will help but even more important is learning to optimise your scenes for fast rendering, this is especially important if you're using MentalRay to render, it's hugely customisable but this means that until you have a basic understanding of the settings your rendertimes are likely to suck, it's not a "point and click" solution. If you are using MR I can probably dig out some docs that should help.

[fishtank]

Thanks man:D

I'll talk to me teacher about it a bit more.

Happy I don't have to give up a game driven graphics card. I knew the processor had more to do with it, was just wondering if I should get this firegl thingy.

I'll get back to you on the docs

thanks again.