Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/29/2003, 8:04 PM
Renders are CPU bound but the bus and memory speed also plays a big part in moving lots of data required for the render. I currently have a P4 1.7Ghz 400FSB (100Mhz x4) and I just bought the parts to assemble a P4 3.0GHz 800Mhz FSB (200Mhz x4) rig. I’m waiting for the memory to arrive tomorrow and then I’ll complete the assembly and fire it up. I’ll let you know what kind of increase I get.

~jr
beerandchips wrote on 12/30/2003, 6:31 AM
should be cut very close to in half. That is what I get from my 1.8 desktop to 3 laptop.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/1/2004, 4:16 PM
I finally got my new rig assembled and I’m getting a little more than 2x improvement. I used the rendertest file from the sundance site. Here are my times:

Old: P4 1.7Ghz / 400Mhz / 512MB RAM = 3:21
New: P4 3.0Ghz / 800Mhz FSB / 1GB RAM = 1:35

I haven’t even tuned XP yet. I just loaded it and there are tons of TSR programs from the various software I’ve installed that I have yet to remove. Not bad. I’m very happy.

~jr
GaryKleiner wrote on 1/1/2004, 4:20 PM
>New: P4 3.0Ghz / 800Mhz FSB / 1GB RAM = 1:35<

Nice ! :-)

Gary
sjohn wrote on 1/1/2004, 6:20 PM
nice.. but what tuning can you do?
John_Cline wrote on 1/1/2004, 10:03 PM
The Videoguys.com web site has some Windows XP tweaks specifically geared towards video editing systems.

John
busterkeaton wrote on 1/2/2004, 1:31 AM
sjohn,

Windows has to work for an incredibly large and diverse user base, so it trys to cover all the bases. And mass retailers like Dell want Windows to cover all these bases. As a result, there are a lot of services that load that may or may not apply to you. For example, services having to do with networking may load every time you start your computer. If you are a home user who is not on a network, you don't need this to happen. So the tweaks John Cline is pointing to suggest turning unneeded services from "Automatic" to "Manual." Manual means they will not run unless needed by another program and when the other program calls for it, it will start. There are other tweaks you can do as well, setting your page file correctly, making sure only necessary programs run in the background, etc.

Before tweaking, I would make sure to image your system drive to make a backup. Then when tweaking, I would go step by step with many reboots just to make sure the tweak is actually something you want to do.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/2/2004, 5:02 AM
> Nice ! :-)

Gary. Thanks. It’s the first machine I’ve built myself and I'm glad I did. Now when I want to upgrade, I don’t have to throw the whole box out because of non-standard parts like my Dell had. I selected a motherboard (Gigabyte 8KNXP) that is Prescott ready so hopefully I will be able to just drop a new processor in next year and keep going. (at least that’s the theory) ;-)

> but what tuning can you do?

You want to optimize the OS settings for your personal usage and eliminate all the Microsoft bloat ware that’s eating up cycles and offering no value to you. In addition to the VideoGuys site that has some excellent tips on settings that you can use to squeeze every ounce of performance out of your OS. There’s also a great site called BackViper.com that will explain in great detail what every single process does in the Services panel and how they relate to each other. This way you can determine if you need a service and turn it off if you don’t. He also warns you not to use msconfig to modify services as it will allow you to disable your machine if you’re not careful. It’s a great resource to be aware of.

BlackViper also has some excellent tips on spam and viruses base on avoidance rather than detection after the fact. It’s a gold mine of information about Windows XP/2000 for those who really want to understand what’s running on their system.

~jr
johnmeyer wrote on 1/2/2004, 9:41 AM
I would advise to not go overboard with tweaking. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it; just don't spend much time chasing rainbows. Set aside an hour, tops, and then go do something else.

In the "old days" (1980s), there were some remarkable tweaks that made huge differences in performance. This was in the days before disk caching was part of the O/S, and you could get 2x performance improvements by adding a disk cache. Same with memory manager tweaks.

With modern operating systems, tweaks do far less for performance. They are still worth doing in order to reduce boot times, and increase stability. They can also reduce the unexpected frame drop due to processes "waking up" and doing something.

What is missing from all these tweak sites (and I've spent lots of time playing around with all the tweaks at BlackViper and similar sites) is some actual scientific measurement of the results. It is taken on faith that the fewer processes running in the background, the better.

I'm not saying you shouldn't tweak (I have my nine computers pared to the bone), but that you shouldn't spend much time doing it, and you should make some benchmarks before you start tweaking to see if you really make any difference. My educated guess is that you will not be able to measure any improvements at all in render times. If you are getting 1:34 on the Sundance test, I would be AMAZED to see that time drop by any measurable amount.

The only tweaks I have found that are worth doing:

Turn off indexing for all drives
Completely eliminate Messenger from your system

You could also turn off System Restore for all drives, although System Restore has saved me enough times that I keep it turned on.

These three tweaks affect disk performance. Since renders are not very sensitive to disk speeds (unless something is really broken), I don't think you'll see any difference in rendering,