More ram?

[eliaskiller]

Hi! I dont know if this is the right forum to post in.

 

I'm curently modeling a model of a character in A:M and it's beginnig to become a large mesh (loads of splines, cps etc...)

The more i model the lower fps i get and this slows down the program, so i was hoping that someone can help me.

 

Do i ned more ram? Or a better video card?

 

My laptop has 512mb of ram with a 64mb video/3d card, is it possible to get better speed or fps if i'd upgrade to 1Gig of ram?

Or do i have to have a better video card?

 

 

Elias

[Bruce Del Porte]

What kind of computer and what operating system are you using. You can check your ram usage in Windows by opening the Task Manager and looking at the Performance tab. If you want better real-time performance, you will probably need a faster video card. Overall, your computer is probably on the lower end of performance to doing CG and video.

[C-grid]

Elias,

 

I hope one of the programmers will give a more exact answer.

 

When modelling, the realtime-view after the realtime-view is created depends greatly on the gpu and vga-ram.

When modelling, almost everything is CPU based, meaning large objects will need a large amount of RAM to hold the CP, where the 5-point-patches are, etc.

In order to further modelling the model and wanting the program still to be responsive in workable times at modeling-tasks, you need a faster CPU.

 

Niels

 

 

ps.

It's unclear to me if e.g. the box object null-coordinate is a 64-bit integer and the rest of the cp are relative to the box, these things matter in order to determine how much RAM would really be advisable at a certain number of CPs.

[eliaskiller]

Im using a 2year old Acer travelmate 4050

 

it's got an intel pentium M 715 processor (1,5GHz, 400MHz fsb)

 

and my operating system is WinXp

[MMZ_TimeLord]

When modeling, if your patch usage goes above 4,000 or 7,000 then A:M will slow down SIGNIFICANTLY.

 

Easy way to check this is to right click on your model in the project workspace (PWS) and select 'info'. It should give you the patch count.

 

If it's over one of the two numbers mentioned above, you may want to break your model up into sections and assemble them with an action.

 

This is what I had to do with the Golden Gate Bridge project (I think it's on the Extras DVD).

[eliaskiller]

ok thanks

 

i checked and it was around 2500 patches and fps is around 40 in shaded wireframe mode and 90 in wire.

 

maybe its time to get a new computer

 

Thanks for the help

[The Bird Man of Alcatraz]

Wow, I was wondering why A:M was running so slowly...

I've created a ship that has 9291 patches. I never thought that it had that many, nor would it matter. Maybe I should shrink it down a bit.

 

-The Bird Man

[higginsdj]

There are other techniques for speeding things up. You can reduce the sub patch count per patch using the PgDn key or you can hide the parts you aren't working on and ensure you have things you don't need turned off when you don't need them - ie hair, decals etc.

 

Cheers

[Muff]

My 2 cents = either 1) upgrades on both Mem and card or 2) new laptop? And...64 meg card sounds rough! 512 Ram is definately bare minimum. But I would lean more towards the card when it comes to crunching numbers (not to mention processor for that extra ummmphhh...), whatever you may have? So it pretty much all sums up to new laptop or a timely upgrade.