NEED FOR SPEED!!! :)

I was wondering if FF has anything in the works or any advanced "Tweeking" tips for your computer to help speed up rendering?

What I mean by "in the works" is that I was wondering if FF was working on any acceleration programming.....maybe similar to what the graphics cards use?

It seems like a crying shame that some filter concepts are unusable because they are so slow. For example, CF's "Leafs" is an excellent new concept with all kinds of potential.....but it is excruciatingly slow to use.....

A lighting overhaul used to be at the top of my FF wishlist.....but as my own filters are becoming more complex.....rendering speed is now clearly at the top....

Hm, I'd like to see benchmarks: while not a catch-all, I'm on a dual-core computer right now but realistically, I've read the most I can stand to gain on optimized apps is closer to 80% gain, so not quite a doubling of speed, but still worthwhile. But my gladdiction to Filter Forge is certainly a compelling reason to get a quad-core compy!

Really slow filters would be useful with some sort of batch render too, the thing you could let run while you get a cup of coffee.

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Torley wrote: I've read the most I can stand to gain on optimized apps is closer to 80% gain, so not quite a doubling of speed

Yes, the actual number depends on many factors, but with FF running on a dual-CPU Opteron rig we've seen speedups greater than 100%. Don't ask how it did that, we have no idea.

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StevieJ wrote: I was wondering about the specs on the dual-CPU unit

2x AMD Opteron 248, 2.19 GHz
1GB RAM

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StevieJ wrote: greater than 100%???

The 'greater than 100%' part was marginal, about 101% or even less. It attracted our attention not because of the speedup, but because it was higher than the theoretical maximum.

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StevieJ wrote: invest in a new dual-core unit

I wouldn't advice to invest in a three-year old Opteron setup. Plus I don't think you can find these parts in stores -- they should be already out of production. Any modern dual-core or a quad-core CPU will do fine.

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StevieJ wrote: one which pushes FF greater than 100% would work wonders with everything else

I don't think so. Actually, the majority of apps won't see any major speedup from a dual-core processor -- except of course renderers, compositing apps, MPEG encoders and the like.

steve,

this is fairly common in xp. xp runs far more background tasks than any previous operating system by microsoft. norton products also tend to slow your system down and use a lot of system resources. and i'm sure there are others. one help is to go to www.blackviper.com and start studying. he's got a wealth of information on trimming xp down to size. you can also look on the web of optimizers, like xteq. these allow you to trim the fat also. some of the anti-malware stuff is on an active probe/scan basis also, which means it's always actively looking for junk on your system or coming into your system. most of those can be turned off and put on a stay resident but not active scan basis. i also always turn the auto-download/upgrade stuff off. windows wants you to leave windows updates on, but that's another process that eats up cycles, especially when it actually starts auto-downloading junk.

call up a control-alt-delete to get your task manager and look at the various tabs. notice in the one with the long list just how much junk is running and how much ram it's eating. it can really add up.

yeah, find what app is calling scan.exe and kill it. you can also turn it off in task manager and in msconfig (your startup stuff).

Makes me almost miss Win98, systray and explorer running at bootup, anything else = bad. WinXP is 43 times more stable though, despite being guilty of often times becoming bloatware. There's not much you can do to get around it, either spend some years learning Windows tricks etc., or just reinstall your O/S every 3 or 6 months and start clean, assuming you have a real Windows cd-rom and not some HP malware reclogger boot disc.

jffe

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StevieJ wrote: Done it several times.....weary of loosing things and having to reset alot of things though......but all in all. worth it to renew performance......

----I'd rather go to the dentist than reinstall my O/S. Last time I did was when I blew the motherboard/processor in late 2005. After 5-10 years running Windows, you kinda just learn what should be going on at any given time, and anything unusual is a red flag, you can spot it a mile away.
----That said, there's no real "safety" with computers, none, back up anything you can't afford to lose, multiple times, and keep offsite copies of the most important of the important.

jffe

sherry, yes, blackviper is one of the stables of the internet/windows. it's one of those places that if you run windows, you simply also go visit blackviper. he was down for 2 years but is back now and plans to do updates for service pack 2 and i'm guessing for vista.

also, check out his email filtering advice/tutorials. these also come in VERY handy!