Windows 7 4GB RAM for Maya Rendering

[TheCROW]

Hello all, I don't know if it's the right place to post this, but here goes:
My friend just got an i7 860 PC with 4GB Ram.
He mainly want to use the system for Maya and rendering.

The system currently has Windows XP PRO SP3 32-bit with Maya 8.
My question is:
If he upgrades to Windows 7 32-bit and installs Maya 2010, will he notice a system improvement in those 2 tasks? Will Windows 7 make the most out of the i7 CPU and Rams in a better way than XP SP3? What do you suggest?
Thankyou kindly.

 

[valtonray]

well he is really going to want to install 64 bit windows 7, or he will be limited in his upgrades. also may want to consider upgrading to 6x2gb sticks since he will be using DDR3. windows 7 while may not necessarily beign faster than xp all the time it will make better use of his resources than xp. but def go 64 bit on this one so it doesn't come back to bite you in the rear.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
all these apps need DECENT HDD's (or SSD's if you can afford them).

SLOW DISKS will KILL ANY COMPUTER however much RAM and fast the CPU is.

Ensure your disks are trhe FASTEST you can afford -- and if you have a mix put all PAGING AND SCRATCH files (Work area) on to the FAST devices. The OS itself can sit on a slow disk as once it's been loaded most of the OS is available by Pre-fetch from the paging file(s). Not a lot is dynamically loaded from the OS partition after boot up.

Many people make the mistake of putting the OS on the fastest I/O device -- not needed -- ONLY the paging file needs to be on the fast device.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[valtonray]

Hi there
all these apps need DECENT HDD's (or SSD's if you can afford them).

SLOW DISKS will KILL ANY COMPUTER however much RAM and fast the CPU is.

Ensure your disks are trhe FASTEST you can afford -- and if you have a mix put all PAGING AND SCRATCH files (Work area) on to the FAST devices. The OS itself can sit on a slow disk as once it's been loaded most of the OS is available by Pre-fetch from the paging file(s). Not a lot is dynamically loaded from the OS partition after boot up.

Many people make the mistake of putting the OS on the fastest I/O device -- not needed -- ONLY the paging file needs to be on the fast device.

Cheers
jimbo

great tip many people set it up going for a faster boot time when using SSD,but since i only restart my computers occasionally i'll take a slower boot over increased performance.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
If you have a large program like Photoshop it'll probably take a few ms longer to load - but if your scratch and page files are on the SSD you'll MORE than gain in increased performance of the application.

Most CPU's are plenty powerful enough these days (assuming we aren't all going bonkers on trying to run too many apps at the same time etc.)

Even if your RAM is slightly constrained you'll still get a better performance on putting swap / paging files on the SSD - the swap / page in / page out will be MANY TIMES faster than on a conventional disk.

Note you must have more than a minimum RAM size however or you'll get "Thrashing" - that is when there isn't enough RAM do do anything so the page disk just gets continually accessed not allowing the computer to do any thing else.

BTW also for any User type DB's (MySQL etc) put all INDEXES on the SSD -- this will really speed up DB queries since the DB segments can be "pre-read" pending the next query.

It's a complex algorithm but it works.

(OT - last time I was in Florida had "Gator Tails" -- actually quite a decent meal -- until the waitress said "Hope you enjoyed your Snappy Meal" ).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[TheCROW]

Thanks for your replies guys,
The HDD is a WD Sata 500GB, and all scratch and swap files are on the C partition.
The problem is that my friend has the 32-bit edition of Maya and he wants to be sure if his setup would be faster on Win7 that XP before doing the switch.
Going 64-bit is out of the question for now but remains the last resort after upgrading to 8GB of Ram.

 

[bobkn]

Disclaimer: I do no video editing.

I believe that if your friend only switched to Win7 X86 (32 bit), there wouldn't be a significant performance change. (It could be slower than under XP.)

I'd recommend a system with more RAM, Win7 X64, and the 64 bit version of Maya 2010.

(I run Win7 X64 on a system with 12GB of RAM. The 64 bit version of Photoshop CS4 is significantly faster than the 32 bit version, although I've done no benchmarking.)

Just for example:

Core I7 920 CPU, approx. $300US

X58 motherboard, <$300

12GB DDR3 1600 (6 X 2GB), approx. $300

Win7 X64 Home Premium, $200.

Your friend might need a new PSU as well ($100 or so). A Socket 1156 system could save $200 or more on this, but it won't do triple channel memory. I have no idea what the new Maya license might cost. The hardware upgrade costs aren't pocket change, but they're not much for a revenue-generating PC.

 

[TheCROW]

Well, as I mentioned in my first post, he already bought the system:
i7 cpu 860
DP55WB mobo
4GB DDR3
ATI 5850 1GB DDR5
ThermalTake 600W PSU
It's a very fast system, and if he can fork more $ for RAM and 64-bit software, eventually he will make the switch.
But is it possible that XP SP3 x86 gives better oerformance than Win7 x86 on this setup?
Thank you for all your replies.

 

[bobkn]

Well, as I mentioned in my first post, he already bought the system:
i7 cpu 860
DP55WB mobo
4GB DDR3
ATI 5850 1GB DDR5
ThermalTake 600W PSU
It's a very fast system, and if he can fork more $ for RAM and 64-bit software, eventually he will make the switch.
But is it possible that XP SP3 x86 gives better oerformance than Win7 x86 on this setup?
Thank you for all your replies.

(Blush.) I read the first post, but forgot about it in the course of the thread.

It's possible that Maya will be faster under XP SP3 than under Win7 X86, but I wouldn't expect a large difference. I'm not the person to answer that for certain, though.

 

[Futureanimator]

Hello all, I don't know if it's the right place to post this, but here goes:
My friend just got an i7 860 PC with 4GB Ram.
He mainly want to use the system for Maya and rendering.

The system currently has Windows XP PRO SP3 32-bit with Maya 8.
My question is:
If he upgrades to Windows 7 32-bit and installs Maya 2010, will he notice a system improvement in those 2 tasks? Will Windows 7 make the most out of the i7 CPU and Rams in a better way than XP SP3? What do you suggest?
Thankyou kindly.

Be careful though, Maya 2010 is not meant for windows 7 and even autodesk says it might have issues. I am a Maya 2011 user and my graphics card keeps crashing and maya 2011 cannot switch scenes without having to shutdown completely. Maya 2011 is meant for Windows 7

 

[DeaconFrost]

Going 64-bit is out of the question for now but remains the last resort after upgrading to 8GB of Ram.

Why is it out of the question?

But is it possible that XP SP3 x86 gives better oerformance than Win7 x86 on this setup?

Considering how old XP is, and you are asking about a very modern system, Windows 7 will run as well, ir not better than XP. I always get a laugh out of these threads, because I don't understand why someone would drop that kind of cash on a system, and then load up an OS that is 9 years old, with drivers that weren't optimized for said 9 year old OS. If you bought a high end sports car, would you put junk tires on it? Now, don't take this as a bash against XP, but look at his system specs. If you were writing a driver for some of that hardware...what OS would be your primary focus for performance?

 

[TheCROW]

Going 64-bit is out of the question for now but remains the last resort after upgrading to 8GB of Ram.

Why is it out of the question?

Because add the price of extra RAM + Windows 7 64 + Maya 64 and you'll see

But is it possible that XP SP3 x86 gives better oerformance than Win7 x86 on this setup?

Considering how old XP is, and you are asking about a very modern system, Windows 7 will run as well, ir not better than XP. I always get a laugh out of these threads, because I don't understand why someone would drop that kind of cash on a system, and then load up an OS that is 9 years old, with drivers that weren't optimized for said 9 year old OS. If you bought a high end sports car, would you put junk tires on it? Now, don't take this as a bash against XP, but look at his system specs. If you were writing a driver for some of that hardware...what OS would be your primary focus for performance?

You missed the whole point, we're not talking general performance, we were only referring to Maya, not Windows and other performance.
Thanks for your replies.

 

[DeaconFrost]

You missed the whole point, we're not talking general performance, we were only referring to Maya, not Windows and other performance.

So was I. Windows 7 offers much better memory management...especially when dealing with memory hungry apps.

 

[FLAMEPHEONIX]

Maya working on following

Good day,

I see you are struggelling in installing Maya on ur new disktop

well if this counts here is my result

I got 4 Computers,

OS Win 7 Ultimate
Win 7 Enterprise
Win 7 Homepremuime
Win XP Pro

XP is fine to use for Maya but it as said in numeruse forms it has Limite in Hardware Support,
it is True that you whould not like to go to Vesta becouse it wont give you the performance it needs to give as much as it uses the resorces for its self so its useless
I want to point out My computers are
I5 and I7 Prossesorse
Ram 4 and 8 GB
VGA 2 GB and 1 GB
ATI and Nvidia
Hard disk 750 GB 5000 RPM and dual 500 5000 RM
I am not exact sure of the full number of RPMs but
u can benifite from Win 7 more than XP
I was ready to sacrefice my PC just to make sure that I get the correct and right hardware to give me the performance needed
so I tested the XP I have and the Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise
bouth haveing 4 GB ram
750 Hard drive and bouth haveing I5 Prossesors
with 1 GB ram on Windows 7 and 2 GB ram for the Win XP
I had a big scene to render and work with
and had alot of time to kill
so I tested them and ended up im haveing Win 7 Ultimate haveing at least 4 times faster performance and no errors what so ever.
But my real test was in the final Laptop I got Yes a Laptop so called not for Maya ussage.
Ram 8 GB Prosessor I7
1 VGA Nvidia Card
1 Terra Harddrive
Windows 7 Home Premuime

Still can be upgreadabel to 32 GB Ram and Up to 3 2 Terra SSD hard drives with 1 VGA Nvidea with Vertual 3.6GB = 4.6 GB VGA
total performance out put in a full HD screen Render it took 1 min for 20 Frames to render not in Batch Rendering
in batch render it took a HD quality a 5 min to render 200 Frames dont ask me how it just did
One more advice I can give you is to ask Autodesk or some one more fameliar to Maya to how to get the Prossessing in ur secondary Drive Exampel
I read in a form that u can get even 30-300 times more preformance by just installing Maya on ur 2nd Harddrive and better to make it 10000 RPM or an SSD drive with haveing the Maya use all its resorces in that Drive dont let it use the Primary Drive Unless if u got a 1 Terra SSD Drive as your Primary and got a VGA Nvidia as 2 GB or higher Solid Base with Vertual it can Hit 4 GB or 5 GB like mine
this all out comes to Windows 7 Ulitimate is at least for real 100-1000 tIMES better than XP and dotn forget to get it as a 64 bit Operating system with ur 64 bit Matherbord.

sorry for this long post but it coveres all detailes unless if u need more XD ^^ I hope this worked

 

[TheCROW]

Thank you for the time you put into your reply.
I appreciate your help and sharing your tests and results.
Big Thanks!

 

[FLAMEPHEONIX]

It was never a Problem ^^ always Glade to help the people who are in my filed and any filed

 

[FLAMEPHEONIX]

One more Advice I just remembered was you got to always get the Latest Hot Fixes becouse they helped in solving alot of problems,
some problems like the textures disapearing or get node braked or ur project folder missing the resorces after a while, and the biggest thing was for simpel Scenes getting crashed that got fixed.

Always get the Updated fixes and info, and one thing for u not to fall in is there is now fast render like this tutorial I got for makeing ur rendering at least 100-5000 times faster O_O u got to be kidding me if that worked u dont need to upgread any more XD Just to know I am trying those tutorials and if they work I will post the link for u ^^ I hope u got satisfied ^^ take care and cya soon.
now got to go finish my project XD btw I am Studant for Animation not higher than a regular deploma ^^ but aiming to get BA and higher XD wish me Goodluck ^^ ok take care u all chears.

 

[TheCROW]

Thanks again and best of luck to you