So just playing around with my new computer, 64-bit capable but with 32-bit win 7 on it. I downloaded an ISO of 64-bit Ubuntu that could run off dvd, grabbed official blender 2.61, and made a test scene using Cycles.
Right away I noticed that the viewport render seemed to be snappier and more responsive. Material previews also seemed quicker.
I wanted to make a quick scene, but have enough complexity to actually have a decent speed comparison. If interested, I could put the .blend up somewhere. There’s two sphere-mesh lamps and world sky light. the cubes are a mix-mix of diffuse+glossy mixed with translucent. the torus is a mix of diffuse+velvel, and the cones are just a glossy. the ground is a basic diffuse with a musgrave texture slotted in to mix up the color.
I set the render to 1000 samples, but stopped it at 520 on both platforms.
Outcome? 64-bit Ubuntu, 1hr 36min
… 32-bit Win 7, 2hr 35min
WoWoW!! :spin:
I know which platform I’ll be working in, especially rendering! :evilgrin: ('cept I’m going with a different distro, not fully decided which yet)
here’s the image:
And yeh (btw) I agree, w7 is great; Best they’ve produced since W2K and even better than that. I hated XP.
It’s easy to take results and use them to enforce opinions we have; I’m not doubting myself they have some meaning.
But, I’m not basing my computer usage on evidence I don’t know is accurate. The results are accurate, the evidence you want those results to prove is just supposition.
Hmm. I’d have to guess that W7x64 would be significantly faster than W7x32, although linux is supposed to be faster than windows, it’s not THAT much faster on any benchmark I’ve seen. I run windows x64, anyway.
yeah, as I said, I’d like to be runing 64 bit win 7, but this computer came, used, with a ‘network install’ of win 7 so I can’t do a re-install to 64-bit; I’d have to purchase the commercial or OEM win 7 disks.
mostly I just wanted to see what sort of diff. there was between 32 bit and 64 bit, not neccessarily win vx. linux. I myself am surprised at the speed diff. … and THAT was running Ubuntu off a 'Live" dvd … I bet it would be even faster with a custom install actually ON the hard drive!!
The big boys, including Pixar, render on Linux because it doesn’t suck up overhead nearly as much as Windows. Who needs the OS to get in the way when you just need to calculate one gigantic math problem? The Animation program where I am uses Maya on Linux (yes, Linux, even though it’s a pain in the butt for them to have to reboot into Windows just to use Photoshop) because both the industry uses Linux, and because Linux is faster: less overhead. Not because it’s free, either - they use Red Hat. Because it’s faster.
In the meantime, use whatever you want. I don’t want to start a religious war, I’m just stating the facts.
Artao, I am pretty sure you can legally install and activate a Windows 64bit with the same license of a 32bit; I did it sometimes with computers in my company and all activations were successfull. I think Microsoft doesn’t care about what architecture you use, instead they do care that you use a license that you legally purchased.
Back on topic, did you perform a CPU or GPU rendering? It would be nice to check if the difference is so great with different rendering systems.
@Carrozza – I checked into it pretty thoroughly. The discs include both 64 and 32 bit, and the key applies to both. On a network install such as I have, the key only applies to the bit-level installed. made me sad. … however, if you have any tips/clues as to how I can up this install to 64 bit (EDIT: and remain legal) I’m all ears!! … First thing I did when I got it was make a system image and boot disc.
I fully intend to put a 64-bit Linux distro on this machine … I’m still going thru testing various distros – it’s been awhile since i last went linuxy
I’m thinkin of going with a minimal Debian install and putting Enlightenment and/or xfce on it.
I’ll dual boot win 7 for … um … stuff that doesn’t work under Linux I guess … <shrug>
EDIT EDIT: OH! CPU rendered … my GPU isn’t capable, mere ATI x600 256M card … I plan on replacing that as soon as I can afford to, which might be this month. I need to buy a new power supply for my media server as well, so I want to combine both purchases in one if possible. I’m looking at a GeForce card in the 50 to 100 buck range.
Well, I recently downloaded Windows 7 ISOs from here; it’s just a collection of links from Digital River company, which acts as content media provider for Microsoft.
They are legal downloads because they are not activated products, but trials which ends soon if you don’t activate it on-line.
Just be very careful on which version to download, because there are quite a lot of variations.
Back on topic, I hope to test soon some Linux distro, maybe Ubuntu 12.04 alpha 2, because with my current laptop none would boot of the ones I tried (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, ecc.).
Hi artao, go not under a GTX 550 TI because of no fun with cycles on smaller cards, it is about 100 €.
Or look for Cuda Compute Capability 2.1 which is the latest chip technology.
@mib2berlin: thx, I’ve been wondering about that. Looks like low end of new for that series is around 130us. I think I’d been looking at a GT or GTS series with 1G RAM. No good with Cycles? … may have to push purchase to March …
Yes, depends of your cpu the low end cards are not much faster than your cpu.
For newer cards just look to the cuda kernels, GTX 550 is 192, a GT 520 has 48.
GTX 550 is nearly 4 times faster than GT 520 for 1/2 $ and you need more vram, i stuck sometimes with my 895 MB.
Also in march GTX 600 is comming > lower prices for older cards. I wait also to change my GTX 260 to a newer card.
There should be no difference between 32 and 64 bit flavors for rendering, since the main difference would be memory management. There have been many benchmarks done on both, and with many render engines, and the speed differences are usually due to disk swapping rather than engine performance based on environment. I ran both Windows 7 64bit and Ubuntu 11.04 64bit and found that there was no significant difference in render times. The most significant difference lies in the processor type and GPU used in rendering engines that utilize the GPU. Linux is faster in some areas and Win 7 in others, making them about a dead heat in an overall category. As a side note, there have been render engines the run slightly faster in the 32bit environment rather than the 64bit.
Remember that there are many factors to consider with render times and hardware, kernaling, and OS.
If you’re an intermediate/advanced linux user, check out arch linux.
Also, I am interested to know what differences you will see between liveCD and installed, since the liveCD copies files to a ramdisk (thus faster tmp performance, I would guess, although I don’t know if it would make a difference.)
I run W7 Pro 64bit running off a 128GB SSD drive via an AMD X4 640 @ 3ghz with 8GB Ram along side Nvidia GTX 460 SE (1GB, 288 stream processors) and Cycles with GPU is about 20 times quicker than Cycles with CPU. Have yet to try linux but i think it depends on many factors;
I know that my GFX card is not the fastest, but it does support Cuda Compute and Open CL so I am happy at the moment and Blender with Cycles GPU seems quicker for me than Octane.
I would say I USED to be an intermediate Linux user … 6 to 8 yrs ago. Things have changed enuf I would now consider myself a beginner to advanced beginner.
Arch Linux I think would be beyond me atm. Besides, Ubuntu Studio comes pre-loaded with a TON of coold graphics, audio, and video apps. PLUS ALSA/JACK/PulseAudio/MIDI pre-configured and working together properly.
The included Blender is 2.58, but that’s easy enuf to fix. With the ridicu-rapid dev cycle of blender, it’s a bit much to expect ANY distro to be completely up-to-date in that regard.
I’ll test today my scene under my fresh new hard-drive install of Ubuntu Studio … tho I expect little to no diff. from my Ubuntu Live results …
:spin:
… however, if you have any tips/clues as to how I can up this install to 64 bit (EDIT: and remain legal) I’m all ears!! 
… First thing I did when I got it was make a system image and boot disc. 
I wait also to change my GTX 260 to a newer card.