Solid state

deeahr2169

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this but if not I apologise.

I have a Mac with extra Ram which I installed myself, and its pretty fast normally. However I have been trying to learn how to use Dforce and quite honestly the time it takes for anything to actually happen makes this virtually pointless. Before I began my exploration of Dforce I was thinking of upgrading my machine to improve performance and render times. My thinking was to replace the hard drive with a solid state drive, which my local computer shop tells me will show a significant increase in performance. This is the current spec of the machine...

 Model Name:    iMac

 Model Identifier:    iMac12,2

  Processor Name:    Intel Core i5

  Processor Speed:    2.7 GHz

  Number of Processors:    1

  Total Number of Cores:    4

  L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB

  L3 Cache:    6 MB

  Memory:    16 GB

  Boot ROM Version:    IM121.004E.B00

The graphics spec is...

Chipset Model:    AMD Radeon HD 6770M

  Type:    GPU

  Bus:    PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width:    x16

  VRAM (Dynamic, Max):    512 MB

  Vendor:    AMD (0x1002)

  Device ID:    0x6740

  Revision ID:    0x0000

  ROM Revision:    113-C0170F-175

  VBIOS Version:    113-C29501-103

  EFI Driver Version:    01.00.560

I am not claiming to understand all of that info, but include it to hopefully inform the possible answers to my question. What can I change, add or do short of actually getting a new machine,to improve the rendering and performance times I am currently experiencing.

Any advice would be much appreciated bearing in mind that my tehcnical knowledge is minimal.

Many thanks

David

 

 

Richard Haseltine

An SSD would improve file-loadign times, it would not help with calculation-heavy activities such as simulation or rendering (unless disc swapping were occurring, but more memory or scene optimisation would be the fix there). Your Mac does not have an nVidia GPU, and nor would an updated model currently, so you  are limited to CPU for rendering in Iray - dForce simulation would use the GPU, but the memory (.5GB) may well be limiting its usefulness.