I was using a 700 MHz G4 iMac with 768 MB memory.

Andrew Sage Wrote:I was using a 700 MHz G4 iMac with 768 MB memory.

Thanks. A little more RAM than me, but otherwise the same system as I have. Depressing news, but I guess I can keep away from my computer a couple of days now and then, when my Blender-powers are sufficient for that kind of animation tasks...

Fruity Wrote:Depressing news, but I guess I can keep away from my computer a couple of days now and then, when my Blender-powers are sufficient for that kind of animation tasks...

It is not all bad news. I use a lot of procedural textures. If you use pre-generated textures (i.e. bitmaps) then the render time can be greatly reduced.

Andrew Sage Wrote:It is not all bad news. I use a lot of procedural textures. If you use pre-generated textures (i.e. bitmaps) then the render time can be greatly reduced.

Hmm.. Procedural is where I want to get, (even though I use bitmaps for now), well.. another reason to buy a 12" G5 powerbook when released summer 2006. Or 2007 or whatever..

Getting a new faster computer does not actually mean you get things rendered quickly.
It just means you try to do more impressive things with each render which you could not have done before.

I speak from experience as over the years every time I've got a new faster computer I render the old stuff really quickly and then add in some more effects and get back to where I was in the first place.