[Visualpython-users] Speed Issues

[Joel K. <jj...@ya...>]

Jonathan Brandmeyer wrote:

>Cluster? No, I think that would 
>be a bad idea for VPython.  

Bad as in "not cost-effective" (sort of your next
point), or bad as in "no significant speed increase at
all in a cluster"? I'd be interested in finding out
more about whether VPython can benefit from any kind
of parallel processing.

>Any recent video card will be able 
>to handle pretty much anything 
>you can throw at it from VPython.  
>A scene with several translucent 
>and textured objects, some using a 
>source image of 1024x2048 pixels, 
>can be rendered in only a few ms on 
>common PC hardware. You really 
>can't notice that it takes any time at 
>all, and the UI remains buttery-smooth.

I can speak only from my own experience with my 2Ghz
Athlon processor, 256MB system RAM, and S3 Graphics
ProSavageDDR card (32MB graphics RAM), usually kept in
1024x768 true-color mode, all operating under Windows
XP. In this environment, I have been able to put
together objects that caused unacceptably slow
renderings, "low virtual memory" warnings, and even
the odd system crash. When I animate some complex
scenes (usually using "rotate" commands in loops),
this can produce more issues. Mostly the problems have
resulted when I was working with either curves or
faces, and running up into thousands of points, *and*
doing fancy vector-based rotations as well. I suspect
that this is just what happens when a nut like me
starts trying to turn out artworks with a language
designed for doing physics. :-)

Seriously, though--VPython is a great system, and I
fully intend to keep exploring it; but everything has
its limits, and more powerful hardware *can* help.

Joel


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