> This is a dual Xeon (3.2ghz) system and I want to see what it can do!!

POV-Ray doesn't make use of multiple processors. Sorry!

Since you said 25%, I'm going to assume that those processors have
hyperthreading. That means Windows essentially thinks you have four
processors, and POV-Ray can only use one, so it says it's using 25%.

In reality, it's a lot closer to 50% of the real processing power that you
have. I have a single hyperthreading processor, and POV-Ray always says it's
using 50%. This is equivalent to 100% of what a non-hyperthreading processor
could do; it just pretends that a hypertheading processor can do twice the
work. In reality, it can't, because if another thread comes along and tries
to run, it's going to slow the first one down (because they're sharing the
same processor). So the percentages are lying, in a sense. 50% for me means
a lot closer to 100%, and 25% for you means a lot closer to 50%.

You can't get higher than that though because POV-Ray runs in a single
thread. I think there are patched versions, though, which make use of
multiple threads, and you can get better performance...

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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