Thomas spake:

> 1.  We're looking at dual-core processors for faster rendering - how do we
> go for bang for your buck?

IMO get the fastest dual-core processor you can get. Beter yet, get a quad 
motherboard (I think HP makes some nice ones) that will take four
processors. You can then theoretically render four times faster, but you'll
have to break your scene up into four segments. I have one processor, and I
use  a "segments of two" approach when dual-core rendering - one virtual
CPU gets the "top" the other the "bottom". If one finishes before the
other, the remaining part is again divided by two, etc. You'll be able to
do this by fours if you get a quad based board.
 
> 2.  How much RAM do we actually need (I've never seen POVRay run past
> 790Mb on our current Pentium M based machine, which has 2Gb).

2Gb sounds more than suffiecient. I have 1Gb and have successfully rendered
scenes with thousands and thousands of objects without touching swap. I do
guess though that if you run four copies of povray (if you get a quad
board) you might need four times the RAM, since a scene will be in memory
four times (once for each pov process on each processor).
 
> 3.  How much difference does the graphics card make?  What type of card
> should we look at using.

The graphics card will have zero impact on pov. Any run of the mill card
which can display 32 bit color at, say, 1024x768 should be more than
enough. Graphics accelerator cards are useless as regards povray, and will
have zero impact on the rendering time or processing load to calculate a
scene.
 
> 4.  Any other advice that you think useful.

Get the absolute fastest of everything you can. RAM, CPU and bus. It is
amazing how Pov can turn even the "fastest" PC into a sloth with the
processing demands it can make when you really start flooring quality and
radiosity / photons etc...

-- 
Stefan Viljoen
Software Support Technician / Programmer
Polar Design Solutions

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