trying to decide whether to use a 64 bit distro or not, i thought i'd try and benchmark some 64 bit renders vs 32 bit and see how much speed increase i actually get. (some other apps and coding projects i use seem to work a lot better in a 32 bit environment). i'm using the zoorender mental ray benchmark scene and am kind of puzzled by these results, because they seem to suggest that while 64 bit maya is better than 32 bit, they're both worse than maya 7! weird. here's the results, if anyone can offer other benchmarks or help me make heads or tails of this that'd be swell.
this is on several almost-identical machines, with different distros. all have 2GB ram, Athlon X2 4400+, but only 1 is running SMP.
- suse 9.3, Maya 7.0: 4:28.52
- suse 9.3, Maya 8.5 32bit 7:29.48
- suse 9.3, Maya 8.5 64bit 5:32.66
- suse 10.2, Maya 8.5 64bit 5:34.17
- suse 10.1, Maya 8.5 32bit SMP 3:40.85
what does that tell me? obviously using both cores is good
maya 8.5 in 64 bit mode is certainly faster than maya 8.5 in 32 bit mode, but why are both slower than rendering the same scene in Maya 7?? i feel like that's something i should get solved before really trusting my results.
thanks,
--skullmunky