Hi everyone. I'm new to Maya.
Since I cannot afford to change everything in my computer, I was wondering: what is Maya most dependant on? I mean, what would improve rendering times most: new CPU, more RAM or new graphics card (and which is better for Maya: GeForce or Radeon, I've heard that Maya sometimes doesn't "go along well" with Radeons). I'm talking about PC's only, I don't have Apple. And out of couriosity: what are your computer configs?
Mine is quite a 
Pentium IV 1,60 GHz, 768 MB RAM, and GeForce FX 5500.
In my experience, render times go down with a faster processor. If you are using large disk-based texture maps, then a fast hard drive/interface will help too. And more RAM and a faster motherboard bus to move data around are also important. For software rendering the graphics card doesn't effect the speed at all.
If you can only do one thing, I'd find out what is the fastest CPU your motherboard can handle. If you can jump from your current 1.6GHz to a 2.4GHz or higher you may see some nice speedups for rendering. If you can move up to 2GHz of RAM as well, that'll help.
-JP
yes true sw render cant take advantage of the board, mr can but its another thing thet youd want to tough its wodefull for fast dmaps. but youd prbably need arealy good card for that.
But you do want a fast garaphics card nonetheless as it make sit possible for you to work faster inside maya wich mor etdetail on. Lets face it having full high quality virewports with hardware shadows, normalmaps etc can be a wonderfull thing. Normal maps offourse can be over the top but they ccan help plan your lightning!
Thanx for the info.
One more small point: sometimes when rendering the Render View goes blank (white), especially when the scene is complex (with raytrace shadows etc.) BUT it always goes blank when I touch another aplication while rendering. Why is that happening?
your cpu is maxing out its power so maya has no time to redraw the wi ndow bacuse its buys doing something else.
BUt th eproblem alliveiates a bit if you run maya in w2k compatibility mode like your supposed to.
sorry to hop in here, but what is w2k mode? I have experienced the same problem but havent heard of this compatibility mode...
right click on your shortcuut and select compatibility tab. Set it and restar maya trough that icon.
Anyway its has to do with how windows alots time for drawing. As windows does not cach the stuff forever liek mac apears to do for examplel. XP does not alot time ebntirely the same way as 2k. Offcourse since maya is the ultimate judge when and how to refresh its still not going to happen immediately ad maya is busy doing something else, namely rendering. And its optimized to do that first because its considered a higehr ortder task tahn serving your graphics on screen (after all each time you refresh you will loose time you could have spent rendering)