Very Computer

Max runs decently on my system, but it's a little more sluggish than I'm
comfortable with.

I want to upgrade some stuff, but my budget is tight. My options are either
adding 128 megs of RAM to my current 196 megs, or upgrading my Pentium-II
233 to a PentiumII 300 or 333 depending on what I can find. I can't afford a
new motherboard and processor right now, but in a few months I'll probably
be buying a new Athlon chip. That alone makes me lean towards the RAM over
the marginal CPU increase, but I wanted to hear the opinions of others. Any
comments?

- Devin

On Thu, 2 Mar 2000 17:01:36 -0800, "Devin Lafontaine"

I assume your motherboard only supports up to a 333 Pentium-II, or you
would be considering the much faster Celeron chips out there that
aren't even $100.  So, in that case, I'd certainly get the RAM before
the CPU.  The extra RAM will really only help you, though, when you're
rendering out good-sized jobs.  It won't help you for things like
low-poly modeling (though it might help for mapping, if you're using
TONS of maps), nor will it increase the speed at which it calculates
things like dynamics and particles.
If you don't have huge renders coming up, and you're not running lots
of apps at the same time, and you haven't been having problems hitting
your swap space, I'd save your money and just wait until you're ready
for that major upgrade.

Plissken

Think about upgrading your video card, if you haven't already done so.

Doug Phillips

Quote:> Max runs decently on my system, but it's a little more sluggish than I'm
> comfortable with.

> I want to upgrade some stuff, but my budget is tight. My options are
either
> adding 128 megs of RAM to my current 196 megs, or upgrading my Pentium-II
> 233 to a PentiumII 300 or 333 depending on what I can find. I can't afford
a
> new motherboard and processor right now, but in a few months I'll probably
> be buying a new Athlon chip. That alone makes me lean towards the RAM over
> the marginal CPU increase, but I wanted to hear the opinions of others.
Any
> comments?

> - Devin

OK, here's my problem;

Studio Max R3 (and even 2.5) takes up major resources. I've been told that if I
want good results I should upgrade from:

AMD K6,2/250MHz
64MB RAM
4MB Millenium Graphics Card

To:

Athelon 700MHz
256MB RAM
Ge-Force 256 Graphics Card (Creative Labs Annihilator)

I will be making an upgrade soon (within the next couple months) and I'd like
your opinions on the graphic card. I've heard that VooDoo isn't good for Studio
Max. Has anyone used the Ge Force card? Is it worth the $229 price tag?

Thanks,
~Tony