Can't get Blender to work with my 3D Card?!?
March 30, 2002 10:56 AM
I just downloaded Blender 2.23, and I love it! However, it seems that all of the rendering is done by the software. It appears that it''s not using my 64MB GeForce2 MX card for any rendering. Thus, when I get to a high enough poly count on my model, things slow down to a crawl.
Is there some switch or configuration I have to tweak in order to get blender to use hardware rendering?
Thanks!
I am always open to feedback, positive or negative...
1,088
March 30, 2002 01:29 PM
Have you installed the latest NVidia drivers? If you have, there shouldn''t be any problem.
122
March 30, 2002 08:04 PM
Yeah,
You especially need the lastest NVidia drivers if you are running windows xp
You especially need the lastest NVidia drivers if you are running windows xp
April 01, 2002 10:32 AM
I downloaded and installed the latest NVidia drivers, and it doesn''t seem to make a difference.
But I realized: I''m rendering a number of metaballs here. Metaballs tend to have a high polygon count, plus the ability to blend & mesh with other metaball objects. Add a mirror texture onto them, and you''re probably talking about some serious rendering; perhaps more than my Duron 900Mhz with 64MB GeForce2 MX can handle at any decent framerate.
Please let me know if my assessment is correct? (I honestly hope I''m wrong!)
But I realized: I''m rendering a number of metaballs here. Metaballs tend to have a high polygon count, plus the ability to blend & mesh with other metaball objects. Add a mirror texture onto them, and you''re probably talking about some serious rendering; perhaps more than my Duron 900Mhz with 64MB GeForce2 MX can handle at any decent framerate.
Please let me know if my assessment is correct? (I honestly hope I''m wrong!)
I am always open to feedback, positive or negative...
April 01, 2002 10:45 AM
...make sure you''re not in 24 Bit desktop resolution too....opengl does not provide hardware acceleration in this colour mode. (I believe)
April 01, 2002 10:47 AM
Sorry!!! I was typing that one handed and wasnt thinking straight....
Make sure you''re not in 24 bit desktop colour depth. Thats what I meant....and just in case you weren''t sure...Blender uses opengl for it''s realtime rendering.
Make sure you''re not in 24 bit desktop colour depth. Thats what I meant....and just in case you weren''t sure...Blender uses opengl for it''s realtime rendering.
April 01, 2002 11:23 AM
Yeah, I made sure I''m in 16-bit color depth. And yes, I knew that Blender uses OpenGL. (Don''t the NVidia drivers support OpenGL? I assume they would, it''s a standard...)
I am always open to feedback, positive or negative...
122
April 01, 2002 11:53 AM
What do you actually mean by "rendering"? Do you mean solid drawing in the edit window, or do you mean the final render to an image file? It is only possible to use 3D hardware whilst editing.
The final render is entirely done with software, because it really doesn''t matter that much how long it takes. Normally you''d just leave the thing going all night when making the final picture or animation.
By the way, I find Blender works best with 32 bit colour on my machine.
The final render is entirely done with software, because it really doesn''t matter that much how long it takes. Normally you''d just leave the thing going all night when making the final picture or animation.
By the way, I find Blender works best with 32 bit colour on my machine.
"If you go into enough detail, everything becomes circular reasoning." - Captain Insanity
April 01, 2002 12:16 PM
Blender doesn''t use the hardware when doing the final rendering?!
Why not? I mean, that just seems stupid. I guess, if that''s the way they built the software. I guess that''s why it took more than an hour to render 125 frames of metaball animation...
On the other hand, when I''m in the edit window, with just wire-meshed being rendered (i.e. no textures nor surfaces), using about 10 metaballs, things slow down to a crawl. I right-click on one of the metaballs to select it, and wait for about 3 seconds, then it shows up as selected. Then I hit ''g'' to move it around, and wait another 3 seconds for the computer to catch up and let me actually move it. The edit window''s frame rate when I''m using metaballs is just terrible.
Should it really take this long to render just a wire mesh? Should my machine slow down that much rendering only wire meshes? This just doesn''t seem right!
Why not? I mean, that just seems stupid. I guess, if that''s the way they built the software. I guess that''s why it took more than an hour to render 125 frames of metaball animation...
On the other hand, when I''m in the edit window, with just wire-meshed being rendered (i.e. no textures nor surfaces), using about 10 metaballs, things slow down to a crawl. I right-click on one of the metaballs to select it, and wait for about 3 seconds, then it shows up as selected. Then I hit ''g'' to move it around, and wait another 3 seconds for the computer to catch up and let me actually move it. The edit window''s frame rate when I''m using metaballs is just terrible.
Should it really take this long to render just a wire mesh? Should my machine slow down that much rendering only wire meshes? This just doesn''t seem right!
I am always open to feedback, positive or negative...
1,088
April 01, 2002 03:26 PM
No good modeler would use hardware for the final render. Firstly, each video card renders things differently. Secondly, few video cards support all the features needed to render all of the scenes that the modeler could throw at it.
Consumer oriented video cards cannot do wireframes as fast as they can do filled polygons. It may seem weird, but it''s rooted in what they aimed the hardware design for (games, which normally have textures
).
Consumer oriented video cards cannot do wireframes as fast as they can do filled polygons. It may seem weird, but it''s rooted in what they aimed the hardware design for (games, which normally have textures
).
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
