New computer, finally!

[Minyassa]

My 8 year old Windows XP machine has just gotten creakier and weaker over time and for quite a few months now I've been entirely unable to render anything in high quality--in fact, last week it quit letting me even render simple single-object fastdrafts. But last night I met my NEW COMPUTER!! My dad's been working on it and has it built now. He still has to put in the software (apparently there is some weirdness with installing Windows 7 on a SSD that he has to figure out) and then we'll slave my old hard drive in there and I will get to play with Poser 11 finally!!! I am so excited I could burst!! New machine is a 4.0gHz Intel quad with 16G RAM and an Asus HD 7700 vidcard, SSD for just the OS and a terabyte more just to play with. I cannot wait. So many shaders I've been dying to try in Firefly, and now I get to learn how to do Superfly shaders as well! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Dunno if I will jump right on doing another USH expansion or maybe more eyes, or I've been thinking about a set of simple procedural fabrics, or updating my semiprecious gems...oh the possibilities!! <3

 

[RAMWolff]

Congratulations. Make sure your UPS is going to handle the load. That's the external power brick you have all your computer and monitors plugged into to keep from having system shocks due to storms and what not. I found out my older UPS was only a 650 VA and I needed an 850 VA. Here is the one I got... I can't wait for it. I'm done with spurious shut downs...

Amazon.com: APC Back-UPS 850VA UPS Battery Backup & Surge Protector with USB Charging Ports (BE850M2): Electronics

 

[Faery_Light]

@RAMWolff, thanks for that link.
I put that in my wishlist for a bit.

 

[seachnasaigh]

For anyone who wants a definitive measure of how much wattage you need in a UPS (uninterruptible power supply - surge protector with battery backup), this is how to hook up an ammeter to measure the total current draw of the PC, monitor(s), and speakers.

• Shut the computer down
• If there is a physical power switch on the back, turn that off next
• The orange figure 8 device (called a line splitter) goes directly into the wall outlet
• The ammeter clamp goes into the "1x" hole of the line splitter
• Plug a 3-way or 6-way power tap (yellow) into the line splitter's power out socket
• Plug your PC power cord, monitor cords, and speaker cord (red, blue, green cords) into the power tap

• Power your computer up.
• Start Poser or D/S, load a big scene with high quality render settings, and start a render.
• Check Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc, then performance tab) to verify that CPU usage is at/near 100%.
• Read off the current draw from the ammeter. Power usage (Watts) will be current draw (Amperes) times your household voltage (120Volts in US, 220Volts most other countries).

Make sure you pick a UPS which is above the measured power draw.
If you do GPU rendering, run another test while GPU rendering. Your UPS must have a wattage rating higher than your highest ammeter test result.

The Wattage rating indicates how much power your UPS can supply. The other rating of the UPS is the capacity of the battery backup, measured in Volt*Amperes. It gives you an idea of how much time you have to get your computer powered down safely if the electric goes out.
Sometimes, you'll see a third rating measured in Joules; that is a measure of how big a surge/jolt the UPS can absorb to protect your computer from lightning strikes, etc.

If you don't have access to an ammeter, note the power rating of your PC's (internal) power supply box. You may have to open the side panel -and put on reading glasses- to read that. Look for something like "700Watts".
Add the power supply Watts, plus 100W for each monitor, and maybe 100W for speakers (200W if it has a little subwoofer). That total will be close enough. Pick a UPS with a power (wattage) rating higher than that total.

 

[RAMWolff]

Someone on the DAZ forums turned me on to this little way to figure out if I was in the safe zone. You do have to have the basic hardware info though. If you have a dual video card set up you have the fudge that a bit...

OuterVision Power Supply Calculator

 

[Minyassa]

Thanks for all that UPS info!

 

[Minyassa]

I HAVE IT!! Oh I'm so tickled. My new baby is lovely and fast and almost disturbingly quiet after the jet engines I got used to from the old one, and since last night I've been busily watching Superfly tutorials and copying shaders and trying to learn the workflow. I probably shouldn't feel rushed, because I know I'm way behind the industry but it looks like there's definitely a learning curve here. It'd help if RDNA hadn't jettisoned so many useful posts about it in their forum GRRRR but anyway, I'm finding others and I'll start asking questions here when I know enough to ask questions. ;D I've still got a lot of Firefly renders I had saved up to do (and I'm a REALLY impatient person so I will be rendering with Firefly for a while yet because I cannot be waiting days for a picture) so I have lots of things to keep me busy for quite a while now. Yay!!

 

[Miss B]

Congrats on the new computer. I am sooooo envious. I so badly need a new one.

 

[Alisa]

Yay! Congrats

 

[Pendraia]

Congrats...