Out of interest I tired this because of a complex scene that wouldn't render and Wow!! (insert shocked face icon here if there was one) what an amazing render speedup side effect!
Why does setting -Xmx1024m shorten render times so drastically, I guess that required memory might be allocated dynamically?
On my Windows 7 machine I just timed a test scene and it took 6:34 (without the SweetHome3D.l4j.ini file) to render.
The exact same scene with -Xmx1024m took just 2:35
Update:
Just had to time it again.
6:20 without the 1GB file
2:40 with the 1GB file
Update 2:
Timed the same scene again, to make absolutely sure, this time I used an electronic stopwatch.
6:22 without the 1GB file
2:36 with the 1GB file, unless my math is wrong that means adding the 1GB file makes rendering about 163% faster
Update 3:
I decided to try different memory sizes to help discover the 'sweet spot'
For some reason Sweet Home won't let me try 2GB and fails to start, even though (also allowing for the OS) I have 2GB spare, could the fact I'm running a 64bit OS cause memory addressing problems for Sweet Home?
So I tried 1.6GB which only made the render 2sec faster at 2:34
Lastly I tired 512MB which gave a render time of 6:22 so the 'sweet spot' definitely seems to be around 1GB for scenes with lots of textures.
Update 4:
When I did my original Sweet Home Virtual Holiday 2010 high resolution render it took around 1h 20m to complete. (Since doing the holiday render I have increased my CPU overclock by a tiny amount) with the 1GB SweetHome3D.l4j.ini file the same scene just rendered in 45m 02s
Update 5:
Low resolution Uber render (the extra render time is worth the more realistic skin and hair texture, not to mention slightly nicer cooker hob reflections) dark marble kitchen scene
11:36 without the 1GB file
11:28 with the 1GB file
Advanced photo render
6:54 without the 1GB file
5:27 with the 1GB file
Conclusion:
Certain scenes render faster than others with the 1GB file, depending on their complexity. Uber shader seems about the same speed with or without the 1GB file, Emmanuel is that because it's not final code?
The 1GB SweetHome3D.l4j.ini will be staying in my Sweet Home folder
Could this instruction be built into Sweet Home as standard, with an 'and/or' style line of code, if a users computer has enough memory then 1GB is allocated to drastically improve Advanced photo render performance? Or maybe these tests will help highlight something small that can be tweaked so the shaders can use memory differently for an even greater speed boost without needing to allocate 1GB.
I do hope all these tests have been helpful.
db4tech
