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Monday, April 20, 2009

Revit 2010 vs. Revit 2009 - Rendering

All over the blogosphere and the internet there is talk about the rendering speed on Revit 2009 versus the rendering speed on Revit 2010. I took it upon myself to run a few tests of my own. Long behold, Revit 2010 WON!

First, here are the specs of the machine I rendering on:
  • 15.4" Macbook Pro
  • Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit (Bootcamp 2.1)
  • 4gb Ram
  • Intel Dual Core 2.4
I had no other programs running. I first ran the render with Revit 2009. The settings for both rendering were identical:
  • Quality - Medium ( I didn't feel like sitting there all day)
  • Resolution - Screen (1180 x 537)
  • Lighting - Exterior (Sun only)
And the results:
  • Revit 2009 = 6:38
  • Revit 2010 = 4:57
That is a total increase on rendering time of 1.41. I ran the test a few more times and it came out to the exact same numbers. If i did my math correct that is a 25% increase in rendering time. Therefore, if this stays constant a 1 hour render in Revit 2009 will only take 45 minutes in 2010. It is getting there... If they would only introduce multi-core support for Revit rendering...
My second test (same scene and settings except for Quality being set at Best):
  • Revit 2009 = 4:5:36
  • Revit 2010 = 3:10:58

Roughly, 25% increase! Looks to be constant!


Here are the images that were rendered (these are on Medium Quality):
Perhaps I will do a few more studies adding in artificial lighting and different factors. Furthermore, we have a number to spit out when the conversation about how much "faster" the new Revit is. I believe I am the first one to do a full out bench mark test and publish it. So feel free to spread it around!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why are you rendering on a laptop?

The Revit Kid said...

Because that is the best computer I own. My desktop is a P4 with 1 gig of ram.

If it would make you happy I could run the tests on my quad core office machine... I think the results would still be the same... Maybe even better for 2010.

Anonymous said...

Time to trade in the macbook for a Core i7 and 12gb of ram :PP

djaybe said...

thanks Revit Kid - Great post!!! i asked this question in a vendor RAC2010 webinar but they had no clue.

Anonymous said...

Hi RevitKid,

I like your site, very nice and helpfull.
I have to admit that I'm not in complete agreement to your statement regarding rendertimes within RAC 2010.
Both versions 09 / 10 use the same renderengine MR 3.6, unfortunately not the 3.7 integrated in 3DS Max 2010 and are still limited to 4 cpu cores.
Check my posting to see my results.

http://ww3.cad.de/foren/ubb/Forum329/HTML/001126.shtml

Regards niku

The Revit Kid said...

Niku,

Given that your post linked is not n englsh I have no idea what it says. What I do see are the times you are coming up with. What are your omputer specs? How mch ram and what processor, etc...

Perhaps it is the extra gb of ram using 64bit I am recieving with 2010 that is givng me better rendering times.

Anonymous said...

Dual Xeon 5450 (8x 3 GHz)
8 GB DDR 2 FBDIMM
Quadro Fx 5600
SAS Raid 0 + 10

niku

David Waligora said...

This is nice site. Revit 2010 does have multi core support. I can testify only that it has multi core support when rendering. Pull up your task manager - performance tab while exporting a render on a quad core, and check the vitals. All 4 cores are used in 2010. Now I'm not sure about 2009. I'm actually doing research on this now.

-Dave Waligora, ecoBIM