After creating a fractal and going ahead to render, I keep facing the same problem w/this one flame, I've tried different settings but every time I do, about the same thing happens, the rendering times are long like 28087398.9 minutes.

I'm wondering has anyone else had this problem and does anyone else know how to fix it (preventing the time from reaching 2808738.9 minutes)?? And that is the time, some flames have the render times that quickly drop...this isn't one of those.

First off .. the initial time you see is NEVER accurate .. and is ONLY accuate one tenth of a second before completion .. it is always ticking downward towards accuracy

so .. let it go a while and you'll see it drop .. almost immediately ..

try to free up as much memory as you can before hitting render

For some odd reason I knew you'd be the first to comment :) And its been rendering since yesterday....and I don't have anything on my comp that isn't used. I render @ 3600x2628 so that is a reason it takes longer but the time doesn't make sense.

ok .. perhaps I was wrong .. I've seen those kinds of numbers, but they spin 'down' immediately .. I thought, maybe, you were canceling when you did some quick math

what are your settings .. and did you ZOOOOOOM in .. zoom is the mind-killer

3600x2628

quality 200/250----filter radius 0.3-----oversample .2-------strips 175+

and I did zoom in :'(

I've never used "strips" .. I'm assuming you have to based on limited memory? .. and 200 quality is LOOOOOOW .. so you zoomed in a LOT (im assuming) .. I trust you did small sample renders so that you aren't flying blind .. like 640x480 .. ??

It comes down to whether you want it bad enough .. whether you "believe" in it enough ..

my longest render was 110 hours .. apophysis isn't THAT bad from a CPU usage point of view .. You can still use the machine .. I once rendered an APO flame with ultra-fractal and my hardrive light "flickered" for 72 hours .. everything I tried to do took forever while the computer thought about getting around to it

send the flame file to NASA .. tell 'em that you pay taxes, or would if you could .. and you'd like some CRAY supercomputer time ... they need a good laugh, being a scientist is hard work

Why is your quality set so low Andrew ? Mine is set at 2000, filter radius is 0.4 & oversample set at 2, & the most I've ever had is 6 strips, & that was when I set a render at 3200. That's the only time I ever see strips, when I size a render at 1600 it doesn't show. I've had some long renders start out at outrageously high numbers but they always spiral down.

Hello!!!

My quality is set low b/c I use strips, 175 strips, all the images in my gallery were rendered w/those settings..........hmm....I guess I'll try your settings and I'll send them scientists the message Keith :) I wonder if they'd write back? :(

Yeah, I've noticed that zooming doesn't help. I lost a zoomed-in fractal the other day because my computer locked up. I redid it, but the redone fractal was not as good as the original would have been.

Well the time estimation was not done very well. It isn't very accurate at all.

Zooming in drastically increases rendering time.

Plus, if your computer seems to have locked up, it actually did NOT lock up. It is just using every bit of CPU you have to complete the task, thereby taking away resources from other things. I can guarantee you that if you left your computer on overnight to render a fractal, it should be done.

I would also like to know what your computer specifications are. Chances are you would need more system memory.