System requirements for 3D Fractals

[JodyVL]

Hi guys,

I've just started getting into this amazing Fractal thing, mainly for the purposes of creating beautiful artwork with them, and after learning the basics about 2D Mandelbrot and the Julias (check my blog: http://mandelubber.blogspot.com/ ) I've now downloaded Mandelbulb 3D.

Of course at first I had no clue what to do. And right now, I still don't really but have found that when zooming in too far, suddenly the whole thing goes brown.

I don't have a graphics card yet (it's on my to-buy list) ... Any suggestions for one that is good for Fractal rendering?

Also, My CPU is an Intel Core2 Duo, E7500, 2.93GHz ... Should I invest in a better one?

Lastly, anything else regarding hardware that a 3D Fractal newbie such as myself should know?

All I want to do is go deeper and deeper into the monstrous beauty that is Mandelbrot 3D ... (Do I understand right? : The formula for the one most people use, uses the 8th power?)

Many thanks
Jody

[msltoe]

Jody,

 I suspect that the program going brown with deep zooms is because of numerical precision. Some 2D fractal codes have arbitrary precision so you can zoom in very deep. But, most 3D codes are very new and probably don't have arbitrary precision yet so they max out when scene is smaller than 1e-15 to 1e-16, which is double precision.
 Your computer is fast enough to run M3D to generate single frame images. Faster quad-cores and two quad core machines out there would benefit programs like M3D and may make video generation a little quicker. But you'll have to find some GPU-based 3D Mandelbox codes to use GPUs. Others can chime in to tell you about those... Your not going to get the same flexibility as M3D and Mandelbulber, yet.

-mike

[Sfumato]

Speaking about OS requirement has anybody compared 64bit MB3D speed under 64bit Linux in comparison to Windows7. Or in other words does it make sense to switch to 64bit Linux platform?
Thank You in advance,
Sfumato.