zykor

Hi,
I am still new at this game, I have done a few tutorials but still have a lot to learn. :?
I did the tutorial “Lesson One: Quickstart by Go Procedural”
I then added a sphere and converted it to flip fluid which drops into the center of the columns. I used all the settings that the tutorial uses and used the default on the flip fluid. The render takes just over one hour per frame and then crashes around 20 to 24 frames every time.
I am using a PC with;
Intel core i7 CPU 975@3.33GHz 3.32GHz
RAM 12GB
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Main hard drive consists of 2x256 GB solid state drives in raid 1 mode.
Windows experience index of performance is rated on a scale of 1.0 to 7.9
My processor is rated at 7.6
RAM is rated at 7.6
Disk data transfer rate is rated at 7.4.
As you can see, my computer is not exactly slow. Is it normal for the render to be that slow? This would mean that if I rendered 240 frames, it would tie up my computer for 10 days and nights.
I have no idea if it is something I am doing wrong or not…….this is why I am appealing to the gurus out there that have experience.
I would appreciate it if someone could also point me to a tutorial specifically on rendering in mantra. I would also welcome any suggestion on what kind of computer would handle such a load, possibly something like a computer with multiple CPU's running in parallel if such a beast exists.
I appreciate any replies….thank you.
Marc Chelin