predicting amount of ram to chosse graphic card

[fraggle]

Hello,
Is the amount of ram indicated into the max windows during a CPU render the same one as the one that will be used while rendering in GPU mode?
We are looking for a way to estimated the ammount of ram needed into the video card while working standard project, so we can find out what type of video card we need.

Thanks

[Subburb]

+1 here ! this can be very interesting info to buy the right card

[devin]

I'd also like to know this but from what I've read you need the same amount for GPU that you use for CPU.

[absolute3d]

It depends a lot based on which kind of work are you gonna make. For both exteriors/interiors scenes, like 99% of us do, i think you'll need a 6gb graphic card to deserve all kind of "out of memory" troubles...but this is a lot more expensive than buying 6gb ddr ram unfortunately...the only card suitable for massive esteriors renderings (plants/displacement/high poly scenes) is the Tesla C2070 card...but it's worth about 4k$ now.

In my opinion, this isn't the right time to make an expensive choice like this, beacause it's too early and gpu based softwares need more developping and optimization (like cpu ones had in the past). So if you need to buy a gpu to test it, i can suggest you a couple of cards :

- nvidia gtx460 2gb = less power than gtx470/480 but with more gddr ram on it - $230
- nvidia gtx580 1.5gb = less gddr ram than 460, but more cuda cores (512) than the 336cores of gtx460 - $550
- tesla C1060 = 240cuda cores but with 4GB gddr ram on it. $1100

Cheers,
Thomas

[fraggle]

Thanks Thomas.
seems the Ram are different:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4008/n...eforce-gtx-580
460 : 1Gb
480 : 1.5
580 : 1.5

[absolute3d]

Yes, there are 2 version of gtx460, 1gb and 2gb (sparkle, zotac did it).

http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-geforc...40406-10p.html

[fraggle]

Prety soon there will be a good gaming card alternative to the quadro line : http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news/view/128096

[saudade]

look

http://www.tweaktown.com/pressreleas...3gb/index.html

[fraggle]

gtx590 is on the way:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/18690/...een/index.html

[Björn Radler]

Be careful with the 3GB on the 590 dual GPU boards....the 3Gigs of ram are split for each GPU so there is only an effective ram of 1.5 GB. Better solution is the 580 from gainward or palit with full 3GB.

I allready bought the gainward board and it works fine, except a minor issue with light materials.

[fraggle]

Thanks for the advice. Can you please post a benchmarck of your 580 and develop a little bit regarding the issue with light material?

tks

[Björn Radler]

..... and develop a little bit regarding the issue with light material?

tks

Its simply that it doesnt recognize any textures in Vray Lightmaterial. I dont have the time right now to figure out if its a driver problem or something else.

Regards Björn

[saudade]

the Quadro CX (1.5Gb) has the same issue of Gainward 3Gb with textures in vraylight material.

[fraggle]

By the way, if vray render use 3Mb of memory, is vray gpu going to use the same amount of ram?

[saudade]

the problem is on how Vray GPU handles the textures. It resamples every texture at 512x515 pixel (if you set 512). Then every texture's scene is resampled, the tiny textures too.
Probably I'm wrong and Vray downsamples all big textures to 512x512 pixels...
Would be nice if Vray samples all textures as they are.