Which computer should I install Phoenix FD 4 on?

[Digital Magic]

I am excited to finally buy Phoenix FD 4. I can only afford one license now so I am asking advice on which computer I should install it on for better performance?
I have 3ds Max 2016 2017 and 2020

Desktop
i7-3930K 3.20Ghz
64GB RAM
GeForce GTX780 3GB
Win7 Pro 64
All drives are SSD

Notebook
i7-6820HQ 2.70Ghz
64GB RAM
Quadro M5000M 8GB
Win7 Pro 64
C:\ is SSD the other drives are M.2 PCIe

Thank you for any help

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, it's not a node-locked license, so you can safely install it on both and measure how your sims behave, and then downgrade one of the machines. The only thing you would need to watch out for would be not to have both running at the same time.

This should be the most certain way to find out which one runs better

[Neilg]

thats tough - based on the notebook specs it might have faster ram, and it has the m2 drive. phoenix also does best with a high single core speed, which would put the desktop ahead.
my guess is you'll end up somewhere in the middle for both. the laptop might get faster than the desktop with 100mb+ caches per frame when doing final sims, the desktop might be faster with low res tests. use both!
network simulations are very useful, you can develop and test on one machine then send the final sim to the other so you can keep working on the same one.

[Digital Magic]

Thank you both very much. Good idea on trying both. I didn't know if I could do that. Sometimes I leave one computer on a long 3ds max render for several days while using the other computer on a different 3ds max project. Obviously I cannot use Phoenix FD on both computers at the same time but if I am only using/rendering with the Phoenix plugin on one of the computers is it ok to use 3ds max on the other computer?
Examples:

Scenario1
PC1 working on 3ds project, not using Phoenix
PC2 rendering 3ds project that uses Phoenix

Scenario 2
PC1 working on 3ds project that uses Phoenix
PC2 rendering 3ds project that does not use Phoenix

You mentioned something interesting here that I do not understand how that works yet since I haven't starting using Phoenix yet. This may be helpful too.
"network simulations are very useful, you can develop and test on one machine then send the final sim to the other so you can keep working on the same one."

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Note that rendering does not engage a Phoenix license - only simulating and working in the viewport: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...+in+a+Nutshell

[Neilg]

You mentioned something interesting here that I do not understand how that works yet since I haven't starting using Phoenix yet. This may be helpful too.
"network simulations are very useful, you can develop and test on one machine then send the final sim to the other so you can keep working on the same one."

The scenario here is: work with phoenix on machine A in a low res tests until you get some behavior you like - then bump up the simulation quality and send the simulation to the machine B, then keep working on machine A without any disruption - potentially even in the same max file if you have models that need work in it.
You obviously wont be able to keep doing phoenix texts, but you can copy the frames to a network location and test render while the simulation continues too - because rendering does not use the license. It makes it quite easy to keep an eye on simulations and refine them without having to keep swapping machines.

[Digital Magic]

The scenario here is: work with phoenix on machine A in a low res tests until you get some behavior you like - then bump up the simulation quality and send the simulation to the machine B, then keep working on machine A without any disruption - potentially even in the same max file if you have models that need work in it.
You obviously wont be able to keep doing phoenix texts, but you can copy the frames to a network location and test render while the simulation continues too - because rendering does not use the license. It makes it quite easy to keep an eye on simulations and refine them without having to keep swapping machines.

Wow! Thank you. This sounds better than I had hoped. So if I understand correctly I can get the simulation how I want on machine A and then put it on machine B to let it render for hours/days/weeks while I actually continue to work on machine A some more (even using Phoenix on machine A). I figured I wouldn't be able to use Phoenix on machine A while I waited on machine B to finish render.

I saw this in the documentation
"Rendering is free! Phoenix volumes such as smoke and fire, Phoenix meshed liquids or Phoenix particle systems such as Foam and Splash do not require a license for rendering - you just need Phoenix FD installed on the machine which will render the data."

I also bought some extra V-ray nodes to use on a small render farm because I knew I would need V-ray. The render farm machines have 3ds max installed but not activated and will not be used at all for anything except network rendering. If I read that right, can I even use them to network render Phoenix projects?

Thanks again. I am really excited about getting all this working. I have dreamed of having Phoenix, V-ray and a small render farm for a long time. Now I am finally getting close to setting it all up. I certainly have a lot of learning to do though.