Dongles FAQ

[dennis]

i am really impressed with the way you (chaos) handle this situation, thank you.

oh and top notch idea to be able to rent aditional licenses ( at a very very low price too )

[Da_elf]

for those woh asked about storage. vlado mentioned earlier when this same question was asked earlier that these will only be able to hold the liscence.

[rpc212]

Good stuff Peter! Well done to Chaos and thinking this whole thing through to help the users of Vray!

Can't wait for 1.5 it will be awesome!

Vray Rocks!

[jacksc02]

thought i would put my 2 cents in here.

I think the dongle idea is a great idea.
The wibu-key has worked wonders for Archicad in release 9 and I have heard of no wibu-key's failing or breaking.
The idea of the dongle is perfect for vray as with future versions (stand-alone, maya etc) these can all work off the dongle without having to authorise each install, which is a huge time saver.

As for the cost, i dont think its a problem as we are getting a hell of a lot more features than originallt proposed for 1.5.

Keep up the great work chaos, im looking forward to the 1.5 release.

[percydaman]

ahh the old snow logo. dug that one out of your archives didnt ya? hehe

ya i thought it an appropriate time to bring out the winter stuff...

[davision]

Reframing the debate...

Personally, I'm not too excited about using a dongle, but I can handle it. And the $30 is no big deal. These days, that's a tank of gas.

But for people who seem greatly annoyed about the $30+shipping -- I'd suggest a reframing of the debate.

Think of 1.47.03 as version 1.5! It is stable and very impressive and is everything that 1.5 was supposed to be back when Chaos promised the free upgrade to 1.5.

Consequently, you can think of the new 1.5 as being v2.0 since it has a slew of new features and improvements. You are getting 2.0 for $30.

Actually, this is what I think Chaos should have done all along... they should have said you guys already have 1.5... and then put all the features into 2.0. I would have paid for the upgrade, and I'm happy that $30 is all I need to shell out.

[plastic_]

Personally, I'm not too excited about using a dongle, but I can handle it. And the $30 is no big deal. These days, that's a tank of gas.

i wish i could get a full tank of gas for 30$
here it's far from that...even with my tiny honda

[Da_elf]

my skoda uses 40$ gas and will last about 2-3 weeks

[davision]

Yah, I realized my $30 quip would only make sense here in the US (where that's considered expensive). We are SPOILED rotten with cheap oil prices -- that's why GM sells (and people actually buy) things like the HUMMER. I remember being in Europe where prices are 2.5 to 3x more... as it should be. There's little pressure to conserve over here.

But we're way off topic.

How about $30 -- it's like two overpriced tickets to the movies with popcorn?

[flipside]

I just read the 5 page topic + the faq, which some of may have to do too to avoid double and triple posting the same questions.

I can't believe that people are whining about 30$. Some people will pay more but these are exceptions. Think about what you spend on other stuff: cigarettes, movies, mp3 players, cellphones that take rubbish pics, etc...

Polls are useless, people are scared of changes, this topic proves that...

The advantage of being able to take your license anywhere overrules any disadvantage imo. I need to take my laptop to places without internet connection a lot, and being able to use vray then would be great. Also, I don't need to leave my work pc turned on all the time anymore, which is a big plus also.

In the past I have had a situation where I needed a new license code because I formatted my pc. I needed to wait 2 days before I got it. So not using a dongle isn't that great either. I will never have that problem with a dongle.

Are you never driving a car anymore because you've had problems with one before? I can easily believe that dongles now are far more reliable than they were 10 years ago.

So for me it's all good, dongle or not, you can have problems with any system being used.

[dlparisi]

I'll probably catch hell for this but here's a go... Anyone who is upset about the $30 for the dongle is probably griping about being promised a free upgrade to 1.5 when it's released. Seeing that vray right now (1.47) is so far above (I think) what anyone planned for in a relase 1.5, Chaos should just release a point release above 1.47.03 and CALL it 1.5 using the same licensing scheme as before (just change change something). Anyone wishing to upgrade to release 1.5.01 needs to pay $30 for the new features.

It's depressing but true, developing software costs money. Sending out dongles to everybody costs money. Fighting piracy costs money. And I don't think $30 for all of this is that bad.

David

[RErender]

Ok fine, $30 bucks... Now where are our new features :P

[zoranm]

Just told about USB dongle to my IT manager and he wasn't happy! Reason? He installed new rip software on ploter server machine and had a dongle pluged in to the front bus (as most of new computers have nowdays). Someone pinched it, probably thinking it's one of these cute, little memory cards. He needed a week to get replacement and we have to send print jobs externaly.
Events like these are in no way controlable by Chaos Group, but this just shaws additional problems that may arise.

Non related to this, how do you resolve the problem of USB hungry devices. I have a 4xUSB port on my computer and i don't know were to plug Vray dongle because all 4 are already used: digital camera, video camera, tablet and scanner. I know it's not expensive to add new ones but it's just a chore to do it.

Zoran

[instinct]

considering your first statement...please dont take offense, but plugging an important usb-dongle into the front slot ?? to be honest that´s something an IT-manager should know better :/ As for the second statement i´d say plug it into any machine on the net (the server ? the rendermanager ?) and grab the license via the network.

Just my two cents,
Regards,
Thorsten

[Da_elf]

i saw a cute usb hub for periferals by GE for a minor amount. as said before there are probably other places on the network you can plug it. how ofter are you using your digital camera, video camera, tablet and scanner al at the same time. the tablet sure. the scanner sure. but the camera and video camera need to be plugged in all the time? (just a minor question, what kinda video camera are you using that usb and not firewire?)