Curse of the last buckets

[GLASS-CANVAS]

Hi There,
This is mostly a question for Vlado and the developers: For too many times that I can actually remember, I've sent a big image to render on the farm, and as it gets to the end it feels like I'm waiting forever for the last buckets to finish. When I look at the render I can see that the buckets I'm waiting for have been rendering for ages, but the material they're on is particularly time consuming - typically ray-intensive. See image below.
So, is there any way to speed this up? Could all the spare CPU rendering power lying unused be put into competition with these buckets by splitting them up into smaller bits and whichever gets rendered first gets used? I've currently got 10 DR rendernodes sitting there on about 5% CPU load and it would be great to get my image back quicker somehow!

Best regards, Bill

[olly]

Hey Bill,

As I am sure you know, this has been requested ad nauseum on this forum over the years!
Just in case you haven't seen it this thread, from earlier this year, has some good insight from various Chaos people.
Maybe worth throwing your hat in the ring on that thread...

Cheers,
Olly

[^Lele^]

If you sent me one such scene, i'd be happy to let you know what precisely is causing the extended sampling in the various places, and how to cure it (at the minor expense, likely, of some of the looks.).
There isn't currently a solution to this, although RnD is ongoing.