Picked up Boxx RenderPro 2

[glorybound]

So far, I just get a screen full of stuck buckets. I woke up to all the slave buckets sitting there. I don't think one bucket from the slave has left the screen. The RenderPro is running at 100% CPU and 25% of the RAM. The Render Pro has two ES-2630v3 @ 2.4GHz.

[glorybound]

It seems that the CPU's drop to 0% and the buckets just sit there.

[glorybound]

I got it all working. I'll have to render one on the farm and one off to see how much speed I gained. It is in my garage. I walked in the garage this morning thinking I am hearing my car run, thinking, what the heck! I have a Hybrid and when it is idling on the battery it sounds just like the Render Pro 2, so I am glad that it is in the garage; it is that loud.

The stuck buckets were from PSD Manager. I installed it on the slave and all is good. No extra license needed, thanks Cebas!

[dans]

The stuck buckets were from PSD Manager. I installed it on the slave and all is good. No extra license needed, thanks Cebas!

You're welcome.

What happened was that psd-manager requested G-buffer channels from renderer on the master PC. On the slave the plugin wasn't installed so V-ray didn't get this request and didn't create the G-buffer channels. I think V-ray on the master is simply waiting endlessly for these extra channels to be sent. So the bucket never completes.

Is there some way to get a missing plugin warning when using DR? Then you would have known right away.

Daniel

[glorybound]

You're welcome.

What happened was that psd-manager requested G-buffer channels from renderer on the master PC. On the slave the plugin wasn't installed so V-ray didn't get this request and didn't create the G-buffer channels. I think V-ray on the master is simply waiting endlessly for these extra channels to be sent. So the bucket never completes.

Is there some way to get a missing plugin warning when using DR? Then you would have known right away.

Daniel

Yeah, a warning would be good.

[glorybound]

Funny. My wife just went into the garage, coming out asking me why my car's fan is still running. Yes, it's that loud.

[glorybound]

After a couple weeks of use, I am seeing about a 10% render increase. An hour rendering is taking about 50 minutes, so the question is, is it worth it? The Render Pro 2 cost around $4000 (I didn't pay that much). $4000 is a lot of V-Ray cloud credits.

[JezUK]

I've just upgraded my equipment (something I do roughly every 3 years) and was planning to use my old pc as a render node (I've only ever had just the one pc). But then I found I was hardly ever switching on the 2nd pc as it was 3 times slower than my new one.

[anthonyh]

I`m waiting for Threadripper 2.

[glorybound]

I've just upgraded my equipment (something I do roughly every 3 years) and was planning to use my old pc as a render node (I've only ever had just the one pc). But then I found I was hardly ever switching on the 2nd pc as it was 3 times slower than my new one.

That is part of the reason I went for one mega beast and not a lot of little workers. 10% of my renders are done before the slave kicks in and I end up waiting for the slave to finish its last buckets. Yes, I am getting a 10% increase, which will help, but not significantly. I would need 10 of these Render Pros to equal my one mega-machine. My mega machine cost me $5000 and 10 Render Pro's would cost me $40,000. Also, I would need 10 render nodes for another $5000.

[dlparisi]

A speed increase from 60 minutes to 50 minutes is about a 17% increase, not 10%. Still, the 17% improvement sounds a bit slow IMO given that the BOXX is about 1/2 as fast as the main workstation. I have a 5820k as a DR slave and it decreases rendertimes by about 20-25% (in a few quick test it went from ~5 minutes to ~4 minutes). Given that the 5820k is about 30% the speed of my main workstation (also a dual 2696v3) the 17% number sounds a bit low. Are you sure the BOXX is near 100% when rendering? What's your network speed?

[glorybound]

Yes, it is maxing out the CPU. I am wireless, however, I have all the assets copied locally, so it is pulling the maps from its own drive.

[glorybound]

I just noticed that I need the transfer missing assets button checked or I get missing textures. It seems that it isn't finding the texture locally, even though they are copied there. What do I have to do to make this work?

[dlparisi]

I'm not sure how you get it to find the local textures. Have you been rendering for the last week using the transfer missing assets button checked? If so, how long was it after you hit render on your WS before your DR slave started using 100%?

[glorybound]

Yes, I click the transfer if missing button. Isn't the whole relative and absolute paths the way? I want absolute paths, I think?