VRAY & Rhino System

[keegsbro]

Hello all,

I am interested in increasing the performance of my machine to better suit the functionality / render speeds of these programs.

I currently have a Dell T7400 Workstation, 3.25 Gigs of RAM, Nvidia FX 4600 graphics card & Windows XP.

Ideas on how to improve? Thanks in advance for your help

[frip51]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

Hey there,
what exactly do you want to speed up?

You could:
- get a multi-processor mainboard with two i7 on it
- get a Quadro FX 5800
- get Win7 and some more RAM
- get a few slave computers and use DR

or:
- wait for Rhino5 +Vray for Rhino5

or start off with something cheap'n'easy:
- optimize your scenes (http://forum.asgvis.com/index.php?topic=5887.0)


Cheers,
Matt

[LeoBonilla]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

V-Ray
It uses the speed of the processors, more processors lower render times.
SO in your case I don't know how easy is to replace the Chip and the mother board and stuff...

You can also add some render slaves, if you do try to add them almost as good as you main computer.

Rhino
You could add more speed to Rhino by having more RAM ( better if you have a WIn 64bits) and a big Graphics card!

[dkendig]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

The graphics card would only help you view the model as you're working with it in the host application (Rhino in this case). V-Ray itself doesn't even require a graphics card with 3d capabilities as far as I know.

[greg_bores@entegris.com]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

Hey Matthias, Do you have the "multi-processor mainboard with two i7 on it"?

How many Vfr render "frames" do you get out of that? ( frames is probably the wrong word, talking about the white frames that zip around the image doing the work)

Cheers,

Greg

[dkendig]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

you should get 1 render bucket per core

[frip51]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

Greg,
well - unfortunately my setup is only 2x E5530 for now.
So, I have 8 buckets roaming around the image

Usually, I see between 12 and 26 buckets due to our distributed rendering network. But that's another story...

Using a Hexa-Core i7 (980X) would result in 12 buckets and an empty wallet.


Hope that helps!
Cheers,

Matt

[greg_bores@entegris.com]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

Thanks for the quick answer! I have an opportunity next year to purchase a new system and I want to maximize my render bucket count. Currently Intel Xeon 5140 quad core.
I may have $5-6k to spend. Any thoughts?

Is it "easy" to create distributed rendering? Where can I learn how to do it successfully?

Cheers,

Greg

[dkendig]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

To setup DR, all you have to do is install the DR Spawner on your render nodes (machines dedicated to rendering with DR), and in your System section of your render options, enable DR, and then set the hosts to point to your render nodes. It's a pretty simple process. I would definitely recommend setting up a render farm, rather than just building one super machine. There won't be any good reason to make a super machine until we support gpu rendering, and aren't limited by 32-bit memory limitations, which could be a while.

[frip51]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

Devin,
what's "a while"? ;D
...it's just that I love to looking fwd to something that cool...

Cheers,
Matt

[dkendig]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

where's my free redbull? ::crosses arms:: speaking of looking forward to things... :'(

Seriously though, if I had a timeframe, I'd give you one. We're more focused on getting a beta for the latest vfr started, then we are focused on gpu rendering. Once we get a stable release of the latest version out there for Rhino, then we can start focusing on gpu rendering and all that fun stuff.

[frip51]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

...there you got me...
sure you need the fuel - thought that my US colleagues would handle it.
I'm really sorry, pal.

I'll triple check it immediately.

[greg_bores@entegris.com]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

Sounds pretty simple overall, but, and here's maybe an embarassing question / statement; where do I get more copies of dr spawner? I don't even remember exactly where it came from in the first place, it just "spawned" onto my computer one day.

Do all slave computers need to have Vfr software installed or just the master computer?

[dkendig]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

::stops working on VfS:: "Hey Joe... change of plans..." ::rubs hands together::

hehe, Joe's been working on VfR, and has made some great progress (I helped a little... but I've been mostly busy with VfS). We're still not ready for GPU rendering or anything too fancy yet. We just want this new core in there first, make sure it's working the way it needs to, and then we can start adding in new features. We have snuck a few neat ones in there while trying to get to a nice stable point, Ambient Occlusion, Dispersion, Anisotropy Textures, IES Lights, etc. Still not ready for public consumption though. Sorry

GBORES- When you do a custom install of our product, you can choose to only install the DR Spawner. That's where it comes from and yes, you have to install the DR spawner on all machines that will act as render nodes. Those machines also need to be on the same local area network as the workstation that initiates the render.

[frip51]

Re: VRAY & Rhino System

haha, bring it on!
You let me know when the beta is ready, right?
I let you know about the product

Have a nice one,
Matt



PS: How about firewall settings and DR? In our network, it works just fine and at speed of light. But the IT guys might have had their hands on the firewall at first...