Distributed Rendering Computer advice

[Luke72]

Hello everyone, I need some advice
I would take a couple of computers for doing distributed rendering, 16 GB of RAM (each) are enough to render heavy scenes?

how many nodes can be used to render a scene?
(theoretically)

Currently to do this I use a couple of computers with Windows XP 64bit, 4 gb ram vray2.0, not the latest version.
Sometimes, and especially with heavy scenes, after the step of calculation of GI (IR + LC)... I have the problem of the black squares in the final process of rendering.
Has the situation improved?

Thanks

[mgibeault]

Hi,
With the current V-Ray license, you can have 10 nodes for free in your render farm.
I have fives nodes with 16GB each and I get close to the limit with some scenes. There's a scene that's more than 1,3GB with which I wish I had more RAM.

[Luke72]

Ok thanks!
generally you have issues with the spawner?
black squares, etc...

[svetlozar.draganov]

I would take a couple of computers for doing distributed rendering, 16 GB of RAM (each) are enough to render heavy scenes?

It is difficult to say if 16GB will be enough for rendering heavy scenes since people have different opinions for "heavy scenes", for some people 16GB might mean medium scene for others it might be a heavy scene.

how many nodes can be used to render a scene?
(theoretically)

I don't think that there is a limitation for the number of the machines participating in DR but from practical stand point using too many machines is not very efficient since sometimes the first machines that receive the dr-job completes the entire image while the other ones still receiving the data.

Sometimes, and especially with heavy scenes, after the step of calculation of GI (IR + LC)... I have the problem of the black squares in the final process of rendering.

Please provide more information about this issue - scene,screen-shots,versions etc.

Hi,
With the current V-Ray license, you can have 10 nodes for free in your render farm.

The above is valid for V-Ray 2.x - with the release of version 3.x the License policy has changed.

[Luke72]

OK thanks
is a type of problem that can not recreate systematically.
In any case speak of version 200239_rhino5_x64
I strongly believe that it is a result of the network traffic, I think the master computer must transfer a scene to all slaves, right?
I do not usually transfer textures by the master computer, i use a specific NAS and the individual computer slaves loads the textures independently.
However I have the problem, that sometimes I resolve simply throwing a dummy render to empty the cache, sometimes restarting the spawner manually, sometimes transferring assets directly from the master computer via the main options.
I realize that it is not useful at the time, but I think there are a number of variables that should be analyzed
when the problem will recur i can post some screenshots

[svetlozar.draganov]

The scene is transfered from the workstation machine to all other ones participating in the DR.
If the textures are localized on a shared location they will be loaded from that place except if that location is not accessible from all machines, then they will be transfered from the workstation if Transfer Assets is activated.

Let us know when the issue occurs.