Best Nvidia driver for GPU 5 hotfix 2 testing memory pooling with 2x 2080Ti NVLink

[allemyr]

Hi ChaosGroup!

Still testing out my old 2080Ti since I need more then 11gb Vram.
Will check so everything hardware related works as it should.
Right now I use the Trial version and choose the Hotfix 2.
For GPU rendering it would be very handy to have advice on best Nvidia driver in the Release Note for all V-Ray versions.

Right now I use Nvidia Driver 442.74 with V-Ray 5 GPU Hotfix 2, is there a better one?

Also have one quite important question that might be for a Nvidia forum, which is the latest Nvidia driver that still supoort memory pooling for 2080Ti in NVLink?

Best wishes and regards!! And a huge thanks in advance!!

// Karl

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi, thanks for posting.
You could test this on your setup using the V-Ray Benchmark Tool - https://www.chaos.com/vray/benchmark
It will be really interesting to see if there are going to be differences. At the moment the info about our recommended driver is on the V-Ray GPU page and the version is 526.98

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Hi allemyr

As my colleague Vladimir suggested, we test and verify drivers regularly on the GPU page. You will have a log message if you use a newer or older version of drivers, the current recommended driver is 526.98 Studio driver
On another note, if you use the trial you can test V-Ray 6. It is a lot better than V-Ray 5 on stability and GPU features
This recommended driver supports memory pooling on 2080tis, read more about this setup here

Best,
Muhammed

[allemyr]

Ok thank you both will check your suggestions out. Find this post from Vlado ( https://www.chaos.com/blog/profiling...idia-rtx-cards ) which is very handy for me with good info about accurate memory in MSI AfterBurner and many other good tips.
I realize this is really old hardware and a logic solution for me would be to buy a 3090 Ti and use one of the new 1200w powersupply then the one I have and use one 2080Ti for display. Will se if I can get my setup to work.

I like the idea of 2x 2080Ti and NVLink on paper year 2023 anyway : )

[ThomasHorsley]

Hi,

I'm also hoping to test V-Ray GPU 5 and 6 using (2x) 2080 Ti's setup using an NVLINK bridge, as 11GB is no longer enough to render my scenes...

So I'm just doing some initial reading and setup test before I purchase the NVLINK bridge. Have read:
https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/a...and-NVLink-FAQ


I've installed NVidia Studio driver ver 526.98 but there aren't any "Configure SLI, Surround, and PhysX" only "Configure Surround, Phys X"

My mainboard definitely supports SLI - (Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Xtreme, with 2 identical 2080Ti's in PCI-16 slots) - and haven't seen anything in the BIOS that switches OFF SLI.

So, my question is - will I only see "Configure SLI" once the NVLINK bridge is physically installed on the system?
Or should I see those options already without a bridge?

Obviously I don't want to order the hardware if I fall at the first hurdle!

Thanks for any help in advance,

Thomas

[allemyr]

Yes SLI/NVLink in Nvidia control panel will be availible when you install the bridge.

You need a 4-slot NVLink bridge for that motherboard but you already aware of that.

I dont know if memory pooling for 2080 Ti is supported in all the Nvidia Drivers. When it came it was supported but I've read Nvidia thought it was too good feature for 2080 Ti but can't confirm that.

[ThomasHorsley]

Thanks allemyr for the quick reply.

I've ordered a 4 slot NVLink bridge.
Looking forward to testing heavier 3ds Max scenes with V-Ray GPU.
Have you got it to work well with your own workflow?

I'm pretty sure memory pooling works - @Muhammed_Hamed above confirms that - and the guys at Puget Systems also tested the NVLink hardware so fingers crossed.

Thanks again, Thomas

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Hey guys!

If you configure SLI/NVLink in Nvidia control panel, V-Ray GPU will detect NVlink in the log and will use memory pooling
You will not necessarily get 22 GB of GPU memory with 2x 2080ti, it will be more like 20 GB or so. You will be able to fit a lot more assets and textures in your GPU memory

Let us know how this goes ThomasHorsley

Best,
Muhammed

[ThomasHorsley]

Hi @Muhammed_Hamed,

Thanks for your reply - I have got this working.
In case it's useful for others to know:
After plugging in the NVLink bridge, the "Configure SLI...." became visible in NVida Control Panel's 3D Settings.
Select "Maximise 3D performance" and you're good to go.

Very happily - I can now render the heavy scenes I couldn't do before using VRay GPU.
Previously I had to switch off the 3d people from the scene in order to render, (then use CPU rendering for the final production), but now I can use GPU for final renders so that's great.

Another question now of course! :

Does anyone know if it's possible to add another GPU to a system with this NVLink set up?
The third card would be just for compute.
In other words - could I add a single 24GB card (or larger) to this, keeping the (2x) 2080Ti's set up with NVlink?

Many thanks, Thomas