Scene Size for Iray Render
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Is the size of the scene that must fit in my video ram nothing more than the size on disk of the DUF scene file?
Thanks.
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It's all a bit smoke and mirrors really. Meshes, textures, the hdri and even your final image is stored in the vram to my knowledge (and possibly more). The best thing i've found is to run gpu-z and monitor vram load at render time. As you're composing your scene, keep hitting render every now and again to find out the load size and work within your budget. That's my 2c anyway!
Ah HA! I wondered if that might not be the case! As it happens, I keep GPU-Z handy. Thanks!
FWIW, the .duf scene file is usually the least part of the footprint size of a D|S scene. Assuming all the bits are proper native D|S format content, the scene file is mostly parameter settings for each object in the scene, plus pointers to the actual geometry and morphs in the /data/ folder, and the textures in the /Runtime/Textures/ folder. All of this gets passed to your graphics card before rendering begins.
Note there are two things that will inflate the scene footprint; any object in the scene with SubDivision set will eat up more of your card's memory, and most if not all of your texture files will be in heavily compressed file formats — they're uncompressed before being sent to the card.
And there's one final gotcha; unless you're using two graphics cards, part of your card's memory will be used to drive your computer's monitor display.
And don't forget, many/most duf files are saved in compressed form, too...so the size on disk is usually a compressed file size.
The file compression is switched on and off by a tickbox in one of the save dialogs. FWIW, I always save uncompressed, just in case I ever need to dig into a scene file to fix something.
I know it's not the best way to do it...but having a text editor capable of handling compressed files makes it trivial to deal with compressed dufs.
Which editor/s will do that?
I have two new graphics cards, 1070s, sitting on my kitchen table right now, waiting to be installed. I'll be using one to drive my monitors, and I've been wondering how that might affect the available VRAM. It is said that if you have two cards with dissimilar VRAM installed, the lower number of the two is what will be available for rendering.
Not a problem; all you need to do is go into the D|S Render Settings and define the card with more VRAM as the one you want Iray to use, then set the smaller one (I've never had a two-card system, so I don't know how this is done) as your display driver. This is not done automatically, you must set it up yourself. Due to the way Iray works right now (this might change in a later version) you can't add the memory of both cards together and use it all for Iray.
And I've just noticed you said both cards are 10-series. Remember that only the D|S beta version will support these cards, the current release version doesn't. No indication when the new version comes out of beta, but it's now at RC5, so it can't be much longer. And before you fit the new cards, you should probably get the newest driver from the NVidia website. Don't install the gaming stuff, it'll just clutter up your system.
Ha! No DS support for the 1070! I guess I'm a pioneer! :-) I'll find the DS version that works and install it, if I don't already have it. I'm guessing it's one of those "public build" versions, yes? Since I didn't know this, I'm lucky there's any version available at all. I'm all set with drivers, and no, I declined the game stuff. As for identifying the card driving the monitors, that's a new one on me. I think I can figure out which one it is by using GPU-Z, but I don't know what to do with the information yet. I know the VRAM isn't additive, unfortunately, but the cuda cores had better be.
I've got one card in and working fine now, although untested with DS. I need to alter the case to get the second one in, these are l o n g cards. Parts are on order, so it will take a few more days or a week before I can see what happens with two.
Thanks.
Notpad++ can do it with a plugin...but most Linux text editors do it out of the box.
Any of the beta versions...but go with the latest, as it has fixes for various problems, including a major problem with the first couple not being able to be used on an older AMD CPU/Mac.
I see there's a newer version, but I've got v4.9.3.128 installed so I used it. It uses the 1070 no problemo, I can see by what's happening, and it's snappy. I expect adding the second card will take my breath away. There's no Advanced tab in the Render Settings panel though so I can't see how it's set. It's an eye opener to see a 77K DUF file use 2.5M of VRAM. Argh!
The DS released version sees the 1070 but doesn't use it. In fact, the render speed is so slow that only the progress bar and the CPU temp change, the screen never paints, and W7 Resource Monitor taskbar icon shows no activity.
There ought to be, are you looking right at the top of Render Settings, level with the green "Render" button? You should see three subtabs; Presets, Editor (the usual active subtab), and Advanced. Don't forget to select the CPU as well as the card, just in case you work on a scene that won't fit in the card.
Yes, this is normal when the card is unsupported and all renders fall back to the much slower CPU mode.
Ah, yes, now I see it. I'd been fooling with the Style settings, and accidently camoflaged it! :-) Thanks!
It also looks like I can't read numbers very well anymore. I misplaced a decimal point...below, a render of an 800K DUF file.