Carrara Peformance and Laptops......
LinkRS
Posts: 168
Howdy Folks,
With all of the fantastic information folks have shared with me, I wanted to give some info back to the community. I switched from a 2009 era desktop to a laptop as primary rig in July of 2012. It is pretty "high-end" and was actually an upgrade from my old desktop. It has a quad-core (hyper-threaded, so 8 logical cores) processor, and uses AMD "Enduro" Technology to use both an integrated and discrete GPU. I had read on the boards last week, how Carrara out of the box does not use the GPU for rendering, and relies on the CPU exclusively. So, late last week, I decided to run Carrara on my integrated (for those that care, it is an Intel HD 4000), as my laptop would run cooler, and the drivers are a bit more stable. Earlier this week, I started to play around with hair in Carrara, and noticed how poorly Carrara was running. There was half to full second delay between any interface interaction while in the "hair" room. It was ridiculously slow....
Switching back to the discrete GPU (which is a Radeon 7970M with 2 GBs of DDR5), proved to be the solution. Running it on the discrete GPU, the hair room runs smooth as butter, with no problems.
So, if you want to run Carrara on a notebook/laptop, you will need one with a discrete GPU to handle the hair room, but for general scene composing and shader work, Intel integrated graphics work fine. If it matters, my laptop has a "Full HD" 1920 x 1080 panel.
I also have a first-generation MacBook Pro with Retina Display that has a dedicated NVidia 650M with 1 GB of DDR5, and will attempt the hair room on it later this week. I will post back here with an update with how it runs there. Newer MacBook Pros with Retina are using integrated graphics exclusively (unlike the older ones) for the entry level models. If a discrete GPU is needed for a Mac, that raises the entry price considerably, and eliminates the possibility of using the 13" Retina MacBook Pro. Thanks!
Rich S.
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Comments
Thank you for the shared information.
I use a Sony Ultrabook with Intel i7 CPU (2 cores 4 threads).
I use Carrara 8.5 pro and it run fine with the HD 4000 but I don't use it with hair. I'm not into character modeling so I don't mind.
Absolutely!
The reason being the OpenGL preview does use your graphics for performance.
I run Carrara Pro 8.1 64bit on a Toshiba Satellite, Win7, Core i7 (quad core, multi-threaded), discrete GPU, 17" screen, good RAM (8GB?), runs great for animation (I don't do modelling or much with hair). Especially the animation previews, makes the whole hobby more fun.
8 GB RAM should be plenty for most Carrara endeavors. My laptop also has a dedicated Graphics card (GT240/1GB) which helps for Carrara's working view. I bought that before I knew how to really build a Carrara machine. It's dual core cpu is what drives me nuts - having to wait for renders - but it still works fine.
I agree with LinkRS,
Today's laptops can easily upgrade yesterday's Desktops. I have been having a Dickens of a time trying to find a great deal on an eight core laptop, so I built my own desktop. Nowadays, there are i7 cpus with 8 logical cores, making laptops a fine solution for the traveling render person!
I still intend on getting a beefy laptop for when I cannot be in my office on my Carrara workstation.
My Sony Ultrabook that I spoke earlier:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3537U CPU @ 2.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
Display Memory: 1792 MB
Like I said, work great for an Ultrabook, even if it is not a 4 cores / 8 threads CPU.
I have Cinema 4D install too and does what I need to do, when I need more, I use my I7 Desktop computer at home.
Sweet stuff!
Sure is nice when we can go into Carrara and just work (or play), right? ;)
Hi Everyone,
Carrara Pro runs quite well on an Intel HD 4000, I was actually surprised with how well. So far, the performance has been virtually indistinguishable while in the assemble and texture rooms between the two cards. On my MacBook Pro, the default is to run Carrara on the discrete card, and the only way to force it on the dedicated (also an Intel HD 4000), is to use a third-party utility. The newer Retina MacBook Pros all use some version of Intel HD 5XXX, which is as much as twice as fast (in shader-bound instances) as the HD 4000, but almost any discrete card is easily twice as fast as the HD 5XXX. I imagine that they run OK, but am not sure about the hair room.
Rich S.
Did you see that AMD is now producing new cpus with the high end ATI graphics solutions built right in? This could truly make for some fun, I think. Now if only they'd do that to a twelve core laptop cpu! :)
Okay... I dream out loud sometimes.
As I've mentioned to evilproducer and the Garstor, I would certainly love to buy myself a Mac one day and see how well it stacks up to my home built solution - or perhaps the other way around.
Hi Dartanbeck,
I actually have a server that runs an AMD A8APU with integrated ATI graphics. It is a quad-core (despite the 8 in the name), and is less impressive than it sounds. It replaced an older Core 2 Duo, and the performance is only marginally faster. The GPU is an order of magnitude better than the integrated video with the Core 2 Duo (an NVidia part), but as this is my server, the GPU doesn't matter :-). What is important to note, while the GPUs in the AMD APUs are spectacular for integrated silicon, they are still slower than discrete video cards. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it is more than fast enough for Carrara, maybe even in the Hair room :-) Thanks!
Rich S.
Good to know! I bet that new chip would render as lot faster than the Core2Duo, though... I guess that depends on which core2 you had. I built a core 2 PC, and have one in my laptop. Fine chips. I was blown away when they came out. But not nearly as blown away as I was the first time I rendered with my AMD Zambezi 8! Bam! She's a fast rendering cpu - truth be told!
Slightly off topic,
For those running Carrara and Photoshop on a
Sony VAIO Duo, Flip orTap Laptop/tablet,
A driver was released this week so we can finally have Pen Pressure sensitivity in Photoshop.
http://esupport.sony.com/perl/swu-download.pl?upd_id=9079&SMB=YES
Now that this is out, I will 100% endorse the my Sony VAIO Duo 11 to the DAZ community.
Not having pen pressure sensitivity in Photoshop was a major disappointment.
Can't wait to render some hair, then post work some finer strands!
Cheers gang.
I don't have a pen with mine so I use one from jot pro when need it.
I'm a total newb when it comes to my Wacom tablet. It just takes practice, which I keep neglecting to give myself, in favor of just going in and getting it done with my cheapo mouse. I have still never actually felt how a high end mouse feels during work - and I can feel that my Wacom will certainly benefit my workflow if I could only get myself some good practice time in. I guess I need to schedule in some time for getting accustomed to some of the great tools that I have at my disposal.
That's really cool that Sony jumped on the ball so quickly. They do that though, don't they! I must say, I have been very please with every Sony purchase I've ever made. So, out of curiosity, how big is this VAIO tablet? Have you ever used a Cintiq tablet? Would your VAIO tablet with a pen compare somewhat to something like that? I've felt myself wondering about that. Cintiq is a Wacom tablet that is also a monitor - so you draw directly onto what you see. I'd imagine that the principle would be the same on a sensitive tablet PC with pen, wouldn't it?
Either way, I want to look into these tablet PCs some more. Thanks for mentioning the driver thing! ;)
Dart,
I'd normally agree about Sony, but they dragged their shiny backsides for three years on the driver. Sony, Adobe, and N-Trig (The digitizer touch screen manufacture) were trying to pass the buck for the three years saying its someone else's problem.
For those looking to buy a touch screen laptop, google the reviews to make sure it is fully compatible with the software you want.
However, it is nice to draw straight on the image on the monitor! vs, a usb pad that sits to the side of the screen.
I have a Wacom tablet, it's an older one with an A5 (6x9ish) pad. As I don't have touchscreen. It's good for drawing 2D items I need to create in Iillustrator, but haven't tried it yet for tweaking, etc in vertex modelling. Have to think about giving it a try as it is definitely more precise! Just have to find room on my overbed setup to use it right now ;)
Before I got into Carrara and 3D stuff, I had to change to a trackball mouse. I was getting cramps in my hand, and sore arm and shoulder just doing 2D stuff even with an ergonomic? mouse.. With Carrara, it's wonderful to just move my thumb a bit here and there instead of dragging a mouse around on a pad! Trust me, give it a chance and you will love it once you get used to it. Even for surfing the net, it's great. Only took me a day to get used to it and I groan now if I have to use my husband's machine with his conventional mouse.
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice-pointers/trackballs
I have the one on the right, the M570. I absolutely LOVE it. No matter now many shortcut keys you use and I use lots in Illustrator and InDesign, I was still doing a lot of pointing and clicking. This is great. Haven't had any arm/shoulder/neck problems since. Just a herniated disc!
xx :) SileneUK
Just got my new laptop with an intel I7 4700HQ (4 cores hyperthreaded to 8), 8gb of RAM (I'll probably upgrade that to at least 16, but 8 seems pretty great so far) and a Nvidia Geforce 740m gpu graphics card.
Up til now I've run Carrara (and Thea/Poser/Studio/Luxus etc) on my older laptop, which is a 2nd generation intel I5 (2 cores hyperthreaded to 4) and was able to do so with no real problems, seemed to run smoothly and well, and prior to that I had an even older dual core laptop that ran Carrara fine too.
But man oh man does that new I7 fly through rendering, and while I didn't expect the Nvidia graphics card to make a lot of difference in Carrara, it really does for scene setup, really complex scenes load very quickly and I get no hesitations in the assembly room at all :) After a bit of effort, I was able to network the new I7 and the older I5 together and use them to network render with the I5 as a node. It really is a thrill to see 12 cores rendering away quickly even on complex and large renders.
Also gotta mention the new Thearender CPU + GPU version, because I didn't realize it but apparently my basic thearender purchase gave me 2 node licenses as well, so I was able to set up my I5 as the node and network render the 2 together and do a pretty complex scene I had exported out of Carrara to test... oh man oh man oh man! That sucker *screams* it renders so quickly :)
There's lots of things I didn't realize about network rendering with Carrara before, mostly because I've never done it before and it behaves differently than I expected. For one thing, the cores for the node computer aren't color coded, they are all gray (aww, I wanted to see what other colors Carrara would assign to cores 9 through 12). Also it takes time for the carrara file to be sent to the node computer and it takes time for the node computer to load the scene, so if it's a pretty simple render the primary computer may already have nearly finished the render before the node computer even gets in on the act. Also I never realized you have to save the file first and load it in the batch queue to network render, and that the finished picture goes to 'my documents' and gets saved there (gave me a start when my render suddenly vanished from the render room in Carrara just as it finished).
Still, it feels really thrilling to actually have a render farm! (of 2 laptops, does that still count? lol)
I was going to go with a desktop tower for my next computer but honestly couldn't justify it at the moment because I could get similar spec components in a laptop for less expense (weird, that wasn't what I was expecting) but hey laptops work great with Carrara :)
That sounds like good advice, thanks. I am in the market for a new laptop, but I can't see the advantage of touch screen for doing short animations in Carrara. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet and love it, the touch screen there makes sense. But I'm not planning on doing any 3D animation on it. I'm pretty happy with the mouse and keyboard for laptop use, and am one of the many who was not impressed with Windows 8. Including my wife who did get a new laptop with Win 8.1 and was ready to send it back after about an hour. And sue Microsoft for ... something. She has now calmed down and seems reasonably content.
:coolsmile:
Steve K,
I have a touch screen and never use it in Carrara. That would be a horrible mess.
The digitizer pen in photoshop allowing you to trace your image, stay in the lines ect. Priceless.
I have the Sony Duo 11. And love it. The 13 is out but it only has an HDMI output.
Mine has a VGA and HDMI, so I feed it to two separate 23inch monitors. That speeds up the work flow!
Supposedly you can daisy chain up to 6 monitors through the USB 3.0 port. but I don't have any monitors with that feature.
I do fly on planes a lot, so the touchscreen really helps since there is not much room for a mouse.
The thing I didn't know to look for though when I bought mine, is pen pressure sensitivity. The two big manufacturers for the touch screen digitizers is Wacom and N-trig.
256 levels for N-trig (the pen requires a battery)
1,024 levels for Wacom like in the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga (plus the pens are battery free)
The levels of sensitivity are important for photoshop users that are very artistic in free hand drawing. Creating fine and/or light to dark lines.
I got a digital art degree, because I am piss poor at free hand drawing. One more reason why it was important for me to be able to trace right on the screen.
Lastly, for all you Win 8 nay sayers.
I agree, what a pain.
However, after two full days I was back up to speed, working mostly from the desktop view.
More importantly, I think MS finally listened to its customers, and supposedly the free Windows 8.1 update returns the START button back to the bottom left corner of the desktop view.
Happy laptop hunting.
Thanks. Just to clarify, we did wait for Win 8.1 before buying my wife's new laptop. If we had bought 8.0, I think we would have a hole in a window (har) and a laptop out in the yard. She has decades of experience on PC's including database development in MS Access, and she was royally pissed.
The recommended process for large software projects is a small development team (to avoid communication problems - Lotus 1-2-3 was done mostly by a single individual - it worked beautifully), and a large beta test group. Microsoft does it the other way around, a development team organized into large neighborhoods at war with each other, and a beta tester named Abigail who likes to do crochet while watching the screen savers.
Google search on "Windows 8 Sucks": 53 million hits
(Please nobody tell me to buy a Mac. I know they are better, but the $$$$ software I already own ...)
Hi Steve,
Hate to burst your bubble, but Macs aren't really better for a person who is familiar and used to Windows. An argument could be made that if a person was completely new to PCs, that a Mac might be easier to learn, but for those of us who have been using PCs, it is a pretty steep learning curve. One good example of the divide between Windows and OS X, is the concept of adding or removing programs. In OS X world, there are three different ways to install a program, an installer (provided by the vendor, like Daz Install Manager), drag and drop to the Applications folder (often by using a provided shortcut, and this is the most common), and no install. Mac applications are distributed in bundles (folders) that contain all of the necessary support files and information for the program to run. The OS X OS will often create user settings (called plist files) in various places once you run the program. That is fine and dandy, but unlike installation there are very few ways to uninstall applications. If the vendor does not provide a utility (again like DIM), then you are left with just dragging the bundle to the trash can. This leave behind all of the plist files though. This is why Mac uninstall programs are common.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Mac, but I use both PCs and Macs, and have a healthy respect for both. I actually find myself running Carrara on my PC more than my Mac, due to the differences in screen resolutions. The MacBook Pro runs it at a super-sampled 1440 x 900, while it runs at 1920 x 1080 on my PC. The resolution may not be an issue if you are using an external monitor or non-Retina Mac.
BTW, the reception of Windows 8 was pretty mild compared to the public first reactions to Windows 95. When it first came it was panned as well, but the Internet wasn't popular yet, and it didn't spread as quickly as it does now. Bottom line, is people don't like change, Windows 3.1 to 95, or Windows XP to Windows 8, or heck even Windows to Mac, there will always be people who hate it :-)
Another BTW, my wife had a physical reaction to her first exposure to Windows 8, but she has settled down :-)
Thanks!
Rich S.
I remember fussing about that stupid start button when moving on from Windows 3.11. I did not see any need for it. Now, I don't know how I lived without it.
If the changes are truly "improvements", that's one thing, but too many changes in Windows seem to be just for the sake of change. It gives the impression of a huge army of programmers who have to justify their salaries. Humorist Dave Barry puts it best:
http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2013/10/a-brief-statement-about-windows-8.html
Some years back, maybe in the Windows 2000 Pro era, a friend had some old 5" floppies that he wanted to copy, but he didn't have a drive. I had a machine in the closet that had the drive, so we used DOS (!) to copy the disks to 3" floppies. He left and I sat there looking at a C:\> prompt, and yelled to my wife, "How do I turn this machine off?" She yelled back, "There's a switch on the back of the computer." "Oh, right."
:-S
Steve,
Haha, back when things were manual.
My Dad still uses MS Money in a DOS emulator so sometimes I have to go over and trouble shoot things for him. So I get a semi frequent dose of DOS.
It was a Christmas boon when I was able to find a 3.5in and a 5.25in external USB drives. He was thrilled.
To which I tell him, "Step up to the year 2014 Dad."
LOL.
Back to Windows, I understand their logic to follow trends, but they slipped on the Function over Form law of design.
But then again, most big corporations do. That's why I was appalled at the early Mac commercials were all they did was rotate their different color Macs to a Rolling Stones song. What kind of advertising is that? Guess it worked....
I remember fussing about that stupid start button when moving on from Windows 3.11. I did not see any need for it. Now, I don't know how I lived without it. LOL
I still have Win 3.1 installation floppies and a laptop that can use it, but it currently has a laptop version of 95 on it, which slows it way down - not that it's a fast machine... it's the first laptop to come with a color monitor by Zenith. I also have a small pile of accessories and the leatherette case. Thing is an archaic device that must be kept! Lode Runner Forever!!!! LOL
Edit: and it was already upgraded to half its max RAM at 4MB!!! I could get 4 more at 125 per MB years ago. But I doubt I could even do that now. Never know - and will never do it. Some day I'll just encase the thing in glass on a cool display table somewhere.
I still have Win 3.1 installation floppies and a laptop that can use it, but it currently has a laptop version of 95 on it, which slows it way down - not that it's a fast machine... it's the first laptop to come with a color monitor by Zenith. I also have a small pile of accessories and the leatherette case. Thing is an archaic device that must be kept! Lode Runner Forever!!!! LOL
Edit: and it was already upgraded to half its max RAM at 4MB!!! I could get 4 more at 125 per MB years ago. But I doubt I could even do that now. Never know - and will never do it. Some day I'll just encase the thing in glass on a cool display table somewhere.
It cost me $125 to upgrade my second computer to 64k from 16k.
Yeah, those new i7s sure are showing off their colors, eh?!!!
I still have never tried network rendering.
My Dogwaffle buddies are talking about the new Windows - as companies are introducing Win 8.1 tablets with the power of a Wacom screen for stylus use! While a bit less attractive to a Carrara user for Carrara, for painting in Dogwaffle, an 8" screen sounds like a better choice to some Wacom users than the larger ones.
I see those Pro folks at ILM and other big house studios using those dog gone Cintiqs... Man I would love to design that way!
But now with little Windows 8.1 Tablets with Stylus sensitivity coming in at ridiculously low prices... I know I want to look at this stuff sometime soon. To be able to paint, work in Carrara, render, check my e-mails, write in the forum, all on a small tablet run by an i7 with 8 logical cores just sounds like an excellent enhancement to life itself! But then network it to my 8 physical cores on my workstation for a render node... hmmm... sounds yummy!
I guess it can be worth it if you still fire the thing up, eh? Man! 125 can buy a lot of current RAM these days, though! :)
I wonder if I have that wrong... was it MB or kb? I'd have to check.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ibiObtFLGyE
You might like that clip then. Yes, the product placement was quite intentional...but it is still pretty good.
If the changes are truly "improvements", that's one thing, but too many changes in Windows seem to be just for the sake of change. It gives the impression of a huge army of programmers who have to justify their salaries. Humorist Dave Barry puts it best:
http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2013/10/a-brief-statement-about-windows-8.html
What is really interesting is how "change" or "improvements" for Windows usually cause great uproars with much anger and often colorful language. When Apple does a big "change" or "improvement" people love it, and through great praise on Apple. Apple has three times in their history completely abandoned the old "way" and went a new way (MacOS to UNIX based Mac OS X, Motorola 68K CISC to PowerPC RISC, and then PowerPC to Intel x86). Each time brought extremely limited backwards compatibility and was met with praise. When Microsoft makes a change, it is met with backlash. Some interesting trivia, if you are running a 32-bit variety Windows 8 (or 8.1), you can run most non-hardware dependent MS-DOS programs, without emulation. Microsoft has gone through great lengths to maintain backwards compatibility with each new version.
Windows 8.1 is a victim of schizophrenia. It tires to be iOS and OS X for Microsoft at the same time, and suffers for it. On a touch screen, the Modern UI is brilliant and works very well, however most programs (apps in iOS and OS X parlance) are written for desktop use, and touch screens are useless here. The next version which some people think is called "Threshold" is supposed to bridge the gap even more, but I am not holding my breath. I use Modern on my Surface Pro, and pretty much stick to the Desktop on my notebook, and treated like that, Windows 8.1 runs like a souped up version of Windows 7 (in my humble opinion), and is much faster on the same hardware (boots to login screen in 15 seconds from off).
I agree, that the melding of the tablet OS and desktop OS feels more like a unnecessary change, it might be better to have two separate SKUs like Apple, one for tablets/smart phones, and another for full blown computers. On the flip side, it looks like Apple is slowly turning OS X into iOS (which again is being met with praise, while Microsoft is bashed). We will just have to wait and see LOL.
Rich S.