Iray network rendering

patboudrum

Hello,

I've just realised that I have enough spare parts to build another desktop computer. It will be a low end computer but I just want to use it as a rendering computer (just a little bit more power to accelerate rendering time). 

I know that I can do network rendering with Luxrender (done it with my desktop computer and my laptop) but I would like to know if we can do network rendering with Iray (not taken that route yet)?

Thank you!

Widdershins Studio

+1

I'd like to know too as I have spare parts as well.

mjc1016

patboudrum said:

 

I know that I can do network rendering with Luxrender (done it with my desktop computer and my laptop) but I would like to know if we can do network rendering with Iray (not taken that route yet)?

Thank you!

No...or at least not yet and I'm not sure that when it does come it would be within reach of most people.  Iray is Nvidia's toy and they are basically setting it up for using their  devices, so how easy/compatible it would be with 'normal' network rendering is hard to say.  Looking at the Iray forums it's almost all talk about VCAs and purpose built machines loaded with Tesla cards (Quadros with no video out) to mimic the VCA and how to pass stuff off to render farms and all that.  Not much about 'normal', throw a couple of spare machines and cluster them or anything like that.

patboudrum

Thank you for your answer mjc1016,

Too bad... I'll stick with Luxrender... or maybe will take a look at poser with this superfly render engine 

Widdershins Studio

That's a shame, thanks though.

mjc1016

patboudrum said:

Thank you for your answer mjc1016,

Too bad... I'll stick with Luxrender... or maybe will take a look at poser with this superfly render engine 

It's sort of Cycles-lite.  Not quite as capable/versatile as Cycles itself.  Not bad, but tied to Poser kind of tightly and that brings a whole host of limitations...

Luxrender is, hands down, the EASIEST way to network render there is.  At least in the less than 'arm, leg and first born' cost category.  As long as the hardware is capable of 1) running the latest version and 2) being able to connect to a network, it can be used. 

Widdershins Studio

How's Reality 4.2 looking now ? I heard there were some problems at first.

mjc1016

Widdershins Studio said:

How's Reality 4.2 looking now ? I heard there were some problems at first.

I use Luxus...so I'm not sure about Reality.  I know that there's been at least one Luxrender update...

Serefina_Moon

Umm, guuuuuuys,....  http://www.nvidia.com/object/iray-server.html
 

 

• Runs on Windows or Linux, independent of submitting applications
• Utilizes all supported GPUs and CPUs within the machine

odhinnsrunes

Serefina_Moon said:

Umm, guuuuuuys,....  http://www.nvidia.com/object/iray-server.html
 

 

• Runs on Windows or Linux, independent of submitting applications
• Utilizes all supported GPUs and CPUs within the machine

Awesome!  Anyone know how well it works with DAZ?

Widdershins Studio

Pretty sure it has not been released yet...

AndyS

Hm,

 

I'm very interested, because the render times on my local PC drive me crazy.

The question: Who is offering such an iray render farm? nVidia themselves?
How about the costs (per second or per GB)?

Widdershins Studio

Here's one, but beyond my budget.

http://ultrarender.com/#section-about

prixat

I've been playing with the server.

Good news, the queueing and network clustering work with any CUDA GPU but the scene still has to fit in each card's memory.
Bad news, Studio does not supporting Queueing mode ... yet. (I sent the jobs you see in the graphic from another program.)

Good news Interactive mode is supported by Studio.
Bad news it only works with Quadro cards.

There is no pricing or licensing information, but I expect it will still be cheaper for Mac users than a Thunderbolt solution.

cridgit

Redacted

zaz777

cridgit said:

I've installed IRay server on my DAZ Studio PC but now I'm stuck. Can you please point me to where I find the option in DAZ Studio to render to Iray server? I'm using DS 4.9.2.

Thanks

 

There's the "Cloud [BETA]" tab in Render Settings.  Its a sub-tab of the Advanced tab in the Render Settings pane.  That's the only thing I know that might be what you're looking for.

Silver Dolphin

Iray only works with local cards. If you need PCIE slots you can get external boxes which are too expensive. It is cheaper to get a motherboard with more slots and a Iray card with more cores. Iray is a very expensive toy to use for just a hobby. If you are using to make money it is one thing but for the hobbiest it is too expensive. Cycles and Superfly scale better with more processors. I have two new 8 core Xeon processors and if you can get a dual socket 2011 motherboard you can make yourself a nice Cycles render workstation with 8 or 10 core Xeons which work really well.

cridgit

Redacted

prixat

I looked at the Iray server a while ago and queuing had not been implemented (in Studio) at that time.

I have not checked with the new Beta but I didn't see any mention of it in the release notes.

zaz777

cridgit said:

zaz777 said:

There's the "Cloud [BETA]" tab in Render Settings.  Its a sub-tab of the Advanced tab in the Render Settings pane.  That's the only thing I know that might be what you're looking for.

Well I'll be darned. It must have been there all along but due to the workspace color scheme it is almost invisible. I'm using City Limits and the text color must be 1 shade lighter than the background. There's also a canvasses tab.

Good news is that I have DAZ Studio now connecting to my Iray Server cluster, but only problem is it can't render because I need a pro GPU (I "only" have 980Ti) for streaming render on Iray Server. Next step for me is to figure out how to get DAZ Studio to queue render on Iray Server.

Thank you!

You're welcome.

Yeah, "Cloud [BETA]" has been there for a long time, I think either at initial release of IRAY in DS or shortly after.  I think the Canvasses tab has been there since the beginning, or very early, part of the betas that included IRAY.