Faster Renders
moseleycw
Posts: 13
I currently have Hardware Overview: Model Name: iMac Model Identifier: iMac14,2 Processor Name: Intel Core i7 Processor Speed: 3.5 GHz Number of Processors: 1 Total Number of Cores: 4 L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB L3 Cache: 8 M Memory: 32 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M: Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M Type: GPU Bus: PCIe PCIe Lane Width: x16 VRAM (Total): 4096 MB Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
I am not satisfied with the performance for iray. Can anybody suggest a way using what I have to make it faster. Any upgrades to what I have to make it faster, or what computer would give me a significant speedup.
Is there any way to stop a render and resume at a later time?
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Moved to Daz Studio Discussion as it is a technical question rather than a product suggestion.
Yes click cancel, and there is a resume button on the rendered image to resume.
More cores in the processor, so an extreme edition of the i7, a Xeon or two, or indeed a server of them.
Or a Nvidia graphics card with plenty of cuda cores; the 900 series are about the best mainstream, although the older 700 is pretty decent too. Bear in mind, you need as much memory on a card as possible -cards can not share memory, but the cores from multiple cards can assist.
Furture technology may allow cards to share memory for rendering.
This is basically not easily available to Mac users; there are a couple of threads about in which long-term Mac users curse Apple for their abandonment in this regard; at least one has said get Windows PC; other Mac users have posted that they have bought a windows machine specifically for rendering. Try searching for the specific posts; google or similar is likely the easiest way.
My suggestions:
I'd say the cheapest method, in the long-term is to buy a machine specifically for rendering.
Laptops, which I think you're using from the M designation of your spec, will wear out quicker than a desktop counterpart of similar performance - poorer cooling in an enclosed space; and more expensive components. Don't overclock it, again it will wear out quicker.
If you like the laptop, then use it to set up scenes then transfer to render.
Plus the lack of upgrade path...most laptops are NOT very upgrade capable...sure you can bump up the RAM...but not swap out video cards (and those that can are usually limited to a very few alternates). So a simple thing...add a new/another video card becomes impossible or extremely costlly.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html
I'd install the latest for your OS. You didn't specify so check before you DL these and make sure your OS is supported. Framework between 10.9,.10, and .11 changed significantly so update to the latest iteration of the OS and make a TM backup before you proceed in the event you need to roll back.
that mac was the last time Apple offered an OEM 4GB Nvidia card and it's soldered to the board.
If you need a better GPU it will have to be TB2 to extenrnal GPU chassis to flashed Nvidia card. I lothe what Apple did to designers and musicians.
Yeah, I agree you need a cheap AMD APU with a built in graphics chip on die, and get a nice Nvidia 980 6gb. A cheap PC just for renders is the way to go. You can work on your mac and render on the pc.
I tried the PC just for rendering - Iray was still dreadfully slow even on Windows 10 with a GTX970 4GB. Luxrender on my iMac in CPU mode with boost via Reality 4.2 was still quicker for me, but then I do mostly interior scenes.
Marble, One thing you might try is use HDRI for you lighting. It works wonders for me and it flys. I understand you like more control over your lighting I like working with Iray floresese and it looks great, but iray lights are tooo slow. I now use HDRI for most of my lighting but it is a bit of work because it does not let you direct the light the way you want.
If that is the environment lighting with the dome in IRay, then yes, I did try that. I use it a lot with Luxrender - especially for outside light. However, as I said, I do mostly indoor scenes and HDR is not ideal for lighting indoors - at least not in my experience. I do wonder about terms like "flies" because I thought an hour should be enough for an indoor scene but I have seen people talking about 18 hours or more - with IRay GPU rendering. So are we talking in relative terms here? Most of my CPU renders in Luxrender are pretty good within an hour. I compared the same scene in IRay with the GTX970 and, even after leaving it all running night, it was grainy.
Anyhow, the GTX970 was returned to Amazon for a refund so I can't compare now.
Imho, if you were also using the graphics card for video out, you may have been overloading the memory and it was switching to Cpu only mode.
Try again with the system set to Onboard graphics only , if it has that option. Might speed up the render.
No - I had a little app running which gave me real time stats on RAM/GPU/CPU usage - it was definately using the GPU. Anyhow, as I said, I don't have the GPU now. I just use the Windows PC as a Luxrender Network node which does speed up my Reality renders even more.
As a comparison, this thread has some IRay render times which illustrate my point. The person here is quoting awfully long render times (more than a day). You will see that a couple of posts further down, I attached an example of a luxrender scene using similar content but stopped after only 27 minutes on my iMac in CPU mode.
yep, network rendering is one of the few reasons i still have lux running around on my computer.
Be nice to have that with 3delight or iray. Yeah i know you can get that with the 3delight standalone, but another grand a year is over my yearly budget for software currently.
As far as the comparison, it doesn't really prove anything and the inordinatly high render times generally equate to a lack of knowledge of the render engine.
For instance, when i got started in daz studio, my computer was running a dual core athlon at 3ghz, between 5 and 24 hours, of rendering in 3delight was average for an 800x800 image.
To day, 4 years later, still running "relativly" low specs those same setups, they take less than an hour. on the same system for 1kx2k. I currently render in golden ratio for portrait and landscape.
the difference, I studied lighting, texture and render settings for 3delight. As well as general techniques for the same in other software.
The result is reduced render times and higher quality.
The same applies to every render engine i've worked with.
When getting started the render times are insane, mostly because i'm trying to use the techniques i already know as opposed to figuring out the differences.
My keyshot renders used to be in the 8-10 hour range, on two 16 core servers. today, maybe 2 hours for even higher quality and more stuff in the scene, lots of reflections, lots of translucency, larger etc.
We'll see what the new(er) server does with iray. The old ones can't support it due to the graphic chip. and my work station just doesn't cut it for rendering what i do these days.
As far as the comparison, it doesn't really prove anything and the inordinatly high render times generally equate to a lack of knowledge of the render engine.
I agree. Unfortunately, there are users who dip their toes in without learning anything and post horrible results, misleading many. That's been a problem here for years and makes me doubt many "bug reports."
I have to say that if that comment was directed at me, I'm quite offended. The image I posted was very quickly cobbled together in an attempt to simulate in Luxrender/Reality what the OP was doing in IRay. It took 5 minutes to create the scene and not much longer to render. To accuse me of not learning anything when I've sought the advice of many here before forwarding an opinion is plain arrogance on your part.
Actually, using the standalone 3Delight...even without network rendering will give a boost to render speed. I typically see a 4 to 6x speed increase...10 to 15 mins as opposed to an hour in Studio.
This image was rendered in 8 mins 27 seconds in the standalone...over 45 mins in Studio.
Marble, I wan't talking about you at all. I quoted Drunk Monkey's post and agreed with the line. There have been years of horrible advice on these forums, though, so it's always a state of wariness when someone posts outrageous render times or bug problems when it could simply be they are not using the software correctly. I actually tried helping you out a few weeks ago so I'm not against you at all, though I still wish you would have hung on to that new card! ;)
My mistake, Kevin - sorry for being so quick to take offence.
I'll revist the GPU thing later because I might still migrate from my iMac to a PC based system (Windows or Hackintosh). At that point, perhaps the new Pascal cards will be available.
No prob, marble!
I'm hoping they will be faster cards with more memory. But keep in mind, usually the price drops on older cards, so...
There is something really strange going on with my install of Studio...because that render I posted, running it again, today I'm at nearly 3 hrs and only 90% finished. While I re-ran the exported to RIB version right before I posted...it was the 8 min 27 sec run...so the external is over 30x faster? It's the same exact render...I never closed it. Just hit 'render' again...last night it ran in a little over half an hour.
I've gotten similar results in the 3delight freebee, on simple scenes, anything more complex and the render times come to be comparable.
Especially if there are a lot of reflective surfaces and translucency going on.
i got nothing on this one that's just weird