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Do I need a Nvidia video card to make good iRay renders?

Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,527
in Daz Studio Discussion

I have an old ATI radeon HD 4800 video card.  I do not think it really works that great with Windows 10.  I think I need to replace it.  Does it have to be a Nvidia card?  I cannot spend hundreds on a video card at the moment?  what would be a good video card for iRay renders?

Comments

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,997

    If you want to use your graphics card (or at least a graphics card) for Iray renders it would need to be a 'CUDA' card, which means nVidia.  You don't need one, your CPU will do the job.  Using the GPU can (likely will) just make the rendering faster, not better.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    You do not NEED an Nvidia card to make Iray renders...good, bad or otherwise.  You do, on the other hand, need an Nvidia card to make FASTER renders.  With an Nvidia CUDA capable card you will have the speed benefits of being able to use the video card's precessing power to run the render.

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,644

    The quality of the render will be the same with or without a CUDA card from Nvidia, it's just that CPU-only is orders of magnitude slower.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    I have a Mac which can ony use CPU but recently I bought a PC with a GTX970 card. I just didn't have the patience to wait half a day for a scene to render by CPU but GPU speeds are within my tolerance levels. Can you imagine the frustration at noticing, after 6 hours, that your G3F has poked her toes through the floorboards? I can put up with wasting an hour on a render only to have to do it again but 6 hours? No.

    Incidentally, I found Reality (with CPU acceleration/boost) much quicker than IRay in CPU mode but others may disagree.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,622

    I have a MacBook Pro with an NVIDIA card, but can only use CPU due to heat.  While I know they take longer, they are much more satisfactory than anything I could get with 3DL for the type of work I need to do.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715
    Kulay Wolf said:

    I have an old ATI radeon HD 4800 video card.  I do not think it really works that great with Windows 10.  I think I need to replace it.  Does it have to be a Nvidia card?  I cannot spend hundreds on a video card at the moment?  what would be a good video card for iRay renders?

    NVidia or CPU renders should look exactly the same; one is certainly quicker and usually a lot quicker.

  • hphoenixhphoenix Posts: 1,335
    Kulay Wolf said:

    I have an old ATI radeon HD 4800 video card.  I do not think it really works that great with Windows 10.  I think I need to replace it.  Does it have to be a Nvidia card?  I cannot spend hundreds on a video card at the moment?  what would be a good video card for iRay renders?

    An nVidia card will simply speed up the renders.

    Also, if you want to get one, wait at least until after June 10th.  Both the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 will be out then, and the prices on the 900 series cards will drop.

     

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    There's a subtlety to your question that's worth addressing. If you're solely interested in whether there is a purely qualitative difference between CPU and GPU Iray renders, then the answer is no.

    But if you're interested in making better renders, then the answer is yes: the faster and more capable your rig, the more flexibility you'll feel in the renders you do. If every render takes 4-8 hours on CPU alone, you may not be inclined to do a lot of experimenting, testing, and doing. It's a drag when things seem to take forever. The faster your system can do what you want it to do, the quicker your art is produced. The more you'll do, the more you'll learn, and so on.

    The best nVidia card for Iray is the one that you can afford. Everyone's metric is different. You can perceptively up your game with a lowly 740, with its 384 cores and 4GB of RAM. It tilts at a little above $100 new on Amazon (be sure to get the one with DDR5 RAM). If you're the gambling type, you can always try used or refurbished on eBay.

  • Ron KnightsRon Knights Posts: 1,805

    I've slowly come to the conclusion that my Macintosh computers won't handle DAZ Studio the way I'd prefer. That's just because Apple doesn't think we really need the ability to build a power system. The old Mac Pros were the last models to be easily upgraded. My Macs are superior to PCs and Windows for every use, except DAZ Studio.

    Now I'm left trying to figure how I can put together the funds to have a decent computer for DAZ Studio.

  • samurlesamurle Posts: 94
    Kulay Wolf said:

    I have an old ATI radeon HD 4800 video card.  I do not think it really works that great with Windows 10.  I think I need to replace it.  Does it have to be a Nvidia card?  I cannot spend hundreds on a video card at the moment?  what would be a good video card for iRay renders?

    It's the number of cores that make rendering fast.

    Your ATI radeon HD 4800 card was released in 2008.  It's Nvidia equivalent was the GeForce GTX 200.
    This card had around 240 processing cores.  This is quite low, compared to today's standards.

    Modern cards have over 1000+ Cuda cores.  The newest GTX 1080 will have 3840 Cuda cores.  What a beast.

    BTW, CUDA was first released in 2007.  Your card may not have any Cuda-compatible cores.
    I would guess it would be quite slow at rendering.

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