why are characters now Iray?

Oso3D

I think if we're talking about the sorts of users who might have a substandard card, Kendall's comments are very on the nose.

If you are a higher end user who knows hardware, then presumably you wouldn't be worrying about 'rendering a lot killed my card' sorts of concerns and this really isn't about you...

 

Daywalker Designs

timmins.william said:

I think if we're talking about the sorts of users who might have a substandard card, Kendall's comments are very on the nose.

If you are a higher end user who knows hardware, then presumably you wouldn't be worrying about 'rendering a lot killed my card' sorts of concerns and this really isn't about you...

 

True, but it's little different than someone turning all the highest detail levels on in a game and trying to play it on a low end system, in my opinion.

lx_2807502

timmins.william said:

I think if we're talking about the sorts of users who might have a substandard card, Kendall's comments are very on the nose.

If you are a higher end user who knows hardware, then presumably you wouldn't be worrying about 'rendering a lot killed my card' sorts of concerns and this really isn't about you...

 

I agree with this. To me it seemed that the comment was intended for the sort of people who don't know the details of hardware, not those that build their own PCs while checking every detail themseles.

Gator

What, my $300 netbook won't run Iray? 

Oso3D

I'm continually amazed at the hardware people manage to do rendering on. People keep talking about laptops and... I honestly wouldn't ever have even attempted to do significant renders on a laptop.

But apparently they can manage a good amount!

DustRider

timmins.william said:

I'm continually amazed at the hardware people manage to do rendering on. People keep talking about laptops and... I honestly wouldn't ever have even attempted to do significant renders on a laptop.

But apparently they can manage a good amount!

Yep, they can do quite well. All the renders in my gallery were done on a laptop. My current machine has 32Gb of RAM, a 6Gb gtx 970M, and 2.5Tb of disk storage.

j cade

Laptop with 8gb of memory and a 2gb video card here.

Apparently I am very patient

Its easier to render in winter because tha ambient temperature is lower

Pack58

timmins.william said:

I'm continually amazed at the hardware people manage to do rendering on. People keep talking about laptops and... I honestly wouldn't ever have even attempted to do significant renders on a laptop.

But apparently they can manage a good amount!

First played with DS (4.5) on an Atom Z3740 tablet with integrated graphics. Still use it for working on individual figures for inclusion in larger scenes on another PC and untextured groups of a couple dozen or so genesis figures, mostly propafied and instanced (don't know if those are real words).

Rendering textured scenes of any quality larger then 600 pixels in any direction is not good :-(

torque3656

This is nice but my question wasn't really answered properly. Is there a significant difference between a character that's not Iray and one that isn't. Please keep it simple.

Oso3D

The difference is entirely the shader applied to each.

Havos

torque3656 said:

This is nice but my question wasn't really answered properly. Is there a significant difference between a character that's not Iray and one that isn't. Please keep it simple.

A simple answer is no.

Leana

torque3656 said:

This is nice but my question wasn't really answered properly. Is there a significant difference between a character that's not Iray and one that isn't. Please keep it simple.

If you render with Iray you will probably have less adjustments to do on the materials if it already comes with Iray materials. That's all.

DustRider

I just looked through the last few (2-3 weeks) of G3F character releases, and all of them had 3Delight shader presets, as well as Iray, even though most (all?) of the promos were done with Iray. PA's tend to use Iray for promos because it is much faster, and easier to get great results. Technically, both use the same textures, and DS will auto convert Iray shaders to 3Delight shaders at rendertime when using 3Delight to render, they just typically won't be as good as 3Delight specific shaders. You can convert the Iray shaders to 3Delight yourself if needed using Omnifreakers HumanSurface Base shaders, or UberSurface Base shaders (just be sure to hold down the control button while applying and select "ignore" for images). After conversion, you can adjust the shaders to your liking.

Hope this helps

Kendall Sears

fastbike1 said:

Patently not true, both for noise levels and fan speeds. Definitely not true for water cooled CPUs and/or watercooled GPUs. During renders, my GPU fans level out at a bit over 50% speed and hold the GPU temp at the design value of 80C. I've also built my machine to sufficent cooling capability to not need fans running full out ever.

 

Kendall Sears said:

Iray will only kill a GPU if it is not cooled properly or if the GPU is powered by a marginal power supply unit.  Unfortunately, there are A LOT of cards out there that are built for bursts of use such as would be expected from gaming and only have coolers that "look cool" instead of being truly efficient.  Running a render can put the GPU at full power for extended periods of time.  If either the machine's cooling or the GPU's cooling is deficient, then things can go wrong in a hurry.  To understand the difference, take a look at a Quadro's cooling vs a GeForce.  Quadro's use lots of metal in the casing of the cooler in addition to the heatsink.  The casing even has "HOT" stickers on it to warn that touching it can burn.  Quadros are designed to be pushed for extended periods.  MOST GeForce cards are not much more than a heatsink with a plastic cowl holding the fans.  NOT a good indicator of efficient cooling.

A marginal PSU will also kill the GPU.  If the rail that the PCI-e power is provided from is unstable then the card can be damaged due to spikes and drops that can occur when the card is pulling 100% wattage for extended periods.

If you're using Iray and your scene isn't trivial, your machine should be LOUD.  The fans in the PSU should be full bore and the fan(s) on the GPU should be at full power.  If not, then you may want to investigate whether your card's setup is deficient.

Kendall

 

My post was not targetted at the 3% of people like you.  Anyone that has gone through the effort to water cool their GPU should know enough to properly cool and power their setup.  For the 97% of the world who are using "stock" setups, or have upgraded systems with economy as a priority, my post is absolutely accurate.

Kendall

Kendall Sears

timmins.william said:

I'm continually amazed at the hardware people manage to do rendering on. People keep talking about laptops and... I honestly wouldn't ever have even attempted to do significant renders on a laptop.

But apparently they can manage a good amount!

I have a higher level Quadro in my laptop using MXM.  However, it would be insane to try to do a full on render on it though it has much more horsepower than most desktops.  There's no sense in burning up the system and being left with a smoking husk instead of a usable machine.  This machine has "better than average" cooling, but no laptop has enough to remove that much heat.

Kendall

fastbike1

Sorry, not 100% accurate. Wasn't true for my previous two systems either. They weren't watercooled. The current GPU is a stock EVGA, fan cooled with the standard fan control.

You are correct that the majority of people here having hardwre issues are rendering complicated scenes on machines that were never intended to be heavy calculation platforms / gaming rigs.

This is not a hobby for the casually involved.

Kendall Sears said:

fastbike1 said:

Patently not true, both for noise levels and fan speeds. Definitely not true for water cooled CPUs and/or watercooled GPUs. During renders, my GPU fans level out at a bit over 50% speed and hold the GPU temp at the design value of 80C. I've also built my machine to sufficent cooling capability to not need fans running full out ever.

 

Kendall Sears said:

Iray will only kill a GPU if it is not cooled properly or if the GPU is powered by a marginal power supply unit.  Unfortunately, there are A LOT of cards out there that are built for bursts of use such as would be expected from gaming and only have coolers that "look cool" instead of being truly efficient.  Running a render can put the GPU at full power for extended periods of time.  If either the machine's cooling or the GPU's cooling is deficient, then things can go wrong in a hurry.  To understand the difference, take a look at a Quadro's cooling vs a GeForce.  Quadro's use lots of metal in the casing of the cooler in addition to the heatsink.  The casing even has "HOT" stickers on it to warn that touching it can burn.  Quadros are designed to be pushed for extended periods.  MOST GeForce cards are not much more than a heatsink with a plastic cowl holding the fans.  NOT a good indicator of efficient cooling.

A marginal PSU will also kill the GPU.  If the rail that the PCI-e power is provided from is unstable then the card can be damaged due to spikes and drops that can occur when the card is pulling 100% wattage for extended periods.

If you're using Iray and your scene isn't trivial, your machine should be LOUD.  The fans in the PSU should be full bore and the fan(s) on the GPU should be at full power.  If not, then you may want to investigate whether your card's setup is deficient.

Kendall

 

My post was not targetted at the 3% of people like you.  Anyone that has gone through the effort to water cool their GPU should know enough to properly cool and power their setup.  For the 97% of the world who are using "stock" setups, or have upgraded systems with economy as a priority, my post is absolutely accurate.

Kendall

 

Havos

Kendall Sears said:

fastbike1 said:

Patently not true, both for noise levels and fan speeds. Definitely not true for water cooled CPUs and/or watercooled GPUs. During renders, my GPU fans level out at a bit over 50% speed and hold the GPU temp at the design value of 80C. I've also built my machine to sufficent cooling capability to not need fans running full out ever.

 

Kendall Sears said:

Iray will only kill a GPU if it is not cooled properly or if the GPU is powered by a marginal power supply unit.  Unfortunately, there are A LOT of cards out there that are built for bursts of use such as would be expected from gaming and only have coolers that "look cool" instead of being truly efficient.  Running a render can put the GPU at full power for extended periods of time.  If either the machine's cooling or the GPU's cooling is deficient, then things can go wrong in a hurry.  To understand the difference, take a look at a Quadro's cooling vs a GeForce.  Quadro's use lots of metal in the casing of the cooler in addition to the heatsink.  The casing even has "HOT" stickers on it to warn that touching it can burn.  Quadros are designed to be pushed for extended periods.  MOST GeForce cards are not much more than a heatsink with a plastic cowl holding the fans.  NOT a good indicator of efficient cooling.

A marginal PSU will also kill the GPU.  If the rail that the PCI-e power is provided from is unstable then the card can be damaged due to spikes and drops that can occur when the card is pulling 100% wattage for extended periods.

If you're using Iray and your scene isn't trivial, your machine should be LOUD.  The fans in the PSU should be full bore and the fan(s) on the GPU should be at full power.  If not, then you may want to investigate whether your card's setup is deficient.

Kendall

 

My post was not targetted at the 3% of people like you.  Anyone that has gone through the effort to water cool their GPU should know enough to properly cool and power their setup.  For the 97% of the world who are using "stock" setups, or have upgraded systems with economy as a priority, my post is absolutely accurate.

Kendall

Both my CPU and GPU card are aircooled, and neither make any noise during rendering, and the fans run at less than 50% of max speed. The fan were designed for quiet operation, so are more expensive than the average, they are large efficient fans that maximise the cooling without having to spin too fast (it is the speed of a fan that makes it noisy, not the size of the fan).

frogimus

Not just the size/quality of the fans, but the case has a lot of bearing on cooling. I run Fractal R4 cases - well laid-out, filtered and sound insulated. Roomy interior makes for great airflow.

mjc1016

Havos said:

Kendall Sears said:

fastbike1 said:

Patently not true, both for noise levels and fan speeds. Definitely not true for water cooled CPUs and/or watercooled GPUs. During renders, my GPU fans level out at a bit over 50% speed and hold the GPU temp at the design value of 80C. I've also built my machine to sufficent cooling capability to not need fans running full out ever.

 

Kendall Sears said:

Iray will only kill a GPU if it is not cooled properly or if the GPU is powered by a marginal power supply unit.  Unfortunately, there are A LOT of cards out there that are built for bursts of use such as would be expected from gaming and only have coolers that "look cool" instead of being truly efficient.  Running a render can put the GPU at full power for extended periods of time.  If either the machine's cooling or the GPU's cooling is deficient, then things can go wrong in a hurry.  To understand the difference, take a look at a Quadro's cooling vs a GeForce.  Quadro's use lots of metal in the casing of the cooler in addition to the heatsink.  The casing even has "HOT" stickers on it to warn that touching it can burn.  Quadros are designed to be pushed for extended periods.  MOST GeForce cards are not much more than a heatsink with a plastic cowl holding the fans.  NOT a good indicator of efficient cooling.

A marginal PSU will also kill the GPU.  If the rail that the PCI-e power is provided from is unstable then the card can be damaged due to spikes and drops that can occur when the card is pulling 100% wattage for extended periods.

If you're using Iray and your scene isn't trivial, your machine should be LOUD.  The fans in the PSU should be full bore and the fan(s) on the GPU should be at full power.  If not, then you may want to investigate whether your card's setup is deficient.

Kendall

 

My post was not targetted at the 3% of people like you.  Anyone that has gone through the effort to water cool their GPU should know enough to properly cool and power their setup.  For the 97% of the world who are using "stock" setups, or have upgraded systems with economy as a priority, my post is absolutely accurate.

Kendall

Both my CPU and GPU card are aircooled, and neither make any noise during rendering, and the fans run at less than 50% of max speed. The fan were designed for quiet operation, so are more expensive than the average, they are large efficient fans that maximise the cooling without having to spin too fast (it is the speed of a fan that makes it noisy, not the size of the fan).

 

frogimus said:

Not just the size/quality of the fans, but the case has a lot of bearing on cooling. I run Fractal R4 cases - well laid-out, filtered and sound insulated. Roomy interior makes for great airflow.

Again...I'd agree with Kendall...and put both of you in the 'not average' user club.

'Quiet' fans and kick-butt cases are NOT average user gear.

DustRider

Kendall Sears said:

timmins.william said:

I'm continually amazed at the hardware people manage to do rendering on. People keep talking about laptops and... I honestly wouldn't ever have even attempted to do significant renders on a laptop.

But apparently they can manage a good amount!

I have a higher level Quadro in my laptop using MXM.  However, it would be insane to try to do a full on render on it though it has much more horsepower than most desktops.  There's no sense in burning up the system and being left with a smoking husk instead of a usable machine.  This machine has "better than average" cooling, but no laptop has enough to remove that much heat.

Kendall

Actually, the laptops designed to be pushed hard do have good enough cooling to remove all the heat generated from long render times. As I recall, this image took about 32 hours using Iray in GPU only mode (Forest Superior and low lighting didn't help the speed at all) . My GPU never got over 58 degrees, and CPU stayed under 78. Laptops designed to be pushed hard aren't real quiet under heavy load, but they get the job done and keep things cool. My current machine is one of the Clevo gaming systems from Prostar Computers.

True, a good desktop can have better cooling, but I can't afford both, and lugging a desktop around to do presentations and training doesn't work very well.

MEC4D

I will agree with you on some part, PSU can kill the system as it does to me in December last year , the issue  was not enough power to feed everything for extend period of time , I knew it but played Russians roulette , had to update PSU to 1300 watt so I don't run into trouble again, sadly my motherboard was fried before PSU upgrade and it was me not Iray as I rendered for hours just before..  another subject about fans, if they run on max power something is not right and the air flow is low or dust accumulated inside and that is where things can get wrong if one of them fail to cool your GPU or system, your system is at risk as you run at maximum . Using max fan speed will take away the PCI-e power from GPU and slowing it down ...not so efficient , after updating everything , my fans runs at 20%  GPU on full load 32 C and not higher even after 2 hours , I updated to water cooling separate one for CPU and each GPU and CPU overclocked too , now I have cold air coming out the case , if you run GPU for long time on high temperatures the lifespan of the card will be short and you get slower rendering . in the past I killed my Asus game laptop with Octane too beside the fact that it had 2 separate cooling for GPU and CPU it over heat and the game was over .. and was my fault as I pushed to the limits . Cuda rendering is very hungry there is not break for a second for that reason NVIDIA created Quadro series so it can take the hard work , GTX cards are not made for rendering but for games so if your system can't cool them efficient or you run constantly high GPU temperature your card is at risk and can fail quickly .

I just finished yesterday setup of my new system  "Green Hornet" aka "The Hulk" as my friend called it LOL  glad I finally upgraded to the hydro hybrid ..game changer...before  my 2 titan x sc was running at 32C on idle now it is 32C on full load with iray rendering , the temperatures dropped to 50% (32C lower ) than with just air cooling ,  also the reason the fans have LED so I can see if any fan failed before it is too late .

I never was big fan of water cooling but it proved me wrong especially if the kits are maintenance free and closed system and under warranty so if it kill my cards  I will get replacement for the full damage , of course now I would love to have one full water cooling system for everything at once but I don't trust myself yet to do it after I saw many horrors scenarios even by pros ... too much money invested already to risk,  in place I would love to build additional small Quadro server to use with Iray in the future as you always hungry for more and faster rendering .. and btw the Hydro Hybrid Kit for Titan X was just $100 (do it self kit ) , so much cheaper than purchasing the Hydro Titan X what is like $300 more .. and was easy to install and the original card warranty is not affected .I think I spent more time removing the original cooling parts and  covers of the card than installing the hydro system .

Kendall Sears said:

A marginal PSU will also kill the GPU.  If the rail that the PCI-e power is provided from is unstable then the card can be damaged due to spikes and drops that can occur when the card is pulling 100% wattage for extended periods.

If you're using Iray and your scene isn't trivial, your machine should be LOUD.  The fans in the PSU should be full bore and the fan(s) on the GPU should be at full power.  If not, then you may want to investigate whether your card's setup is deficient.

Kendall

 

mjc1016

Cath...that thing is a beast!

Yeah, Hulk...

 

Male-M3dia

MEC4D said:

I will agree with you on some part, PSU can kill the system as it does to me in December last year , the issue  was not enough power to feed everything for extend period of time , I knew it but played Russians roulette , had to update PSU to 1300 watt so I don't run into trouble again, sadly my motherboard was fried before PSU upgrade and it was me not Iray as I rendered for hours just before..  another subject about fans, if they run on max power something is not right and the air flow is low or dust accumulated inside and that is where things can get wrong if one of them fail to cool your GPU or system, your system is at risk as you run at maximum . Using max fan speed will take away the PCI-e power from GPU and slowing it down ...not so efficient , after updating everything , my fans runs at 20%  GPU on full load 32 C and not higher even after 2 hours , I updated to water cooling separate one for CPU and each GPU and CPU overclocked too , now I have cold air coming out the case , if you run GPU for long time on high temperatures the lifespan of the card will be short and you get slower rendering . in the past I killed my Asus game laptop with Octane too beside the fact that it had 2 separate cooling for GPU and CPU it over heat and the game was over .. and was my fault as I pushed to the limits . Cuda rendering is very hungry there is not break for a second for that reason NVIDIA created Quadro series so it can take the hard work , GTX cards are not made for rendering but for games so if your system can't cool them efficient or you run constantly high GPU temperature your card is at risk and can fail quickly .

I just finished yesterday setup of my new system  "Green Hornet" aka "The Hulk" as my friend called it LOL  glad I finally upgraded to the hydro hybrid ..game changer...before  my 2 titan x sc was running at 32C on idle now it is 32C on full load with iray rendering , the temperatures dropped to 50% (32C lower ) than with just air cooling ,  also the reason the fans have LED so I can see if any fan failed before it is too late .

I never was big fan of water cooling but it proved me wrong especially if the kits are maintenance free and closed system and under warranty so if it kill my cards  I will get replacement for the full damage , of course now I would love to have one full water cooling system for everything at once but I don't trust myself yet to do it after I saw many horrors scenarios even by pros ... too much money invested already to risk,  in place I would love to build additional small Quadro server to use with Iray in the future as you always hungry for more and faster rendering .. and btw the Hydro Hybrid Kit for Titan X was just $100 (do it self kit ) , so much cheaper than purchasing the Hydro Titan X what is like $300 more .. and was easy to install and the original card warranty is not affected .I think I spent more time removing the original cooling parts and  covers of the card than installing the hydro system .

Kendall Sears said:

A marginal PSU will also kill the GPU.  If the rail that the PCI-e power is provided from is unstable then the card can be damaged due to spikes and drops that can occur when the card is pulling 100% wattage for extended periods.

If you're using Iray and your scene isn't trivial, your machine should be LOUD.  The fans in the PSU should be full bore and the fan(s) on the GPU should be at full power.  If not, then you may want to investigate whether your card's setup is deficient.

Kendall

 

My rendering rig is water cooled so it's silent while it's rendering. I just replaced the closed cooling system using after about 2 1/2 years of use as the system was running warm and giving me warnings. With as much rendering as I do when testing my morphs, I can't see doing renderrs with stock cooling.  I may bring my old Quad core machine back into service with some water cooling and a video card too.

Kendall Sears

I also have a Liquid Cooled system for my under desk workstation -- it is fairly quiet.  However, I have a rack full of Quad Processor Xeons with 4x 1200W PSUs and 1U Tesla units that are air cooled.  Those puppies are so loud that you physically cannot be in the same area with them and hear yourself speak.  :-)

When I say "loud" I am speaking in relation to the machine at normal use -- not datacenter loud.  Standard "off-the-shelf" GeForce cards will make quite a racket when the fans spin up to remove the heat, especially if they are the multiple fans in a pastic frame type.  Also, any PSU that is 700W or better will have temperature sensitive fans and will ramp up the noise when the load starts to approach the limits.

In any case, this is getting a bit too far OT for this thread.

Kendall

Silver Dolphin

They sell an external mxm to desktop system that lets you use a desktop video card with your laptop. It is a little barebones but if you have some building skins you can take a mini itx case and mod it to hold this beast and run your iray renders at home without killing your expensive laptop video. Here is a link to one on ebay and no I am not affileated with this person. http://www.ebay.com/itm/181943864835?rmvSB=true

TesseractSpace

And here I get by on an off the shelf Alienware Alpha that was $400. Maybe I'm not rendering giant scenes in under a minute, but my prior system was pretty much a 'render overnight' setup on 3Delight so the extra time isn't bothering me. 

Zilvergrafix

after having 3 PC deaths due to overheating, I prefer use louder industrial fans running a 8500RPM than a quiet death of all my hardware.

look for "Sunon Fans ME40101VX-000U-A99", yep, they exists.

torque3656 said:

This is nice but my question wasn't really answered properly. Is there a significant difference between a character that's not Iray and one that isn't. Please keep it simple.

yep, there is a BIG difference ONLY when rendering, point.