Iray Rendering on a Mac - Do I Need a PC?
Patroklos
Posts: 533
I have a really nice mac 27 inch 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 perfect for everything that I do EXCEPT iray rendering - my current render is on 93% at 15 hours.
Maybe I need a pc simply for rendering?
If so how do I spec it? I was considering a lowish end i7 quad core, 32gb ram, neither of which is hugely expensive, and an 8GB GEFORCE GTX 1070 - a Titan with twice the number of cores is hugely more expensive and presumably, overkill. Is there anything else that I need to pay attention to?
I understand that there are some very knowledgeable people around here on all kinds of topics, and I am hoping that one or more who are well versed in rendering hardware would give me an opinion on whether the above makes sense, and/or tell me if there is a much cheaper option that will give me a big improvement in rendering speed.
Thanks
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I, personally, could never use a PC. I got an older Mac that I could put a new card in and that works well. I got it from https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Apple-Systems/Used/Mac-Pro and put in a card in from http://www.macvidcards.com/index.html ... It was the best option at the tme. There is also an external video card option that has come up fairly recently that works.
Hello,
thank you, thats very interesting, I take it that you have had no problems with Iray not recognising the card?
Everyone has different views on this.I was trying to render on my lovely 27" iMac too but, even though I had a 2GB NVidia card, Iray wouldn't work so it was CPU only and it was slow. I looked at the external PCIe boxes and they are expensive for what you get (at least in the UK where I was at the time). I decided to sell the iMac and buy a PC. I raided my savings and bought a custom PC with a GTX 970 card but I couldn't let go of the iMac so now I have both. I've since added a 1070 card to the PC.
I use the PC for DAZ Studio and little else and the two screens sit next to each other on the desk. You can, if you want to, share the content library and create scenes on the iMac for rendering on the PC. I started off doing that but these days I tend to use the PC for the whole process. Anything that requires postwork I prefer to do on the iMac because I just love that screen.
I hope my present setup will last quite a few years because I can't afford another round of hardware purchases. I used to say I would never go back to Windows after making the move to Macs but now I'm feeling that Apple has let down its user base in favour of trying to take over the world. They seem more concerned to pressure me into buying iPhones, Apple TV and using iCloud and I'm not buying into that. The PC remains, I'm sad to say, the more flexible option. Pity that DAZ continues to ignore Linux.
We seem to have faced the same problems with Iray.
iPads, iPhones etc do work so well with an iMac. I have all 3, though I rarely by the latest model so as to save money, they are pricey but there is an element of you get what you pay for.
No problems at all using the older machine and the new card. I have never used a PC (other than a few grudging moments now and then) and it is so foreign to me. If I were to do it a bit differently I would have grabbed a bit more ram (which I can still do).
Well, I can't afford any kind of machine so I just upgraded my patience lol.
I average 40+ hours a render... Strangely, this has never bothered me.
I run DS 4.9 (but not the newest version) on a 4-5 year-old MAC using two older (used and cheap) nVidia cards (each with 4GB and a total of 2300 CUDAs), and I am loving how fast things render in iRay not having to use only the CPU. There are several ways in which you can make this happen. PCs are absolutely not necessary.
First, your iMac might not be the best solution because you'd have to be able to get a hopefully powerful nvidia card hooked up and working in it (and 2 cards would definitely be impossible in an iMac). Google whether or not the one-card option is possible on your specific iMac, and which cards (i.e. how powerful) those might be.
Next, you could buy a used MAC desktop where you can swap out graphic cards (if the machine isn't already running a nvidia card). This might be a really smart, cost-saving option for you, although it may not give you all the up-to-date, top-of-the-line, most powerful CPU computing options. But, a fast CPU isn't so important for rendering DS stuff, because it's the nvidia cards that do all the hard lifting (as long as the scene can be held in the GPU memory). So, an older machine -- as long as it can accomodate the card(s) -- is actually all you need. If you want to run two nvidia cards, the rig would have to have 2 PCi-E slots. And the best part is: these cards can even be older one's (at about $100 per card -- on ebay) like my GTX770, which has 4GB per card and 1150 CUDAs per card. As I said, I have two of these and the combined CUDA core cuts rendering down to laughably short times.Important to note is that, IF you are running the very latest version of DS with non-Kepler nvidia cards (like the 750ti, 970, 10X0 cards), you need MACOS El Captain and the newest Nvidia drivers. Running prior versions of DS with nVidia Kepler cards is comparatively uncomplicated since the pre-installed MAC OS (10.8.3 and above) drivers are sufficient.
Lastly, it is also possible to build one's own MAC, which is referred to as a "Hackintosh." There are various websites offering full solutions for this, including all the different configurations (CPUs, compatible graphic cards, RAM, motherboards, etc., with links to Amazon) for every price entry point/computer set-up you can imagine, as well as full, detailed instructions on how to set up the machine to function with MAC OS. These solutions are MAC OS platform-based, with cheap faster or slower machines, all of which though will give you access to those prized nVidia cards (the caveats about OS/drivers and DS version numbers mentioned above would apply here too). From what I hear, there are also many youtube videos that visually show how to set up such a rig
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mcorr, thank you
What Mac are you using. Older MacPro?
Just build a hackintosh. If you follow a common blueprint you won't experience system discrepancies (i.e. a gold system). I'm currently running a dual titain x box while using a intel intergated hd4600 for display.
tonymacx86.com is a great place to start.
Your Hackentosh is running the graphics fine?
I had one a number of years ago, not for Daz...just as my computer, but getting full power out of the graphics card wasn't really doable.
(yeah, spent lot of time on tonymacx86).
On the Hackentosh front...if going that way, why not just use windows?
I develop web applications and the number one reason you'll find web devs use macs is due to the UNIX underpinnings. Something windows is apparently just now attempting to roll out (abiet in a less than completely desireable manner). It's simply nice being able to have a render run and free to attend to other work.
Nivida are updating their drivers for osx all the time. Nonetheless, I do experience a hit vs running on windows but via my tests it's hardly anything to write home about. There's a slight lag in the time the scene takes to load on to the cards. But once on there, the actual rendering time is identical. I suspect this has most to do with the drivers for the motherboard, where that on windows I'm utilizing native and probably simple internal support on osx.
I still boot to windows for gaming, where 10 frames is a huge difference in experience. To that point, the viewport performance is also less performant. But again, not so much so to warrent using windows. Apple is getting better in providing developers better routes to improving their openGl implementations (i.e. the metal api), it's just taking awhile for most to take note or apply them.
I've managed to render stuff in Iray CPU mode in relatively short periods of time.
I think it depends on what kinds of renders you are attempting. I have no idea what you've worked on so far, but perhaps polishing more skill at speeding up renders would help.
I have a 27 inch retina iMAC that is just over 2 years old and I plan to switch over to PC completely. I expect that the 1 year old windows computer will be connected to a monitor that sits at the center of my desk by year's end and I'll connect to the Mac via VNC for doing internet things (will never use a windows computer that lets MS stuff past the firewall). Windows 10 is a bit of a joke compared to OS X, but OS X keeps getting worse with every subsequent version since snow leopard, so I imagine in a couple of years it won't really matter. At some point, once I have replacements for all of my OSX programs, I'll sell that machine and buy a nice linux machine to act as my regular work computer.
Apple has abandoned anyone who needs more than email and web (and, since they regularly break exchange in their Mail app, apparently they don't even care very about email part. I guess if you need more than web...)
Video ram can be a huge issue, but as long as you stay within your card's capabilities, having a modern nVidia GPU is worth the hassles if you spend a lot of your personal time in DS.
Most Mac users find OSX/MacOS more efficient, stable and intuitive than Windows.
I love Macs, been using them for about 20 years, but I got so tired of rendering on my iMac (which I just bought last October with the most upgradable specs, and didn't start using Daz until December), and in July I said forget it and I bought a new PC from Digital Storm with a GTX 1080ti and have been so happy ever since. Renders that were taking 50 hours on my iMac were completing in 45 minutes to an hour on my PC. You can render Iray with a Mac, I still render out stills for the comic book I'm working on on my iMac currently when my PC is rendering shots for my animated film, but I have to keep the resolution below 1200x800 to have it render quicker, or if it's possible, I do it in layers and compile them all in Photoshop.
My last iMac was one of the last ones to have an NVIDIA card (late 2013 build), but I seriously doubted that it was one of the cards that Iray wants, so I avoided Iray. Shortly before I replaced the machine, I did a test render in Iray of one of Jepe's Art Deco statuettes. No background. Just a straight out of the box with the default lights, centered, fairly high resolution, letter-sized frame.
It took 2 hours to render, although after about 70% I didn't see a lot of improvement.
With the new iMac and it's Raedon card I set up the same test render. Same 2 hours, confirming my suspicion that the NVIDIA card in the 2013 iMac waisn't the one that Iray wants.
Mind you, if I ever decide to render one of those statuettes by itself, 2 hours is an acceptable render time. But I doubt that I'll be rendering in Iray if i can avoid it.
Would you happen to remember which card the old iMac used? NVidia have been gradually phasing out Iray compatibility from the older pre-10-series cards, one series at a time, so an old enough card might have been locked out of Iray for the last year or two. I know my ancient GT 240 was never really capable of Iray renders, even way back when Iray was first introduced.
For the time being, there is no way to run a newer Nvidia card on the latest macOS. As of 10.14 (Mojave), Apple has deprecated OpenGL, and Nvidia has not released drivers that support Apple’s Metal2 API.
I’ve been using Macs for years, but I recently punted and bought a PC. The only way I know to run IRay on a recent GPU and keep my Mac updated is to invest in IRay server to run on a separate box or buy time on a cloud rendering service.
I really dislike Windows, but this seems the only way forward.
...that is another downside with Iray. I cannot even afford a 10xx series card let alone a 20xx with enough VRAM to handle my scenes. I currently have a Maxwell Titan-X in teh main render system and Maxwell GTX 750 Ti (4 GB) in the the work system and really hope those don't get phased out.
No, don't remember the model of graphics card. I'm pretty sure that it was of a sort that was used in laptops. I ordered it in mid-2015, although it was a late 2013 build. I do know that I upgraded RAM and video RAM where the option was available, but I never made a note of what model card it was. I wasn't faunching to run Iray at the time, and since that was probably past the point that Apple had already announced that it was jetisoning NVIDIA cards in iMacs, I didn't make a point of trying.
That machine probably only came with an NVIDIA card because that was what was in the warehouse at the point I ordered it. And all I can say is if its screen redraw was typical of NVIDIA, I don't blame them for dropping them. That particular computer was the worst one i've ever dealt with. Which includes the underpowered Performa and the PowerComputing Mac clone.
My 2 cents about what people said about Mac and the fact that they assume that it is so difficult, impossible etc... I have several mac's at home. The main I use is a IMac (late 2013) and this one include a NVidia card 775M (2GB) which render fast and in real time all scene I make with DazStudio (so sorry JOdel, the renders I made with that internal card never took more that 20 minutes to be complete. If it tooks more, you switch in CPU mode due to textures size problems exceeding 2GB). The confort of running very big renders faster leads me to add a EGPU box to my Imac with a NVidia TitanX (16GB). For information to Esemwy, with the help of https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/wip-nvidia-egpu-support-for-high-sierra/ , the OS runs perfectly using this external box (fortunately, I can connect this one to any other computer to get its rendering power). IMO, the question is not at all MAC or PC but what you really prefer to be compatible with because solutions exist in both case.
Remember that any system renders a DS scene in GPU mode if the entire textures can be loaded in the GPU memory (there are parameters to compress your textures files in DS). If it is not the case, the render switch in CPU mode. At that time, the whole textures set is loaded in the main computer memory which must be large enough (sometimes, the system may become instable during a rendering because of the lack of dynamic memory). When using 2 GPU at the same time, the less memory is the one selected (for instance a GPU 16GB and a GPU 4GB, the final size is 4GB on both card). If you intend to buy a multiple GPU system, choice the same memory size for your GPU.
Deprecated shouldn't mean it's been removed, just that it is slated for removal in the near future.
Sorry - repetition.
Shouldn’t, true, but essentially does, since it seems Apple won’t approve new drivers with the deprecated API.
I have a Mac Mini that shares a screen and keyboard with a Dell PC via a KVM switch. I only use the Dell for Daz Studio. The Dell is an older machine, circa 2011, with Windows 7 that I had laying around but it was fairly powerful in it’s time. I upgraded the RAM to 16 gigs and added a Gtx 1060 6 GB card. This works fairly well for rendering and is a fairly economical setup. You can get a newer, more powerful used PC off eBay for a few hundred bucks.
Does anybody used Razer Core X on Mac for rendering iray in Daz Studio?
or
The problem with external GPUs is that there has to be drivers to support them. At this time, you can't use them with with the newest version of the OS and there hasn't been any real confirmation that there ever will be. My guess is that Apple is expecting that this is how things will be going forward, but they seem to be satisfied with ATI only which would leave us out in the cold.