OT - Your experiences with the VUE 2016 hybrid GPU / CPU pathtracer?
linvanchene
Posts: 1,386
Just spotted this quote in another thread and figured it might be worth a shot to try to get some answers on this forum:
I am running a GTX1080 and a GTX980 side by side without issues. They work fine together in the Beta. They even work together in Vue when using the new pathtracer.
Has anyone found some more detailed information how the new VUE 2016 pathtracer works in detail?
One might asume that the hybrid CPU GPU works the same as in Iray but it could also be completly different...
- - -
Official video:
- - -
Known limitations - Wiki page:
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/wiki/Vue/index.php/Documentation/Building_Scenes/Rendering/Path_Tracer
- - -
Can anyone confirm that both the display and additonal rendering GPU are used for rendering with the VUE 2016 hybrid GPU / CPU pathtracer?
- - -
Currently I am under the impression that:
- Only the display GPU is actually shown in the VUE video card settings
- There are no settings to actually choose which GPU are used to render
- There are no detailed tools that show how the VRAM is used
-> Is it working similar as in Iray?
If the VRAM is full then the VUE pathtracer falls back into CPU mode?
or
Is the VUE pathtracer always loading most scene information from RAM (and not VRAM)?
- - -
edit: updated the video link. Thank you Kevin Sanderson!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I am using Vue 2016 Infinte and have tested the pathtracer since it got released. The Vue Path tracer is quite different than Octane or Iray. It is a hybrid version that uses CPU supported by all available GPUs (GTX980 and 1080 in my system). During render the CPU is always going at ~100%. The GPU usage varies. In my tests it was sually between 10 and 40%, the highest I have seen was 75%. It depends on the scene and materials used. The memory load on the GPUs is very low, typically only a Gb or two. I have not seen any GPUs drop out, but I had scenes that simply would not render at all with the pathtracer.
The only adjustable parameters for the pathtracer are the stop conditions (time, iterations, quality) and a checkbox to inlude physical caustic calculations.
The Vue pathtracer is not particularly fast. The lighting solutions produced are ok-ish. The biggest draw back right now is the very limited implementation of features that make Vue what it is (procedural materials, clouds, spectral atmosphere...). It is quite useable in simple architecture scenes but useless for the typicval Vue scene with vast nature views. All materials act quite different (not surprising) and need to be adjusted. The material editor is not set up to make this easy (all parameters are the same as for the Vue renderer but the act different or don't function at all).
Currently I do not see any use for the pathtracer in Vue, but I do love the rest of Vue 2016, especially the new terrain editor features.
Here is a quick example of the pathtracer based on a sample scene (without editing any materials). Rendertime was 20 minutes to 95% quality.
Ciao
TD
Linvanchene, do you mean like this?
I just pasted in the share link.
Hi, could you please show some examples of these new terrain editor features and what exactly you love about them. Thanks.
Sure. Let me collect a couple of examples. Be right back...
TD
Ok, here are a couple of recent test renders as examples. Nothing finished yet, I am still learning to use the new features. What I like about the new terrain editor is the following: The standard terrains have been replaced with a new type called heightfield terrains. These use procedural functions and real world simulation of erosion to generate the terrain shape. You can also sculpt and then erode. In addition they have an option to influence the terrain layout with splines (I used that for the river valley below). Before rendering, the terrain is baked to a fixed resolution heightfield. That means it renders much faster than a procedural terrain. All the parameters in the terrain editor are accessible in the material editor making it easy to drive the material distribution by terrain features (convexity, roughness, depposit, flow speed and direction, etc.).
Overall it is a great step forward and gets much closer to my favorite terrian editor which is Worldmachine wioth the Geoglyph expansion.
Ciao
TD
Thanks a lot for the info about new terrain editor features in Vue, thd777. I could not afford the upgrade, right now, but may be in the future.
Right now I only have the complete 2014 version, so I have to check, if they put some of these goodies in the new complete version, as well.
I have some similar terrain tools in Unity, just need to experiment more with them.
@ Kevin Sanderson
Thank you for the link! That did the trick.
For some reason I never realized that I should use that short "share" link and not the one to "embed".
@ thd 777
Thank you for sharing and explaining.
It is great that they added some kind of GPU support but it probably will be a while until it can support all features that make VUE what it is.
Nevertheless the new terrain editor features are indeed great. Will have to experiment with exporting them...
- - -
Does it work with Vue networking rendering (Rendercows)?
Never mind. I have Vue Complete2016 and when I applied the R6 updates I got the pathtracer. It does not work with Rendercows. Not sure if Vue Creator 1.0 (the new Bentley version) works with RenderCows or not.