Nvidia Cuda Rendering

[mealexmail]

Dear colleagues

 

I am about upgrading my rendering station for architecture and interior design tasks.

I use 3ds max 2013 and (as i know) it uses CUDA Nvidia cores both in vray and rayrayce rendering techniques.

 

And what about CAx6? does it use CUDA cores or all I can rely on are phisical cpu's cores?

 

It's very important for me 'cause it defines what strategy to be choosen: building multi cpu servers or making super GPU claster with Nvidia Tesla K**** series

 

your opinion please? 

[lbuttery]

you should probably contact CA's tech support to discuss

 

Lew

[Doug_Park]

We don't currently leverage the GPU except for OpenGL views.

 

For ray tracing only the CPU cores are utilized.

[mealexmail]

We don't currently leverage the GPU except for OpenGL views.

 

For ray tracing only the CPU cores are utilized.

 

yes, this is the answer I need. Thank you.

[Kbird1]

But what about in the future ? X7 perhaps ? no plans for GPU usage outside OpenGL ?  ever ? ....bit surprised considering the power of GPU's there days...

 

that sounds like a substantial investment by Mealexemail , so he may need to think further out than just CA X6 versions....

 

M.

[jcaffee]

I was hoping for something hybridized ala Bunkspeed. 

 

jon

[Doug_Park]

Leveraging the GPU is definitely something we have on our radar. For now the best reccomendation I have is to buy a high end video card. You get the benefit of the card for OpenGL now. And if we step up to using the GPU in the future for accelerating things like ray tracing or other operations you should see substantial performance benefits.

 

It really doesn't make any sense to buy a Tesla card now for Chief. By the time we do support this technology there may be faster options. And the current options would more than likely be cheaper.

[mealexmail]

Leveraging the GPU is definitely something we have on our radar. For now the best reccomendation I have is to buy a high end video card. You get the benefit of the card for OpenGL now. And if we step up to using the GPU in the future for accelerating things like ray tracing or other operations you should see substantial performance benefits.

 

It really doesn't make any sense to buy a Tesla card now for Chief. By the time we do support this technology there may be faster options. And the current options would more than likely be cheaper.

 

Thanks Doug for yuor reply .. I countinue seeking for more ways improving rendering time .. What can you say about rendering farms? can you recommend one please? and is it way suitable for CA? (in understand that many of it work with Autidesk products and vray renderers but what abt us?)

[portrait]

I really don't understand why/how is GPU based rendering process is faster than CPU based one. I use a number of rendering engines; and aside from Lumion, i didn't see an actual benefit of the GPU rendering. Lumion is very fast, because they don't actually have complex raytracing technology which is available on Chief Architect, V-Ray, Mental Ray, Octane Render, etc.

When i compare two raytracing engines V-Ray (CPU based), and Octane (GPU based), i really don't see a big difference in terms of rendering time. When the GPU based rendering was first introduced, the main claim was using the power of a cheaper computer component (video card) rather than the more expensive components: the processors. But today, a great video card with a lot of CUDA cores is not a lot cheaper than a great processor; so i can't see a real benefit. (Yes, i regret that i got a Titan card for about $1500!)

[mealexmail]

I really don't understand why/how is GPU based rendering process is faster than CPU based one. I use a number of rendering engines; and aside from Lumion, i didn't see an actual benefit of the GPU rendering. Lumion is very fast, because they don't actually have complex raytracing technology which is available on Chief Architect, V-Ray, Mental Ray, Octane Render, etc.

When i compare two raytracing engines V-Ray (CPU based), and Octane (GPU based), i really don't see a big difference in terms of rendering time. When the GPU based rendering was first introduced, the main claim was using the power of a cheaper computer component (video card) rather than the more expensive components: the processors. But today, a great video card with a lot of CUDA cores is not a lot cheaper than a great processor; so i can't see a real benefit. (Yes, i regret that i got a Titan card for about $1500!)

Agree totally! in terms of per item cost it is not as cheep as it assumed .. Suppose, the main argument is still cost per core - its still lot cheaper for GPUs. Additional bonus regarding GPUs i see improved expandability comparing to multi CPU "supercomputers" where you need dedicated plattform, expensive ECC RAM modules etc. 

So regarding to possible CA dev it is more interesting (imho) to have CPU raytrace method with plugin enabling cloud (or farm) based rendering. You just pay when you need final pics in greater quality. In my projects I make a lot of preliminary renders  just to talk with customers and only whe everything is adjusted I need something sexy with all lights, surfaces, details in resolution 720p or HD.

 

So the question on hold: is there now a way to make my rendering by clouds/farms? I know that thre's lots of it for Autodesk 3ds max, blender, softimage etc.