Best solution for GPU rendering

Mister Fresh

Junior Member
Jul 30, 2012
2
0
0
Hi everyone,

I started playing around with 3D design. But rendering a scene can last for hours with LuxRender. So I'm looking for a solution to render scenes in the shortest possible time.

I was considering building a render farm with 6 nodes consisting of i7 2700k, but this would cost at least 3500$.

Now GPU rendering seems to have the potential to provide faster rendering while being more affordable. I have done a bit of research and here is what I've undersood so far : there are two serious options :

1) The proprietary option. NVidia card with Octane rendering. Octane is unbiased rendering and shows good results.
Issues :
- Octane is proprietary and costly, and so are plugins for it
- GTX680 has been stripped of computing power according to anandtech review, I dont know how much that impacts GPU rendering efficiency. But this would mean that I have to go for a "pro" Quadro card, which are much more expensive than the consumer version.
- I will be stuck with nvidia hardware
2) The open-source / AMD solution which is called OpenCL.
LuxRender already seems to support to some extent GPU acceleration with AMD GPUs.
But I already have a 5770 with a Core i7 860 and 8GB of RAM, and it's really very slow rendering. In a simple scene I get 0.3 samples/pixels/second on average.
This would be my preferred solution, buying a 7970, however it's really not that impressive so far compared to the videos I've seen of Octane providing almost instant render.

I'm interested in advice on Nvidia GPUs to consider, or if you know how to achieve faster render with the LuxRender/AMD solution.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:

sgrinavi

Diamond Member
Jul 31, 2007
4,537
0
76
I'm running a quadro card and don't use it for production renders as I have not found a GPU solution that supports Archvision content and can be limited in their support for certain materials....

They work well if you can plan your scene around their limitations...
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Hi everyone,

I started playing around with 3D design. But rendering a scene can last for hours with LuxRender. But I already have a 5770 with a Core i7 860 and 8GB of RAM, and it's really very slow rendering. In a simple scene I get 0.3 samples/pixels/second on average.

You cannot compare HD5770 in LuxMark to HD7970. Yes, both GPUs support OpenCL but one is an architecture built specifically for compute (7970) and the other is a VLIW-5 architecture designed for gaming.

luxmark.png


A single overclocked 7970 is nearly as fast as 2x HD5870 + HD5850s. Chances are it'll be 5-6x faster than the HD5770.

Scene Scala
HD7970 = 1800
HD5770 = 315

36067.png

45164.png


Rendering is an expensive task. Generally people who render have 6-12 core CPUs systems with Quadro cards. I am not sure what a cheaper solution is.
 
Last edited:

Mister Fresh

Junior Member
Jul 30, 2012
2
0
0
Well precisely the advantage of full GPU rendering is that you can have results comparable to what you had with a render farm, at a much lower price.

http://motionleague.com/2012/02/octane-render-review

However for nvidia/octane it seems that you have to use Fermi cards to benefit from it.

With AMD the problem is that Open CL is not ready yet, as far as I understand.

If you have a benchmark with a 7970 rendering with LuxRender I'd be interested. Small Lux is a demo, it's good to watch a preview of the scene but not much more.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
If you have a benchmark with a 7970 rendering with LuxRender I'd be interested. Small Lux is a demo, it's good to watch a preview of the scene but not much more.

I recall there was a user who used LuxMark regularly on our forum. Maybe 3DVagabond? Try sending him a private message.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
I recall there was a user who used LuxMark regularly on our forum. Maybe 3DVagabond? Try sending him a private message.

No, don't use it. I will when I replace my aging card. FWIW, GPU rendering is faster than CPU dollar for dollar. The quality still isn't there yet, for professional use. For hobbyist use it's more than adequate. Depending on how much you crank up the settings and how much you try to render in real time though, it can still be very slow. "Baking" some things and turning down samples can speed up the rendering time considerably. Just crank the piss out of everything though and you'll need Pixar to render it for you. :)
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
No, don't use it. I will when I replace my aging card. FWIW, GPU rendering is faster than CPU dollar for dollar. The quality still isn't there yet, for professional use. For hobbyist use it's more than adequate.

Ya, I figured. That's an area where Phenom II X6 was very popular for budget rendering and where $500+ 3930K starts to make sense. This is also where NV makes a ton of $. Their Quadro cards are very expensive.

Quadro 5000 (essentially a GTX465) is $1,800
Quadro 6000 (essentially a GTX470 with 6GB VRAM) is $4,000 :rolleyes: (clearly made for people who make $ off using it)

For the price of Quadro 5000, you can almost get 4x HD7970 1100mhz 3GB or 3x HD7970 6GB cards. I bet they'll be faster in Luxmark vs. Quadro 5000 in some other rendering app.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
Ya, I figured. That's an area where Phenom II X6 was very popular for budget rendering and where $500+ 3930K starts to make sense. This is also where NV makes a ton of $. Their Quadro cards are very expensive.

Quadro 5000 (essentially a GTX465) is $1,800
Quadro 6000 (essentially a GTX470 with 6GB VRAM) is $4,000 :rolleyes: (clearly made for people who make $ off using it)

For the price of Quadro 5000, you can almost get 4x HD7970 1100mhz 3GB or 3x HD7970 6GB cards. I bet they'll be faster in Luxmark vs. Quadro 5000 in some other rendering app.

Yes, this could be the best use for the 6gig 7970's. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure how much vram Luxrender uses.
 

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
1
0
No, don't use it. I will when I replace my aging card. FWIW, GPU rendering is faster than CPU dollar for dollar. The quality still isn't there yet, for professional use.

WTH are you talking about?
There is no technical reason why would either rendering (GPU or CPU) have better quality over the other.

This isn't old CUDA video encoding we're talking about here.


@OP

If you are even remotely serious about this, and you need both speed and quality, get yourself Octane + GTX 580 3GB.

If you are hobbyist who absolutely refuse to spend any money on software,
but you still want near-professional grade quality, go for LuxRender + HD7970.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
WTH are you talking about?
There is no technical reason why would either rendering (GPU or CPU) have better quality over the other.

Maybe it's the software not being as mature/good. There's a reason some CPU rendering software is better than others. The only reason to use CPU rendering software is because the final render is better quality. It's slower and costlier. It's what the industry uses though.
 

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
1
0

Arkadrel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2010
3,681
2
0
Well precisely the advantage of full GPU rendering is that you can have results comparable to what you had with a render farm, at a much lower price.

http://motionleague.com/2012/02/octane-render-review

However for nvidia/octane it seems that you have to use Fermi cards to benefit from it.

With AMD the problem is that Open CL is not ready yet, as far as I understand.

If you have a benchmark with a 7970 rendering with LuxRender I'd be interested. Small Lux is a demo, it's good to watch a preview of the scene but not much more.

site:
http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxMark

LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmark tool. The idea for the program was conceived in 2009 by Jromang. It was intended as a promotional tool for LuxRender (to quote original Jromang's words: "LuxRender propaganda with OpenCL"). The idea was quite simple, wrap SLG inside an easy to use graphical user interface and use it as a benchmark for OpenCL.
"I started playing around with 3D design. But rendering a scene can last for hours with LuxRender. So I'm looking for a solution to render scenes in the shortest possible time."


If you have a benchmark with a 7970 rendering with LuxRender I'd be interested.

Heres a results database:
http://www.luxrender.net/luxmark/

so you can check out what kinda performance each card would give.

For a single PC, it looks like 4 x 7970 's in crossfire is the way to go.

Scene Scala
HD7970 = 1800
HD5770 = 315


^ if this is true, and 4x7970's are in the 6400 ish range or something,
then what now takes "hours" @ 315 score, will probably take alot less if your scoreing 20 times as high.
 
Last edited:

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
Very nice... but a little too much for OP.

I knew there must be some crazies that use GPU rendering, but FIVE! :)

I never recommended the OP get a render farm like that. LOL Just noting that it's what the pros really use for final rendering.

As far as the 2nd part of your post, it's no secret that professionals use nVidia graphics cards, almost exclusively. It's what all of their software has been designed on for years and years. Nothing there about using GPU's for final rendering. Just special effects.
 
Last edited:

f1sherman

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2011
2,243
1
0
Well apparently rendering farms where entire workflow is done by GPUs are still very rare.

You don't build one of these, everytime something new comes out.

EDIT:Nah :) Pretty sure it says GPU's are not used only for special effects
 
Last edited: