How do I render for infinite time?

iMacabre

With the setting in the pic, it still exits at 15000 iterations or 3 days. How do I make it render till I tell it to stop?

Thing is I have a 2nd (slow) machine which I thought I could use to render high-res images (5K or so) for as long as it takes, but the render still exits after 3 days.

hphoenix

Setting Max Time to zero should prevent the render from stopping due to elapsed time.  I believe there is a way to do something similar with Max Samples, but I don't recall.  Using a very LARGE value for iteration samples should keep it going almost indefinitely.  Say, something along the lines of 500,000 iterations.

 

Tobor

iMacabre said:

Thing is I have a 2nd (slow) machine which I thought I could use to render high-res images (5K or so) for as long as it takes, but the render still exits after 3 days.

Hphoenix noted the settings you cdan use for time, but I just wanted to note that I've already burned out one Xeon workstation with long renders. And this was a high-end Dell server workstation, designed for fairly rugged continual use. Most consumer PCs aren't meant to have their CPUs running hot for three days at a time. I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but like chain smoking, long renders will eventually catch up with you.

SpottedKitty

Yes, with the (usually) longer render times needed in Iray, it can be vital to remember that 3D rendering is the most resource-intensive, memory-hogging, heat-producing job your computer will ever do. And unlike almost any other process, every expensive component will be running at full throttle continuously. If your CPU/GPU/case cooling aren't working at maximum efficiency, you may break Ohm's Law.

hphoenix

A lot of nvidia card GPU utilites DO allow you to put limits on your GPU.......so that it will throttle back if something goes to high.  If you are planning on rendering an image for more than an hour or two, I highly recommened finding the appropriate utility (EVGA Precision, ASUS GPU Tweak II, MSI Afterburner, etc.) and make sure your card is configured to NOT kill itself while running non-stop for a LONG time.