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Graphic Card and Rendering Time

KeyKey Posts: 19
in New Users

Hi,

I'm new to daz studio. I have an old laptop with 2gb AMD card which doesn't work with Iray. It's using all cpu cores and takes hours to render a single image.. So i have been thinking to get a new laptop with better graphic card. I'm looking at Lenovo Y520 with Core i7 7700 Quadcore, 16Gb ram and GTX 1050Ti 4GB card. Can you guys suggest if its good enough? and How much it will improve render time compared to CPU?

And if i get even better card like Lenovo Y720 with 6GB GTX1060. How much it will improve rendering time compared to 4GB GTX 1050ti?

Thanks

Comments

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,076

    Well SW-wise if you turn on the noise filter in the iRay renderer in DAZ Studio you will shave lots of rendering time off your renders. 

    If your scenes in DAZ fit within the 4GB then you can go look in the commons for the thread where people render a test scene and post their results using all types of different HW. Thst thread is in the Commons thread. 

    But if you don't want the hassle of looking for that thread yourself just know yes, rendering with an nVidia card will be like comparing minutes and hours render times compared to CPU renders lasting hours and days.

  • KeyKey Posts: 19
    nonesuch00 said:

    Well SW-wise if you turn on the noise filter in the iRay renderer in DAZ Studio you will shave lots of rendering time off your renders. 

    If your scenes in DAZ fit within the 4GB then you can go look in the commons for the thread where people render a test scene and post their results using all types of different HW. Thst thread is in the Commons thread

    Thanks for suggestion.

    How do i know if scene is within the 4GB?

    I have been trying to make random scenes with mostly a single figure. Some of those scenes are using heavy enviorement like room/area with many props while some are very simple with backdrop image or plane primitives.

    Also i want to ask, Does render process takes things only in the ratio frame? Do i need to worry about many props/stuff outside render ratio, i mean does that increase render time?

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    Install a GPU monitoring program, such as GPU-Z if you're using Windows, to get exact metrics on memory usage inside the card. From the sound of your scenes, most of what you do should fit into 4GB.

    Render time is affected by everything in the scene, not just what is visible to the camera. Like most renderers of its class, Iray processes a scene in two directions: from light to camera, and from camera to light. It needs to trace all possible light paths to accommodate shadows, reflections, and other "combinational" lighting effects. 

    Render time is more about providing enough ray samples to each pixel. This is helped by making sure there are direct light paths into your scene. Indirect (bounced) lighting is what can take an extraordinary amount of time to process.

     

  • KeyKey Posts: 19

    @Tobor Thanks for the explaination.

    If i understand correctly, A light focus directly on character would be consider a direct path.. 

    If i create a primitive with emmisive iray light source and focus it directly on character face and body, will that take more time than a spot light with same direction?

    Does increasing/decreasing luminous and emission temprature effect on render time as well?  

    Which light would produce better result in Iray, Daz default lights or iray emmisive light?

    Sometime it takes hours to get 100% rendered image but there are still grains and noise on the face and other body parts. Will noise filter ON help with that?

    Should i leave noise filter with default settings or what do you guys suggest?

    Sorry for lots of questions. It would've been easier to test these things if render time was a bit more normal here.. Lots of time, i just cancel render process after wasting 30 mins or an hour, as my laptop goes around 96C temprature and it gets really difficult to work on any other thing.. Would appericiate if you guys can suggest anything else to reduce render time. or if there is a thread/video tutorial with some info.

    Thanks

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    You really should try these things for yourself with a simple test scene, as you'll answer your questions, and others you didn't know you had. Render time is directly linked to the type of scene you do, so the tricks I've developed may work for me, but not apply to you. Several of your questions are subjective - "better" is in the eye of the beholder.

    I will tell you that I vastly prefer to use HDRI (environment dome) and built-in lights versus emissive lights, but that suits my personal definition of "better." I'm not fond of flat lighting, and generally, emissive light sources produce a too-flat image for my tastes. Lighting is not just about light, but about dark, too.

    You can create test scenes that should render fully in 10-20 minutes, or less, and you can experiment to your heart's content. Make your test scene at least similar to the typical render you do. If you render humans, leave off the hair and anything but basic clothes without fancy textures (a "noisy" texture can take longer to render, because Iray has to do more calculations to determine if the pixels are properly converging).

    In the end there may be nothing you can do to demonstrably reduce render times apart from investing in a graphics card with 2000 or more CUDA cores. 

  • KeyKey Posts: 19

    Thanks for the reply. I didn't know what was CUDA cores and thought you are joking about 2000 something cores. :) So far i knew about 4 or 8 CPU cores :) Well, i'm not a gamer and first time thinking to get a better card. So i checked it out and what i'm looking at 1050 ti have about 768 Cores. :) But i guess that might do a lot better than what i currently have and maybe good enough while in learning process. Thanks again for some suggestions.

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    A GTX 1050ti will help. Bear in mind that once you start processing using a GPU, ALL of the scene must fit the card's memory. The standard 1050ti has 4GB of installed. That's about the minimum you need. Avoid a card with less VRAM (like the 1050 non-ti model).

    The 1060s and 1070s, have more VRAM and more cores, but are currently at a premium because they're being used by people mining for digital currency. (CUDA cores are generic floating point processors, and can be used for anything.)

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,737

    I've used laptops to do my 3D rendering for years. One thing to  to keep in mind is that unlike a desktop, upgrading the video card in a laptop is a bit more problematic (typically can't be done). With that in mind, and the fact that your new laptop will have Windows 10, I'd definitely recommend the 1060 with 6Gb. Windows 10 reserves a pretty good chunk of video memory, so a 4Gb GPU will really only have a little over 3Gb available for rendering, the 6Gb will give you about 5Gb for rendering. So if you can do it, the 1060 would be a much better option.

    One other thing to kep in mind with laptops is cooling. from the photos, it looks like the Lenovo has decent cooling. You will want to make sure the bottom vent(s) are clear from any obstructions, and possibly elevate the bottom a bit for better ventilation (you might want to consider using a laptop "pad" with cooling fans).

    With regard to rendering speed, well, it will be like night and day compared to CPU rendering. You will find the whole process of set up and rendering much more enjoyable. There won't be aa big of a difference difference between the 1050 and 1060 compared to going from CPU to GPU, but with almost twice the Cuda cores, the 1060 will be almost twice as fast. I would definitely go with the 1060.

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