video card or ram

deadspeak

Greetings, I've trying to decipher the over load of info on the net regarding improving render times. One camp says upgrade ram, the other says video cards.  Just wondering if anyone has done either or both & had any success improving render times in Carrara. I'm rendering on two Intel Macs 16 gigs for ram on both, with the OE video cards.

Thanks Chris

chickenman

It depends on what program you are rendering with.

If using Octane or Luxcore or Luxrender then a video card or 3 will help.

If using the carrara render engine then the RAM does help.

I have dual video cards and when I use Luxcore both cards are driven at 99%.

And when I render using the Carrara engine after upgraded from 16 to 32 Gb I did notice a difference but that may also be the way windows now utilizes RAM and reduced reliance on page files. This means that simular to MAC and Linux it keeps as much active and recent data requests in RAM.

The image below utilized 19GB while rendering just in Carrara.

 

That Other Persona

If you render just in Carrara, the video card will make no difference as Carrara doesn't utilize the card.  My iMac renders faste than a Mac Pro with two D700s.

 

Have you tried adjusting the tile size in the render room?  Sometimes using large tiles will slow things down a lot because one tile will get stuck on a complicated section while the others finish, leaving your CPU not really doing much.  Turn down the tile size - I find 64 is a nice fail-safe setting.  Sometimes 32 works great, sometimes not.

 

Have you tried using render nodes?  Jut fiddling around, I use one machine.  When I want to run several redners or anything that will take time, I fire up a second or sometimes a third machine to increase speed.  It can be a bit fiddly to get it going but if you need help ask.  

The render nodes leads me to another point: you could add a third computer, of course if money allows.

 

3DAGE

The important thing is "Processors"  they do the processing,. whether that a PC / Mac or Graphics card Processors (CPU or GPU)

Ram sends and holds data, but it's the Processors ,... which Process it.

The faster the processor, or the greater the amount of processor cores, ,... the better.

 

As suggested above,. break down the rendering times,. by reducing what your system needs to process,. render environment backgrounds, or background plates,,. and add the actors to that empty scene,. use compositing to create more complex and detailed scenes.

 

FifthElement

Video card does help in realtime OpenGL rendering (viewports) though, if your card is too old you might have sluggish reponse there 

Dartanbeck

The most important element in speeding up renders, that I've noticed over the years (and you'll want to smack me for saying this, but it's totally true) is practicing better ways to set up the render in the first place. In Carrara, I've jumped in and built a new computer with an eight-core processor and, yeah... it renders more than twice as fast as my quad core... much better, I think. But that would really mean nothing much if I didn't learn all manner of better methods for doing things.

It can be an awe-inspiring event to crank out a giant render with everything in the scene rendered all at the same time. But the fact remains that this is all CGI. And in CGI there are many ways to achieve the same result - because it's all about an end result. Nobody will really know if your shot came from multiple layers being combined in a phase after the render process, or if it was all one, big render. So I've found that being able to isolate the foreground from the midground and that from the background, and rendering all of that, and more, separately, it's a LOT faster in the end. 

Also, Never forget to:

Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Remove Unused Objects

Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders

Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Remove Unused Shaders

It helps to cut down the overhead in RAM, freeing it up for the render - and that's all stuff that wouldn't be rendered anyways.

deadspeak

Ok, I'm using Carrara render nodes. Sorry I should have noted that in the 1st post, interesting that Carrara doesn't utilize GPU. I thought Processors were the way to go. Are there any tutorials about compositing with Carrara? i was going to attempt this but won't I have to get Adobe AfterEffects? Or is there another compositing software out there.

I don't know how to adjust tile size, will have to go through render room & see how to change that. On the complex areas of the render one tile will stick.

Thanks for the input, will try all of the above.

Thanks

chickenman

Fusion has a free version for composting.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion/training

Carrara can render out different layers for composting later. others are doing that but I have not progressed that far yet.

For rendering using nodes or rendering in gerneral I keep the bucket size really small at 16 so it can maximize the CPU usage and not have idle cores or threads.

mjc1016

For compositing software, another good one (free, Open Source)...

http://natron.fr/

(more features than I would probably ever use...but it does stills, with ease)

That Other Persona

To change the tile size: in the Render Room it is on the right side at the bottom just below the blue button for Manage Render Nodes.

Just to double check: you are running through the Batch Queue and actually launching with the Launch button?  I ask because for a long time I just hit Command-R and wondered why things were slow!

BTW, what Macs are you on?  I have an iMac quad-core i7 (3.4GHz) that renders faster than a 6-core Mac Pro, and both are faster than my Mac mini.  Forget using a MacBook pro as they get super hot fast.

There are many decent applications for editing images available for Mac.  I have never tried Fusion which seems to be free...  does it actually run on Mac OS or in Boot Camp (I will not install Windows on my Macs, ever!).

chickenman

The new fusion 8 Beta has a MAC installer available.

That Other Persona

Cool.

deadspeak

I'm running an 8-core (2009) & 12 core (2012), yes I'm adding the file through batch queue & launching. Thanks for the heads up on the tiling, had no clue what that slider bar was for.

Thanks for the compositing software, thought Adobe was the only game in town. Free works!