Rendering with Graphics Processor
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I hope this is the right place to post this question
I am a regular SU user and have always liked seeing high quality renders come from programs that support SU. I have tried out many programs that work as pre-rendering software but that takes too much time and often return less than satisfactory results. This is too time consuming especially when a lot of tweaking is involved.
I have tried out Hypershot, which is a real-time renderer, but that always fails to work on my computer.I know the benefits of utilizing a Graphics card to render, rather than ones CPU, but there are so few programs that do this. Are there any other programs, which utilize ones Graphics Card, for rendering SU models?
If not, why aren’t there more, it makes much more sense to use the Graphics Processor?
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Not an expert on this but I do not think that a graphics card helps rendering. For that you need a fast multi-core system, and the software that can use those features.
I think that most render software fall short in some department. Bugs, poor interface, or time consuming. I hate bugs, especially when they affect the one thing you need to do. Bad interface; I could go on and on about this, basically having to take several steps to do one thing. Then to wait 2 - 30 minuets to see something you don't want!!! I am almost tempted to do SU without any rendering. Post Processing is another pain in the XXX, having to spend hours tweaking.........SIGH!
OK now I feel better and am willing to move the state of the art forward:-))) Don't get me wrong, I think the effort being made by all the software engineers is just short of miraculous. It took me 10 years to get my CAD user programs to the point where they are RC quality. Take note, that is not considered bug free, but only everything I could find prior to intense use in the production environment.
This post is probably the result of the fact that I can no longer log-in from the office after problems with this forums cookies.
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Rogue, this may interest you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA
More and more render solutions are gearing up to use this.
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If you are into realtime than why don't you try LightUp. It is also real time and allows you to create animation.
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Hi,
may be Nvidia Gelato could be a solution.
"Gelato is a software program that leverages the NVIDIA GPU as a floating point math processor. This allows Gelato to render images faster than comparable renderers, but without the quality limitations traditionally associated with real-time graphics processing on the GPU."
There is a free and a commercial version.
Karlheinz
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Thanks for some useful information and rants
.I had taken a look at LightUp but I cannot afford the cost of the program, that then brings me to my next problem;
I have a low end laptop with a simple Intel 1.86GHz processor and a built-in Graphics unit. I cannot afford to upgrade, If I could I would have no problems with rendering.
It also isn’t an Nvidia card...Oh well...
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I am sorry to say but you will struggle with that spec with any render engine ...it is going to be slow.
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Beg, borrow, or borrow RAM:-) If you can, max out the limit for your OS. Helps more then anything else if you are on a restricted budget.
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Yeah, I have already maxed my RAM. It’s at 2GB now and the only thing holding it back from 4GB is my cr@p processor. Apparently my board can handle an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz but the damn thing costs as much as what my computer cost me originally. But I don’t really think my ram will matter much if my processor cannot process all the stuff going on. I have never seen my RAM reach 100% at 2GB it’s always my processor maxing out.
Damn expensive Hardware!
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Rogue, it's an interesting question. I talked to one of our I.T. guys about it awhile back and he was pretty gitty about the whole direction things are going. From what I can tell it looks like nVidia is starting to create the possibility but very little software can currently use it, and no rendering software that I know of. Sort of like having a 6th Generation Xbox but no games to play on it.
My guess is that in the not to distant future we'll see rendering software begin to take advantage of it (...and whoever does will quickly be bought out by Autodesk and then you'll see it in 3ds Max).
Regardless, I don't think you'll be seeing it in any free software or cheap software for quite awhile yet. So as far as your particular situation goes...better start saving up for a new computer. You can get a pretty smoking computer for $1,000 nowadays.
-Brodie
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as far as i know the API is there - it just needs programming.
but i lack in deeper knowledge for a more objective point of view. -
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Hi,
what about this openGL renderer. I have to less knowlegde about this. Have a look at this link: http://digitalmedics.de/products/fastvox/ may be it is usefull.
Karlheinz
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