RTs, GPUs, HDDs, SSDs, Dropboxes, My Clouds

kimi kimi

Hi everyone,

While my laptop is in repair, I once again got into various calculations and setups, what would be the best solution for creating a productive rendering setup. And more I read, less I know. So I hope someone can help me out.

These would be my questions:

Does V-Rray have absolutely the same functionality with standard (bucket) rendering and with RT rendering? If not, what can't RT do?
What sort of graphics card is best to buy for RT rendering? Some say these Nvidia Quadro, AMD Firepro, Tesla cards, some others say it's better to just stick to gaming cards. Obviously people writing these posts use different software, so what is a good solution for SketchUp and V-Ray and why?
Does RT work with distributed rendering? For example I have one graphics card in my PC, one in my laptop, can they cooperate? Or do I have to stick two GPUs in one computer?
Where do I have to keep the files for distributed rendering and what would be the fastest way of loading files for distributed rendering? Do I have to keep a copy of some texture or proxy on each PC, in the same exact location? Or can one PC send data to the other? If it can send data, is it fast enough?
I'm guessing the best would be to keep the files in the same place on my computers. Dropbox comes to mind for easy syncing, but is there a faster and cleaner solution?
I saw this Western Digital My Cloud, which is basically a hard drive connected via internet cable to your wi-fi router. It's a shared hard drive for all devices on that netwoerk. If I put stuff on that, how fast can it send data to my computers during rendering? Is anyone familiar with this?
Should I put textures and resources on SSD for faster render load, or is HDD enough? I'm asking because it sometimes takes a lot of time to load some scene for rendering.
What would be your ultimate setup and configuration? If there are some people who have to travel every once in a while and do renderings almost every day, I would like to hear your experience and suggestions on how to organize stuff.

Thanks a lot!

filibis

Hi kimi kimi,

I'm researching this topic for quite some time now but haven't installed one yet. So take my responses according to that

First of all i strongly recommend reading this Guide to GPU Rendering by Chaos Group. From background reasons to rendering advices, it's a great article (It's for 3ds Max but general idea applies for everything). Half of your answers awating you there.

1- Check this manual for Supported Features in Interactive Rendering in V-ray for SketchUp.

2- They're all technically gaming cards, aren't they? And i don't think there is a specific one for Sketchup + V-ray combination. You can check this website for GPU or CPU comparisons: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ . There are lots of useful charts to examine. Another benchmark result for GPUs from Furryball. Also check this website for helpful articles: http://www.gpurendering.com/

3- I think yes, it works.

4- 5- 6- no idea

7- SSD makes them load faster just before render for sure but i doubt you'll have enough space for all the resources from various works (You can use SSD only for resource heavy works maybe). You need to decide whether that load time is on your list of priorities or not.

8- I would like to hear as well