Mac hardware that will speed up render times in Vray
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Hi
Can anyone advise me on the best kit to buy to speed up rendering times using Vray.
I currently use a 15inch MacBook Pro 2017. It has a 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7. Memory 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR 3. Graphics Radeon Pro 560 4 GB Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MBI want to remain using Mac rather than switching to Windows. Is there an external GPU that I can buy that will speed things up or if I switch to a desktop iMac Pro or a Mac mini bolted on to my current laptop will this help?
I am about to switch from SU2019 to 2020 and have the latest release of Vray
Any advice on this matter will be gratefully received.
Many Thanks
MW
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The likely reason for your rendering performance woes is that Macs use Radeon graphics cards — whereas VRay uses Nvidia CUDA for both GPU and Hybrid (GPU/CPU) rendering — so the more powerful Radeon card in the iMac Pro won't solve the problem, and neither will the Mac Mini (which uses Intel integrated graphics).
An external GPU with an Nvida GTX or RTX card would likely do the trick, but the problem is that Apple doesn't support Nvidia drivers on the Mac. I'm not sure if anyone has managed to get this setup working, but a potential option would be to run Windows on Bootcamp with an Nvidia eGPU. I've seen people manage this for gaming (https://9to5mac.com/2018/12/31/how-to-2018-mac-mini-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-egpu-windows-gaming-setup-video/), but haven't seen any confirmation with SU.
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I am using High Sierra and the last (I think) MBP that had an nVidia card. It seems to me that High Sierra is the last MacOS for which you can get an nVidia web driver and CUDA version. And people have kindly posted all the versions on line. Whether this will work for eGPU is something I'd like to know.
I think it is working because I get to use GPU rendering and Optix denoiser in Thea. (But my system barely makes it). You have to consider what the hardware recommendations are for Vray.
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