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Best upgrade to increase render speed?
Hi there,
I have a ppc quad core G5 maxed out on ram at 16g. I am wanting to know what would be the best way to decrease my render times. I have heard that net render is a good way to achieve this.
Has anyone tried net render? is it worth getting, and if so what is the best hardware to purchase to share rending tasks with net render given my current set up?
Many Thanks,
Jethro
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7 Replies
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Net Render is great for animations, somewhat more work for stills (but still faster). You have to be aware that different CPU’s with different FPU’s should not be mixed. From the manual….
“Inaccurate Calculations
One common feature of heterogeneous (unlike) networks is that they usually involve computers with FPUs (floating point units) that work to varying degrees of mathematical accuracy. This can lead to rendering inconsistencies such as particle streams (as with the previous CINEMA 4D particle system) or with Clothilde / HAIR being calculated in very different positions on different machines. Nobody can predict when these inaccuracies will arise, nor will anyone be able to tell you how severe the deviations will be.
However, CINEMA 4D solves this problem (at least with particles) by allowing you to bake the particle stream prior to rendering. This only works when using CINEMA 4D’s own particle system (not for Thinking Particles) or Clothilde / HAIR. Nevertheless, we recommend you always make a quick preview before commiting the final render.”
So with you having a PPC either it would be best to get PPC’s for a farm or use the PPC only as the net render server but not as a renderer and get a number of machines using the same chip to run the renders.
But the first thing I would do is to think about the PPC, assuming the 2.5Ghz quad you are probably getting Cinebench scores something like 2000 for CBSingle and 7000 CBMultiple. My 8-core 2.8 intel Mac gets 3200 CBSingle and 19000 for CBMultiple so you could (depending on what it is you are rendering) probably do better than chopping your render time in half. Otherwise, if you can get your hands on a number of G5 machines that would be the thing to do with Net Render.
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Tim Clapham actually came up with a way to cache Thinking Particles via MoGraph. That said, in a perfect world it’s best to have homogeneous NET clients.
Depending on the number of client computers you plan on buying it might be more economical (and less of a hassle) to replace your G5 with a quad or octo core Mac Pro. That would also have the advantage of speeding up Cinema’s editor performance — and all of your other applications to boot.
AdamT
Cinema 4DXL8 Bodypaint*Remember: Tues. is national Shoe Day. Wear shoes to show your support for bimetalism and the designated hitter rule!*
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This is something i was considering based on Brian’s post. Would there be any advantage to using a macbook pro in the set up (I need a laptop as well)? or would the issue with floating points apply here as well?
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It depends on the processor; you’d be fine if the laptop has an Intel cpu — maybe not so much if it’s Motorola. Keep in mind though that certain things (like MoGraph) need to be cached even if its a homogeneous network.
AdamT
Cinema 4DXL8 Bodypaint*Remember: Tues. is national Shoe Day. Wear shoes to show your support for bimetalism and the designated hitter rule!*
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Forgive my lack of knowledge, but what does caching in relation to C4D net render entail?
Regards,
Jethro
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It’s pretty simple with MoGraph. You just have to assign MoGraph cache tags to your cloners and/or matrix objects and set the appropriate options.
AdamT
Cinema 4DXL8 Bodypaint*Remember: Tues. is national Shoe Day. Wear shoes to show your support for bimetalism and the designated hitter rule!*
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For what it’s worth, I actually had the same query back in January. I have a 2.5GHz G5 PPC I used at home. I got an Intel 3.0 GHz Dual-Quad MacPro at work, and it is exponentially faster. I did a test when I first got it. I set up a very detailed scene a variety of the more processor intensive modules and rendered it at home and then brought it to work and tried it here. The G5 at home took roughly 3 hours, and my 8-Core at work did it in about 13 minutes. It was just a still, not an animation. I have 4GB of RAM at home and 6GB at work. (For some reason, my boss doesn’t believe me I need more.)
That’s my two cents from personal experience.
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