Thanks guys! The Max samples trick gave a pretty good result. Going to try the other methods as well.

I'm doing a stylized architectural render and I actually want to render a grainy AO Pass.

Problem is, Octane renders so fast that I can't seem to pause the render before the grain begins to clean up. I've tried lowering a bunch of different settings and disabling all but one gfx card, but nothing ...

Thanks Whersmy, that did the trick!

I'm in the early stages of setting up a scene and did a quick render check. The scene looks as expected in MODO, but in Octane I'm getting this strange circular banding around the entire image and it appears some of the geometry is breaking up.

Any thoughts on why this might be happening?

I've ...

I think there might be a bug in the Cuda Settings Panel...

It appears as though the settings are not accurately carried over from session to session. When I deactivate one of my cards and reopen MODO the previously deactivated card is now showing as active for "Use for Tonemap". This has happened ...

I'm frequently getting the following errors:

OctaneRender 2.25 (2250000)

Could not load 'B:\Coulter\Documents\Custom Content\Octane LiveDb Texturemaps:rgba'.
Could not load 'B:\Coulter\Documents\Custom Content\Octane LiveDb Texturemaps:rgba'.
Could not load 'B:\Coulter\Documents\Custom Content ...

As for VRAM, it doesn't t add together like system RAM. With 4x 970 you will have a total of 3.5GB VRAM. Likewise with 2x 980ti you will be limited to 6GB total. The amount of VRAM is fixed, regardless of how many cards you have! This is the same for gaming too.

Well that's a bummer. I suppose ...

As long as you know the GPUs are getting cooled, that's fine. The only reason I asked is because you list an AIO CPU cooler in your parts list and, as far as I know, you can't add GPUs to that particular unit. If you had the EK Predator 360 AIO, you could add GPUs to that. Just make sure you ...

Thanks for the advice 01rich01.

The VRAM was a concern of mine, especially since the 970s actually only have 3.5GB available for use. Am I wrong in thinking this isn't as important now that Octane has out-of-core texture rendering?

Also, I'm a little unclear on how Octane uses VRAM. With four 970s ...

One factor to consider is that you can overclock the i7 but you can't overclock the Xeon chips. 8 cores at ~4.2Ghz is pretty good.

Second, how do you plan on water cooling those 980 Tis? The kit you list only covers the CPU. One option would be to go with the 980 Ti Hybrids.