OTOY Forums

Hello,

Before i buy octane render 3 plugin for cinema 4d. I am trying to test octane demo...
I have installed Cuda, cuda driver and octane....
But still i get this message: there is no cuda device which is supported by octane render.

Does anyone have a idea how i can get the demo working? is it possible?

my specs are:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, 2013)
2,6 GHz Intel Core i7
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

thanks
zen

It won't work I'm afraid.

As far as I'm aware, The Intel Iris Pro does not support CUDA. You need an NVIDIA GPU (Maybe some AMD cards support it?).

Some old Macbook Pros (2013 15") had an additional NVIDIA GPU. You can run Octane on these but it is slow.

I'm in a similar position, I'm a mac user but you can forget GPU rendering on there current GPUs.

Regards

Steve

Hi guys. Yeah, the state of the Mac GPGPU ecosystem is frustrating for all of us. I am a Mac guy, and miss my 2013 Macbook w/ 650M where Octane ran fine.

For newer Macs, we are suggesting users either work with an expander box (there are threads on this you can look up on the forums), or just wait for headless rendering, which is coming at latest in the 3.1 release (3.1 is next on our roadmap after 3.0.x). HR will be easier and hopefully cheaper than an expander, and will use a PC Nvidia GPU anyway on the LAN to run Octane as if it were connected to your Mac.

In the long run we are working on bringing our CUDA cross compiler framework ( http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/09/otoy- ... platforms/ ) to Metal on MacOS. Today Metal it's not mature enough to support this well. OpenCL and low level GPGPU APIs is DOA on MacOS (and not great on Linux either).

We are working to implement headless rendering ASAP. We won't have a date to share publicly until we are within two weeks from alpha and know exactly when it will drop.

Hi Goldorak,

Thanks for your post. Could you explain exactly how Headless rendering will work? Its the first I've heard of it. I've searched the forum but I'm still not grasping the concept.

Does it mean that I could build a PC and stuff it with GPUs then connect my MacBook Pro and hit render?

Sorry if this had been detailed in another post.

Regards

Steve

Stigmond wrote:Hi Goldorak,

Thanks for your post. Could you explain exactly how Headless rendering will work? Its the first I've heard of it. I've searched the forum but I'm still not grasping the concept.

Does it mean that I could build a PC and stuff it with GPUs then connect my MacBook Pro and hit render?

Sorry if this had been detailed in another post.

Regards

Steve

Yes, your example is exactly the kind of use case we intend to cover with this feature.

I posted this somewhere else, hope more Mac users find this...

I’m using a 2011 MacBook Pro 17” w/ quad core i7 2.2 GHz and 512 SSD. I have a GTX 980 ti plugged into a GDC Beast w/ ExpressCard34 connector into the MBP. It runs Octane like a beast, and everything just worked after I toggled one of the boot timing switches on the Beast pciex4 adapter; no special drivers needed, just install CUDA as usual.

The sleek and sturdy unibody 2011 MBP 17” 1,920x1,200 can be picked up refurb w/ warranty for way under $500, and the GDC Beast is about $40. Depending on the power requirements of the graphics card, an Aux PSU will run from $8 to $80, and virtually every GTX or Quadro just works! (I’ve tested GTX 560x2GB, 570x2.5GB, 580x3GB, 590x1.5GBx2, MARS 580x1.5GBx2, 680x4GB, 750tix2GB, MARS 760x2GBx2, 780x3GB, 970x4GB, 980x4GB, 980tix6GB, and 1070x8GB)

Expect about a 10% rendering performance hit compared to a dedicated Pro or Gamer pcie x8 or x16 motherboard, which is practically irrelevant when Octane is now rendering perfect frames in a few seconds. Run something you can afford now, upgrade to faster GTX cards as needed.

Not as fast as my multi-GPU Mac Pro and CUBIX rigs, but it comes with me in a re-purposed metal box I made. It looks a little Geeky, but I could not be happier! Simple and reliable!

MacBook Pro 17” 2011 i7 2720QM 2.2 GHz: 10.12.6, 16GB, 512GB SSD, GDC Beast ExpressCard 34 w/ NVIDIA GTX 980ti 6GB (or a ROG MARS GTX 760x2 2GBx2, or an EVGA GTX 750ti 2GB), Corsair SF450 Aux PSU, and MacsFanControl (Portable, Reliable, Octane!). No mods.

Hi archiblender,
great!
thanks for sharing
With more recent Macs, you can use Thunderbolt 2 or 3 eGPU, and like your solution, you can work with all the available VRAM and power, since system/monitor/OpenGL are handled by the internal GPU.
Happy Mac GPU Rendering,
ciao Beppe