Octane 1.02beta issues on OSX Tweet

[SurfingAlien]

Hi!
finally got my OSX beta running on my MBP (although only with the on-board 9400M card with 256Mb shared memory).
from the first tests I can report some issues I noticed:

1) Octane doesn't quit properly: cmd+Q close the window but does not kill the app, closing from the menu bar crashes Octane (I'm confirming what somebody else already said)
2) I got some weird statistics (see attached screenshot: with 0.81a under win7 bootcamp I had about 0.6 Mspl/sec for the same scene using a 9600GT (slightly different PoV since I can't save but...); elapsed time is totally wrong (and it's not related to Mspl/sec error... i mean time it's not running slow so I get more samples per sec), sometimes Mspl/sec goes to 0.00, etc...
3) although I changed the resolution to 640x480 the render size remains the same (default 1024x512)

please let me know if I'm doing something wrong (i.e. "operator error" ) and take it with a grain of salt since the hardware I'm using ATM is not adequate as you may see (specially for point n.2)

just to be clear, there's no criticism at all, just trying to give some feedback since it's the first mac release...

thank you
cheers,
Alessandro

P.S.: SystemSpec: 15.4" MacBookPro unibody 2x2.4GHz | 4Gb | 9400M+9600GT | 256Mb | OSX 10.6.3 (where is the Signature field in the user pref BTW?)

[mib2berlin]

First I look to the image and think, not bad for a onboard chip.
1024x512 is a demo limitation, but smaller should work in a demo.
The signature is in Options > Profile > Edit Signature

Render looks good, mib

[SurfingAlien]

The signature is in Options > Profile > Edit Signature

...can't say why I missed it, maybe it's time to get some more sleep

and thanks also for your kind words, it's just a screenshot with very basic settings (256Mb are way not enough to play with large textures and hdris...) and few samples but Octane makes it look quite good (noise apart)

hope to build a decent render machine soon

cheers,
Alessandro

[fbuerger2000]

Hi,

I agreed.

i think its a good idea to name it ISSUES. Unluckywise Radience can't see this on his installations. My points that i can see so far are the following ones:

1. Point 1. from SurfingAlien. Id would be a nice thing with integration in OSX menue. But not a must. Apple shows us in tools like LOGIC and Shake that they ignore that too.

2. With timers and others like Point 2 from SurfingAlien: Let us see foreward to the next release...

3. mib2berlin has it anwered correctly. In Demo mode not, but with the licensed version it is no problem at all (see picture)

my issues on a MacBookPro unibody 2,4GhZ with a GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT 256MB RAM are also not seen as a bug report, let's call it "issues with a small GPU".


4. At the moment it seems only be able to choose the Grafic-Card over the Apple System-Profiler-->Energy settings--> Low or high
But with Octane it is only the choose with "Low" and the 9400M. The other Card is not available in the Device Manager in Octane.

5. Using a Normalmap as Image-type quit's the program immediately. That might depends on low RAM. 100MB used without the 13,5MB NOR-MAP.

6. Switching to DAYLIGHT quit's the program also immediately.

7. Switching to PathRaycing quit's the program immediately.


Wishlist:

8. Maks all these things possible with al "Low" Card.

9. If the Clay-Mode-Result can be used for a Ambient Occlusion Map Texture backwards in Blender that would save many many time

Keep on Radience, this is a very very good product...so far.

regards
frank

[SurfingAlien]

about issue n.3: are you saying 1024x512 is not a "max resolution" but a "fixed one" for the new demo? it seems strange because with 0.81a (on Win7) I used to change it every time with no problems...

Frank: at least you can get yourself a GTX285 "Mac edition" for your Mac Pro, I am forced to build a dedicated Win/LInux machine (no budget for a MacPro ATM)

EDIT: demo resolution is locked to 1024x512 (from the News section) so issue n.3 is solved

[fbuerger2000]

yes,

that is correctly. So i save my money for the GTX285 Mac edition, and maybe a second licence. But first im looking foreward to the next release where the points 1-2, and 4-7 are "fixed". 4 Seems for me, to be the most importend next step. Maybe with him are the points 5-7 "gone with the wind". (I hope in that, im not a computer guy, i only like to work with it )

regards
Frank

[SurfingAlien]

Frank,
I'm no expert but I have the feeling that most of our crashes arise from the limited vRAM amount of our cards (also my 9600GT has only 256Mb), so probably your "issues" 5 to 7 will just go away with the GTX card even in beta 1.02. In my little tests with 0.81a on bootcamp i saw Octane crashing when I added an hdri to a relatively complex model (like the Barcelona chair in the shot) while I was able to render with hdri-based lighting other models; also, I just couldn't render some simple models which have several hi-res textures applied... I'm pretty sure this is just a lack-of-memory issue.
as for point n.4 it's probably a problem due to the presence of more than one nVidia card, so I think it will not affect your single-CUDA-card-system...

BTW it would be nice if there were more options for Mac users (i.e. more nVidia card models available...)

happy rendering
A

[fbuerger2000]

SurfingAlien,

thanks for your answer. Today was first time to read here in this forum, and now i believe also, that the most crashes are depending on "lack of memory".
i will take a couple tea and wait. In this waiting time i am able to do simple things with Octane.
And the small things that works for me are awesome results. Lightjears away from the internal blender-render-engine.

happy rendering
Frank

[goentiki]

Some feedback to Octane 1.02beta:

I am glad to see Octane on the Mac. Unfortunately on my two year old MacPro with DDR2 I would have to pay more then 500 Euro to get a old Nvidia graphics. Therefore I use my new MacBook Pro Unibody 2.6GHz.

The installation went straight on (since I have XCode installed on all my systems). Octane runs pretty stable with the 9400m (beside the "Quit" issue), but I just use simple scenes.

What makes Octane unusable for me in this configuration is the extreme long delay (in the range of 5 seconds or more) for any mouse action when the render is running. I only can work when I stop the render, make some changes in the materials or whatsoever and then start the render again. No way of realtime changes. I wonder why nobody mentioned this.

regards
goentiki

[SurfingAlien]

What makes Octane unusable for me in this configuration is the extreme long delay (in the range of 5 seconds or more) for any mouse action when the render is running. I only can work when I stop the render, make some changes in the materials or whatsoever and then start the render again. No way of realtime changes. I wonder why nobody mentioned this.

Hi!
I think this is to blame on the (poor) vCard power we are forced to use: the 9400M with 256Mb of Shared RAM (way slower than the *real* vRAM afaik) is really not adequate for this intensive usage (and no power is left for the rest).
Actually I'm waiting for a solution that allows us to use both cards, with the 9600GT fully dedicated to Octane and the 9400m for the rest. I don't know if this will be possible, what i know for sure is I can't consider my MBP a proper render machine, and not only for the vCard horsepower issue.
I don't know exactly what model you got, but I'm pretty sure your "old" MacPro with Xeon processor(s) would be a great render machine, and it's probably worth the effort to get him a 285 GTX (440€ in the Italian Apple Store), if you got the budget of course.