NEW: Octane X - is finally here! [MEGA FAQ THREAD]

[shtl_1]

Hi all,

c4doctane 2023.1.2 is out:
https://render.otoy.com/plugindownloads ... .2_OSX.zip

You can find the release notes here:
viewtopic.php?f=85&t=82847

This version also fixes the issue of force quitting after closing C4D, if RedShift is activated.
(Big thanks to Peter Bokor for the great help on this)

Happy GPU rendering, and Happy New Year

ciao,
Beppe

Afaic since installed, zero crash for today =D
Great 2024 starting, happy new year all !

EDIT:
Cannot quit c4d 98% of the time. (force quit only)
Get tons of crashes a day IF I USE OCTANE. I uninstal it if I don't use it to avoid instability.
As soon as i go deeper in scenes, nothing really works, crashes.

[cjadams]

I happily have my M2 ultra mac studio using the RTX 4090 in my PC.. happy … a bit of beachballs from time to time.. but mostly working…

NOTE i had to install into the user/prefs/maxon/ ….plugins area and NOT the /Applications/Maxon/cinema4d …plugins era.. since all i got was beachballs. .i assume OS permissions or such …. after i moved it .. things worked!

[davidvonbehr]

Hi David,
thanks for sharing your tests.
Yes, the speed is scene dependent.
Maybe you can share a screenshot of the info-bar per scene loaded in Live View, in order to have a rough idea about the scene complexity, like poly count, memory used, ecc.
About Network rendering, what type of network connection do you have between PC and M3?

ciao,
Beppe

Hi Beppe,

now I had the chance to redo the test with wired network and here are the results - very interessting to my eyes. It seems that the more complicated the scene gets the less advantage is on the PC side. When OOC is used, you can see the advantage of the giant unified memory on Mac.

And one thing is very remarkable: the Mac does all this in nearly complete silence and on battery! The M3 Max really is a masterpiece of a chip.

Best,
David

[k.w.b2]

Hi

are there any updates on the Octane X for AMD GPUs?
I have an Mac Pro 2019 and I'm until now stuck MacOS Montiray

[bepeg4d]

Hi David,
thanks for sharing the new tests.

10 Gbit Ethernet is a must to have for Network Rendering, otherwise, the Render-Node machines can take too much time to get the scene from Workstation (M3), especially if the rendering time per frame is quite short.

With 1 Gbit Ethernet it is possible that Render-Node receives the scene while Workstation (M3) has already almost finished to render the frame, so contribution is minimal, but in general, on second or third frame most of the scene is already loaded, and you should see the rendering speed boost of Render-Nodes.

Try to render a Camera animation sequence for at least ten frames, you should see the difference after few frames, even with a complex scene.

ciao,
Beppe

P.S. I also have a Mac Pro 2019, and my solution was to install Win 11 via Bootcamp, connect a couple of Nvidia GPUs also via Thunderbolt, and use it as Render-Node via 10Gbit Ethernet connected to an M2 Pro machine, fantastic setup!

[mitchino]

So that makes it sound like even when using 10GBit Ethernet, having the render nodes doesn't really help when working in the live viewer for look dev etc.

It would be a great help, if anyone has time, to post a video showing the difference in speed and function in the live viewer when using just a mac, and using a mac and PC slave.

[SimonKn]

ITs not just you.. the network panel doesn't work for me either.. regardless of: Mac to Mac - Mac to pc
I'm hoping we don't have long to wait to finally after years.. be able to do MAC-PC rendering!!!

Did this ever get resolved?

[cjadams]

ITs not just you.. the network panel doesn't work for me either.. regardless of: Mac to Mac - Mac to pc
I'm hoping we don't have long to wait to finally after years.. be able to do MAC-PC rendering!!!

Did this ever get resolved?

Yeah.. it was the previous version.. so wasn’t done yet.. this latest alpha 2 seems to work just fine.. well for an alpha… normal be cautious with using it in production warnings apply

[bepeg4d]

So that makes it sound like even when using 10GBit Ethernet, having the render nodes doesn't really help when working in the live viewer for look dev etc.

It would be a great help, if anyone has time, to post a video showing the difference in speed and function in the live viewer when using just a mac, and using a mac and PC slave.

Sorry I have no time to prepare a Video, but trust me, Network rendering makes a huge difference in both Live View and Picture Viewer, especially at 10Gbit.

Here is a KitBush scene with ~15 millions triangles that needs 8':21" to reach 1024 samples without Net Render in Live View:

And here is with Net Render enabled, it needs only 1':02" to reach 1024 samples in Live View:

Here is the difference in scene loading time with 10Gbit in Picture Viewer, only 4" for Net render to start:

And with 1Gbit, Net render starts after 1':23":

ciao,
Beppe

[vurt]

Awesome news with Network Rendering finally arriving!
Will there be a slave for Mac?
We have a couple of Mac Studios here and it would be great to use them to speed up the work on Macbooks.
Also, as I see from the comments, Wifi6 will be not enough? The router then connected to PCs with 10G LAN, but the Macbook doesn't have a LAN port, the best I have is a 5Gbe USB adapter, but theoretically Wifi6 goes up to 9.6gbps, and the network here works well