Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby ycarry » Sat May 22, 2010 11:42 am

ycarry Sat May 22, 2010 11:42 am
So (just to understand) as I my pc have 1 PCIe x16 and 2 PCIe x1 slots,
I can add one Xpander (with 2 GTX480) to each PCIe x1 expansion slot
and keep my GTX260 in PCIe x16... ????
and Octane benefit of all cards?
:shock: :o
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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby radiance » Sat May 22, 2010 11:44 am

radiance Sat May 22, 2010 11:44 am
ycarry wrote:So (just to understand) as I my pc have 1 PCIe x16 and 2 PCIe x1 slots,
I can add one Xpander (with 2 GTX480) to each PCIe x1 expansion slot
and keep my GTX260 in PCIe x16... ????
and Octane benefit of all cards?
:shock: :o


yes ;)

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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby ycarry » Sat May 22, 2010 1:03 pm

ycarry Sat May 22, 2010 1:03 pm
Wahooo :P
please EricNV, how much Shipment and VAT for France?
Note: here in France I can buy GTX480 for 490€ (include 19.6%VAT and free shipment)... :mrgreen:
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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby ROUBAL » Sat May 22, 2010 1:47 pm

ROUBAL Sat May 22, 2010 1:47 pm
Hmmm, on Cubix site support, I read :

Connect as many Xpanders as you have available PCIe x 8 slots in the host computer


PCIe x 8 slots, not PCIe x1 ! This has to be confirmed, but it is written.

For what I have been told recently, the cable link transfer speed is not important during the rendering process, but it is much important during the loading of the scene.

I am currenlty doing a test on an animation of 35 frames of a scene requiring 290 MB of VRAM, on a GTX 260 mounted in a Cubix-Xpander which is connectet to a PCIe 16x 1.0 : For a rendering time of 4 seconds (at 32 samples per pixel), the loading time of each frame is 124 seconds ! More than 2 minutes per frame .

At this speed, the whole 35 frames animation requires 72 minutes of loading for 140 seconds of rendering !

For more samples per pixels, the ratio will decrease a bit, but not so much.

If you consider that the tested scene weights only 290MB, on a PCIe x 16 (even if it is a 1.0) the loading time(so, the transfer speed of the PCIe link) seems to be a very critical factor ! I doubt that PCIe x 1 are usable.

For what I have tested so far, my fears are confirmed and the current loading time for animation is really beyond what I consider as acceptable. :roll:
French Blender user - CPU : intel Quad QX9650 at 3GHz - 8GB of RAM - Windows 7 Pro 64 bits. Display GPU : GeForce GTX 480 (2 Samsung 2443BW-1920x1600 monitors). External GPUs : two EVGA GTX 580 3GB in a Cubix GPU-Xpander Pro 2. NVidia Driver : 368.22.
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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby GeoPappas » Sat May 22, 2010 2:12 pm

GeoPappas Sat May 22, 2010 2:12 pm
ROUBAL wrote:If you consider that the tested scene weights only 290MB, on a PCIe x 16 (even if it is a 1.0) the loading time(so, the transfer speed of the PCIe link) seems to be a very critical factor ! I doubt that PCIe x 1 are usable.


I'm not sure if it is the PCIe transfer speed that is the bottleneck. According to the specs, PCIe x16 1.0 has a transfer rate of 4 GB/s. That means that 290 MB should transfer in < 1 sec. PCIe 2.0 doubles the transfer rate (to 8 GB/s for x16).

There must be something else slowing it down.
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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby ycarry » Sat May 22, 2010 2:18 pm

ycarry Sat May 22, 2010 2:18 pm
PCIe x 8 slots, not PCIe x1 ! This has to be confirmed, but it is written.
But I read PCIe x1 connector card here:

Xpander1.jpg
from Online store
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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby radiance » Sat May 22, 2010 2:28 pm

radiance Sat May 22, 2010 2:28 pm
our units here came with 8x PCI-E and they work fine.
i believe they have both 8x and 1x options.

You should be able to use octane just fine on a 1x PCI-E connection, you'll just have to wait a minute instead of 2-3 seconds for the mesh to appear when you first click on your meshnode.

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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby ROUBAL » Sat May 22, 2010 2:45 pm

ROUBAL Sat May 22, 2010 2:45 pm
What about animations ? Currently, frames on a slight scene are loaded in more than 2 minutes each, not only the first one. Is it the necessary time for Octane to update the geometry ? Can't it be reduced ? :roll:
French Blender user - CPU : intel Quad QX9650 at 3GHz - 8GB of RAM - Windows 7 Pro 64 bits. Display GPU : GeForce GTX 480 (2 Samsung 2443BW-1920x1600 monitors). External GPUs : two EVGA GTX 580 3GB in a Cubix GPU-Xpander Pro 2. NVidia Driver : 368.22.
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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby radiance » Sat May 22, 2010 2:53 pm

radiance Sat May 22, 2010 2:53 pm
ROUBAL wrote:What about animations ? Currently, frames on a slight scene are loaded in more than 2 minutes each, not only the first one. Is it the necessary time for Octane to update the geometry ? Can't it be reduced ? :roll:


do you mean the loading/voxelising or the actual upload to the GPU when you click on the meshnode the first time ?

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Re: Cubix GPU-Expander for Octane Render

Postby ROUBAL » Sat May 22, 2010 3:02 pm

ROUBAL Sat May 22, 2010 3:02 pm
I mean the loading/voxelising time.

For a still picture, it is done once, and after that if you spend time to adjust your materials parameters, you almost forget the loading/voxelising time, but when you have to render an animation, this loading/voxelizing time is repeated for each exported frame and then, it is another story : I have just finished rendering a 35 frames animation test, and while I got 2 to 4 seconds of rendering per frame at 32 samples per pixel, The loading/voxelizing time for each frame was 124 seconds... for a scene in 1024x576, with only a character in a empty screen (290MB).
French Blender user - CPU : intel Quad QX9650 at 3GHz - 8GB of RAM - Windows 7 Pro 64 bits. Display GPU : GeForce GTX 480 (2 Samsung 2443BW-1920x1600 monitors). External GPUs : two EVGA GTX 580 3GB in a Cubix GPU-Xpander Pro 2. NVidia Driver : 368.22.
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