Refractive Software® is proud to announce the availability of the second beta 2.41 CUDA 3.2 testing release.
This release is built against the latest Nvidia CUDA 3.2 toolkit.
NOTE: This is the 2nd 2.4 testing release, available for windows x64, and if no major issues are found, we will add packages for other platforms.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Regarding CUDA toolkit use and Multi-GPU support
During our migration to cuda 3.2 we have noticed that due to changes to the CUDA toolkit by NVIDIA,
our approach to multi-gpu rendering on Geforce products has been handicapped.
As a result using more than one GPU with a CUDA 3.2 release does not offer a speed increase.
We are rewriting the multi-gpu feature to resolve this issue, also adding some new features,
so as an intermediate solution we will be supplying both CUDA 3.2 and CUDA 3.0 solutions.
CUDA 3.0: Correctly functioning multi-gpu support, but using 2/3rd of the cores of GTX460 and GTX5xx cards.
CUDA 3.2: Correct use of all the GTX460 and GTX5xx cores, and support for newer drivers.
Provided below is an initial Windows x64 CUDA 3.2 build. If no major issues are found we will release a CUDA 3.0 build shortly after,
and releases for Windows 32bit, Linux and Apple Mac OS X.
Please note this version requires you to enter your OctaneLive® license information. These can be found as explained here:
http://www.refractivesoftware.com/forum ... =24&t=3095
New Features and fixes since the first 2.4 windows x64 release
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- higher precision for edit fields of float texture nodes (for example roughness of specular materials)
- made alpha channel output work for all resolutions
- made alpha shadows work for mesh emitters, too
- (internal) during the construction of a new project, all split and work panes got added twice to the node graph. that's fixed now.
- added project file name to window title bar
- the current project directory and file name is now updated in all situations (which wasn't the case before)
- 2D viewport zoom/pan while viewport is locked is possible now
- fixed not working inverse zoom
- fixed placement of zoomed viewport to lock correctly to the mouse
- MTL material names are now made unique while loading, non-unique material names in OCs files caused a lot of confusion while loading and then later incorrect behaviour in Octane
New Features and fixes since pre-2.3 v5
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RENDERER
- Black vertical areas on GTX460 and GTX5xx cards is fixed.
- Alpha Channel output support
- Alpha mapped material now cast correct shadows. (Only pathtracing integrator currently, can be enabled/disabled in pathtracing kernel options. If not needed, switch it off for slightly better performance)
- Gradient Mapping Node for more advanced procedural materials
- Shift lens option with configurable X and Y offset in camera (Usefull for architectural renderings)
- Opacity channel value of zero could crash the engine, which is now fixed.
- Crash when creating a new file while activating a node is fixed.
- Display of correct amount of cores used for GTX460 and GTX5xx series cards.
USER INTERFACE
- Node Graph Editor can be panned to edit large node networks
- Tooltips that display nodepin names when hovering over them. Hover with the mouse over the pin icon in the Node Inspector and you will see the name of the input pin.
- Node Inspector panel is compactified for better use of screen real-estate, and uses a fixed width on all displays.
- Render Preview Configuration preview buttons have been moved to the top of the Node Inspector panel to make better use of screen real-estate.
- Lock button to lock renderviewport during rendering.
- OBJ MTL use of textures with alphachannel will create an alphatexture node on the material's alphatexture channel.
- Bug where some nodeconnections are not drawn is fixed
- Nodepin connection bugs fixed which would cause assert errors and crashes
- Moving a node in the node graph editor rebuilds the node system and restarts the render process, is fixed.
- Recenter view button added to reset the image view in the render viewport, and the pannable nodegraph view.
IO / CONTROL
- Material relinking and emitter relinking from plugins bug is fixed.
- Image, FloatImage and AlphaImage textures now have a reload button to release an image in use.
- command line -g flags causing a crash is fixed.
- Selecting a different device in the CUDA device info dialog, throws an assert, is fixed.
- load 2 mesh nodes, select one then other causes crash, is fixed.
- Command line width and height flags maximum raised from 4096 to 8192.
How to connect to OctaneLive® through a firewall/router
If you have a firewall/router, and you cannot log into the octanelive® service (eg, the server cannot be contacted),
configure your firewall or router to allow outbound connections to the URL named 'live1.refractivesoftware.com'.
CUDA drivers/toolit requirements
To use this release you should install the latest Nvidia drivers for your GPU.
It was built with and tested with:
* NVIDIA CUDA SDK v3.2
* NVIDIA Display Driver: 260.99 (From main nvidia download page)
Download
MS Windows
ZIP file archives:
CUDA 3.2: 64bit: http://www.refractivesoftware.com/rcdow ... cuda32.zip ( 35 MB)
32bit: Coming soon
GNU/Linux
gzipped/tar archives:
64bit: Coming soon
Apple Mac OS X (10.5/6)
Installer package:
32bit: Coming soon
Please post your experiences and issues with this release in this thread.
Your help is much appreciated.
Yours,
The OctaneRender® Team.
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