PC upgrade and other questions.

[Dancem]

Hi!
I saw news about Octane for 3dsmax, so it become really interesting for me, as I usually using only 3dsmax, without external renders.
I will try to wait for DEMO version of Octane for 3dsmax, to see, will I able to use it for my tasks. And I hope I will

Q1: Here is first question - If I will buy Octane 3dsmax bundle (just don't want to wait for DEMO), and if I will not like it, will I able to get refund?

So if all will be good, I will need to upgrade my GTX260 to something bigger and powerful for Octane.
I have: AsRock Z68 Extreme7, i7-2600K OC 4,4Ghz, 16Gb RAM, Antec CP-1000W and Antec Twelve Hundred case. Also 4 LCD screens connected, 19"-40". And there will be 5 in nearest future.
I want to buy two powerful video cards and maybe one more card for additional LCD screens connection.

Q2: What is better - put two cards separately, or put them into SLI? Or it have no difference for Octane?

I can try to put x3 cards inside, but then there can be problems with temperature and power. So lets look for x2 v-cards combinations.
As I think, better way for me, my PC, and for performance is to use x2 GTX590.

Q3: Can somebody tell me, how x2 GTX590 will increase Octane performance, depends my GTX260? (it give me 4,6Ms/sec, and 38mins (16000) render time in 2.46b DEMO Benchmark scene, with that gray boxes inside)

I hope my power supply will be able to give enough energy for x2 GTX590. If not, I will upgrade it too, or put separate PwrS nearby.

My tasks are pretty different - from architectural visualization and medical animation, to cartoon animation. So what about video card memory? Are 1,5Gb will be enough for any task, or I will not able to render some scenes because of low memory?

Q4: Whats better - put x2 GTX590, with 3Gb memory per card (1,5Gb per graphic chip, as I understand), or put x1 GTX580 with 3Gb + x1 GTX590? Maybe even x1 GTX550Ti 3Gb + x2 GTX590?

And for a last:

Q5: Are Octane able to use stereo-cameras/stereo-rigs for getting horizontal-stacked stereo images? Or I will need to put two cameras, and render them separately?

Thats all. I hope your answers on my questions will be interesting for other 3dsmax users, that looking for power of Octane Render
Thank you very much!

PS: please help me to decide by choosing one of x2 GTX5xx combination
x2 GTX590, 1,5Gb per chip, 13,5Ms/sec. benchmark
OR
x2 GTX580, 3Gb per chip, 8,28Ms/sec. benchmark

[t_3]

1. needs to be answered by an rsl official
2. sli won't work with octane, just any number of cards together without sli will be fine.
3. http://t3net.at/misc/octane_bench1.pdf
4. using multiple cards, the card with the least amount of memory sets the limit for scene size. imo 2gb or more is recommended. it is always a good ideo to use identical cards (even if any combination will work). 560 ti 2gb, 570 2.5gb or 580 3gb are good choices imo.
5. currently you'll need two cameras & two render passes to get real steroscopic imagery
...

[Dancem]

4. using multiple cards, the card with the least amount of memory sets the limit for scene size. imo 2gb or more is recommended. it is always a good ideo to use identical cards (even if any combination will work). 560 ti 2gb, 570 2.5gb or 580 3gb are good choices imo.

So, what better to use, on your thought?
x2 GTX580 with 3GB memory for scene and 8,28 render performance (took benchmark results to compare)
OR
x2 GTX590 with 1,5GB memory for scene and 13,5 render performance. Its 163% performance, refer to x2 GTX580. Large increase, as for me.

Thanks for your answers

[kubo]

about the refunds, read the eula http://www.refractivesoftware.com/shop/#EULA Refractive's team does not accept refunds on licenses sold.
On the GPU, a 590 is 2x580s put together in a single board, but for it not to burn they are underclocked, so 2x580s will perform better than a single 590, also they share memory so actually you only get 1,5Gb for the 590. The good thing is that you could fit better 2x590 than 4x580, and price might be better too. If I had money I would go for as many 580 3Gb and a good mobo and set up a nice AC system in the room to have it cooking all night long

[Dancem]

On the GPU, a 590 is 2x580s put together in a single board, but for it not to burn they are underclocked, so 2x580s will perform better than a single 590, also they share memory so actually you only get 1,5Gb for the 590.

Yes, I know that.
I only dont know what to prefer - performance OR memory

Technicaly, I can put x5 cards inside my PC, but dont want to buy a lot of power supplies and water cooling system. So it will be x2 GTX5xx + maybe x1 low performance video card. I am afraid, that x3 GTX cards will be hot and loud, even with my Antec case.

No refunds.. Hmm.. Than I will need to buy it before. Better to lose $250 on Octane, than $1500 on video cards

[kubo]

If you have already tested the Octane demo you know what you are getting with the 3dmax plugin. I've been a max user for many many years, and I prefer the Octane standalone, but that's just me. The plugin integration is seamless, perfect, you get all you know with the speed and interactivity of Octane, so it's great, but I have to say that I feel more at ease in the standalone, I prefer it's interface to Max's and the way you navigate the scene, and the power of nodes, but of course, if you want to do an animation the integrated plugin is a must.
About the performance-memory issue... well, it's a tough one, been discused a lot. My advice would be to test the demo with one of your regular scenes, see how much memory you might need, see if they all fit, keep in mind that instances are around the corner, so that'll take some weight off the vram, I have a 570 with 1,2Gb and for my latest scene I've had 4M polys and huge textures and was using about 1Gb (it depends a lot on the scene thou) so as you can see you can fit quite a lot, of course, with 3Gb, I'm guessing I could do Avatar forest in a single go ;P. Also remember that to fill all the vram you need something like 4xRam free so it won't use the scratch disk and have long loading times. (search the forum is explained somewhere)

[t_3]

On the GPU, a 590 is 2x580s put together in a single board, but for it not to burn they are underclocked, so 2x580s will perform better than a single 590, also they share memory so actually you only get 1,5Gb for the 590.

Yes, I know that.
I only dont know what to prefer - performance OR memory

Technicaly, I can put x5 cards inside my PC, but dont want to buy a lot of power supplies and water cooling system. So it will be x2 GTX5xx + maybe x1 low performance video card. I am afraid, that x3 GTX cards will be hot and loud, even with my Antec case.

No refunds.. Hmm.. Than I will need to buy it before. Better to lose $250 on Octane, than $1500 on video cards

octane is maybe not the swiss knife of renderers, but i'm sure, you won't ever regret spending the money

regarding performance vs. memory: if you run out of memory you either have to make compromises in quality (e.g. lowering your scene specs - if possible at all), or buy new cards. you may add another 3rd, 4th card, if you need performance later on, but if you'r low an vram, you need to replace all cards you have. thus i'd clearly go for max. vram...

[t_3]

btw: forum polls are not working...

[Dancem]

Okay.
I will wait for Octane for 3dsmax demo and look in direction of x2 GTX580 3GB.
Thank for help, guys!

[radiance]

Hi guys,

Due to possible abuse, we do not provide any refunds under any circumstances.
We need to put work into each sale (license processing, customer support posts and emails etc...), and refunding/removal of licenses is also 5-10 minuites of work for us. at the price of 99 EUR per license, we can not do this.
Also, people can abuse refunds due to the offline mode in octanelive.

If RS LTD would allow refunds for the reason of 'not being content with the software's features' we would be a easy target for abuse and could very well go bankrupt.

I hope everyone understands our point.

Unfortunately we do not have a demo version yet for the 3ds max plugin product. We will in the first quarter of 2012.
However, there is a great presentation video made by Karba and Philbo that shows, in great detail, the workings of the product, which should be enough to judge your purchase on, and like many of our customers, we get a lot of customers praising the quality and functionality of our new 3ds max plugin product.

The video demoing the plugin can be found here:
http://www.refractivesoftware.com/forum ... f=7&t=9692


Yours,
The OctaneRender(R) Team.