OTOY Forums

Hi
I'm new to this forum and using Octane.

I wondered if anyone else was using Asus motherboards, the kind that have ATI graphics chips built
in, with a Nvidia cuda capable card in a PCI-e slot for Octane to use.

When I read in the Octane FAQ that:

Q- “I'd like to use Octane Render, but I have an ATI card.....etc.”

A - “Currently, Octane Render requires a CUDA enabled video card to be installed. If your motherboard can accept a second video card, it is possible to install a second video card and dedicate the non-CUDA card for gaming and general display in the operating system. The newly added Nvidia card can be dedicated to Octane Render. The cost of Octane Render is low. The additional cost of integrating an Nvidia GPU into your system is very low compared to purchasing 10 to 15 more computers to get equal performance with a CPU based solution. “

So then after reading this, I recently acquired an EVGA GeForce GTX 260 core 216 896 MB card
and have tried to integrate into my system as a “recognized” but not “primary” display device that
Octane would be able to render with. I've had limited success in doing so.

Let me start by describing what my system was before adding the GTX 260 card.

CPU - AMD PhenomII x6 1090T

Mobo - Ausus M4A89GTD PRO Motherboard with latest version of BIOS 1301
-onboard graphics ATI 4290 HD cross fired with...

Asus EAH 5450 Silent 1GB DDR3 HDMI video card in blue PCI-e slot
ASUS VGA switch card installed in gray PCI-e slot (as per addendum to Mobo manual)

Ram - 8 Gb of G.Skill DDR3 F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM (2 kits of 2 - 2GB modules)

PC Power & Cooling Silencer crossfire edition 750 watt PSU

Windows 7 home premium 64 bit

o/s and programs loaded onto a Corsair Reactor SSD 60GB

So based on what the response was to the FAQ “I'd like to use Octane Render, but I have an ATI card.....etc.” I thought great! I'll take out the switch card and add the GTX 260 to the gray slot.
My integrated graphics crossfired with the ASUS 5450 can continue to be my display graphics
arrangement while the GTX 260 can provide for the Octane program.

So happily I downloaded Octane, the NVIDIA Drivers - version 197.13 and installed both and
rebooted the system expecting that Octane would use the drivers to “see” the card and start using it.

Well it didn't quite turn out as I thought. I tried every possible combination of video card in every
PCI-e slot (there are two) and every primary video controller setting in the BIOS (there are four)
in order to get either of the ATI devices to be the display output, while allowing the GTX 260 to be
available for Octane to use.

Nothing worked except if I made the GTX 260 the primary display device, removed the ASUS 5450
and disabled the onboard 4290. This was hardly what I was hoping for. The video card that's supposed
to be dedicated to rendering is also doing all of the other o/s related work.

I'm now left to wonder if it's actually possible to mix ATI(for display) and NVIDA(for rendering).

Does Octane only work in an all NVIDIA environment? Has anyone else had a similar problem
and (hopefully) resolved it?

I looked through the forum and found in the thread “Possible to render from non-active,
secondary vid card?” a reference to ATI and NIVIDIA not playing nicely together.

  “Re: Possible to render from non-active, secondary vid card?
Hi,

You can add a 2nd card and use it for rendering.
You will have to install the nvidia drivers for it though.

Also, if you're primary GPU is an ATI card, you won't be guaranteed octane will properly function,
as the nvidia <> ati image transfer is'nt yet proved stable on many reports...

Radiance”

This seemed to contradict what was printed in the FAQ response.

I'm confused...

Help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Brett

Hi,

There have been similar reports of users having issues when using ATI cards for display, as the actual OpenGL implementation is shared between the CUDA card and the display, thereby giving issues if the display card's opengl driver is not compatible.

I'm afraid there is'nt much to do about this.
Maybe buy a cheap replacement (nvidia) for the display card and use the GTX for octane as the 2nd headless card.

Radiance

There have been similar reports of users having issues when using ATI cards for display, as the actual OpenGL implementation is shared between the CUDA card and the display, thereby giving issues if the display card's opengl driver is not compatible.

I'm afraid there is'nt much to do about this.
Maybe buy a cheap replacement (nvidia) for the display card and use the GTX for octane as the 2nd headless card.

Radiance

Thanks for the clarification,

I wasn't sure if there was some simple thing I wasn't doing right...

Love the way the renders were looking when the GTX was primary, keep up the good work
Brett

Hi Radiance,

you should change your FAQ as it is misleading for people.

I'd like to use Octane Render, but i have an ATI video card, or any other non-CUDA capable video card, what should I do?

Currently, Octane Render requires a CUDA enabled video card to be installed. If your motherboard can accept a second video card, it is possible to install a second video card and dedicate the non-CUDA card for gaming and general display in the operatings system. The newly added Nvidia card can be dedicated to Octane Render. The cost of Octane Render is low. The additional cost of integrating an Nvidia GPU into your system is very low compared to purchasing 10 to 15 more computers to get equal performance with a CPU based solution.

a2retro wrote:Hi Radiance,

you should change your FAQ as it is misleading for people.

I'd like to use Octane Render, but i have an ATI video card, or any other non-CUDA capable video card, what should I do?

Currently, Octane Render requires a CUDA enabled video card to be installed. If your motherboard can accept a second video card, it is possible to install a second video card and dedicate the non-CUDA card for gaming and general display in the operatings system. The newly added Nvidia card can be dedicated to Octane Render. The cost of Octane Render is low. The additional cost of integrating an Nvidia GPU into your system is very low compared to purchasing 10 to 15 more computers to get equal performance with a CPU based solution.

No it's not misleading, as i said, this happens on some, there have been reports octane working on a 2nd card together with a non-nvidia primary display adapter.
We provide a demo version to test (and we recommend to do so) before purchase, so people can make sure.

Radiance

Radiance

I'm having the same problem. I just added a GTX470 to my Windows 7 x64 machine, in the second slot. There's an ATI FirePro V7750 in the first slot. At first I was unable to get anything to work, but after a couple of re-installs I was able to start Octane Render . I can load a mesh, but as soon as I click on it, Octane exits with no message.

If I disable the ATI card, I can run Octane on my second monitor (attached to the nVidia card). If I re-enable the ATI card when Octane or another 3D app is running, the apps hang with black screens.

Octane's Device manager shows it finds the card OK in both cases, but I can't transfer data to it and render if the ATI card is enabled.

The motherboard is an Asus P7P55D. I'm experiencing these problems with the demo as i don't have my activation code yet (just sent in the request this evening).

My current plan is to take out the ATI card for now, which is a pity as it's a good card for my 3D modeling and CAD work.

Brettski wrote:Ausus M4A89GTD PRO Motherboard

I have the same new motherboard with USB3. It wasn't maybe the best choice to work with NVidia but my older motherboard was broken and i needed to work...
I don't have any ATI card but i'm unable to work with two NVidia cards on this MB even with the integrated ATI disabled in Bios. The second NVidia card on the second PCI-E slot (the grey one) is simply invisible for the system (Windows 7 64bits). Then you are not alone Brettski...

I'm in contact with the technical support of ASUSTek, if i have some informations, i'll post it here. The support didn't answer immediately it doesn't work, then it should work. I'm waiting the new answer.

I don't know if this is relevant or not but with an ATI card in a system with an NVIDIA card the new NVID drivers disable the PHYSX so maybe its disabling the cuda aswell.....With my old motherboard I had onboard graphics with an PCIE NVID GTX card this resulted in the PHYSX option totally dissapearing from the control panel, it might disable other nvidia features...

I took out the ATI card: the GTX470 is working fine as graphics and render card. I can run the demo scenes OK, although I have a lot of difficulty loading my own scenes, which are quite large.

I have the answer for my problem : it should be possible to work two NVidia cards on a M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 without any special settings in Bios. Conclusion, my new motherboard must be broken...

Well, it's not very usefull for someone else than me. But it's good to know it should work... Sorry for the pollution of your topic.