OTOY Forums

To those with a xpander.
Roughly do you think a xpander with 2 gtx 480's is capable of rendering a 30 second 512x384 animation in under 12 hours?

You should have no problem with that, but a lot depends on the specific scene. Also how many frames per second you are using for the animation. Then it would come down to how long it takes your host app to export each frame and re-launch Octane each time (you could lose a lot of time each frame with this and it has nothing to do with the gpu).What kind of times are you getting with a single gtx480, if you have one that is.

Don't have one yet. Only have a 8800gt. Animation will be 30fps.
Export time is what concerned me as well.
Do you know if there are plans to change this in the future? Ie not have to export/import each frame?

It is still up in the air, but I hope so. RIB and/or Collada should enable Octane to see all of the animation data in one file, but a lot depends on how they plan to implement those formats. Try setting up a RamDrive like Radiance has suggested as that will make the process a lot faster. I will be trying it for my competition entry which I will be starting to render next week.

My only concern with video card rendering is how much they can take for long periods of time. Are vidcards built to run at full throttle for hours and hours?

adrencg wrote:My only concern with video card rendering is how much they can take for long periods of time. Are vidcards built to run at full throttle for hours and hours?

I have the very same concern and that has me a little worried considering we just got two xpanders with gtx 480's that need to render pretty much every night.

Well I've had mine running at full throttle for days at a time without any issues. The XPander units really make this nice as they cool the cads very well. I am sure if you are overclocking the cards then you might run into issues, but htis is not recommended to begin with when using Octane.

Carl S. wrote:

adrencg wrote:My only concern with video card rendering is how much they can take for long periods of time. Are vidcards built to run at full throttle for hours and hours?

I have the very same concern and that has me a little worried considering we just got two xpanders with gtx 480's that need to render pretty much every night.

Hi,

Hardware is designed to run 24/7.
the GPU cards are, given a good cooled environment, made to run 24/7 at %100 load.
the cubix boxes are probably the best cooled boxes of all as they have a HUGE fan dedicated purely for the GPUs, with a propper front to back airflow, so i dont expect any issues there.
just make sure you're room does'nt get too hot in the summer, install airco systems if you're doing a pro job and want to play it safe.

Radiance

That is good to hear.

Sorry to hijack this thread:
Can this device work with a mac pro under win xp pro?