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Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane?

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 3:41 pm
by buzby
Greetings and thank you for a great forum and product. I am a proud owner and early adopter of Octane Render (Yeah!) and searched for this topic but could not find an answer for my purposes so would like a little help.

Like most people I have a built in graphics card on my mobo (MSI Z77A-G45)

Can you use the motherboard graphics card for your monitor and separate GPUs to render on Octane?

I took the octane benchmark test on my quadro fx 4800 and turned in an abysmal score of .60 As I need to use Octane to render my C4D scenes I purchased a GTX 580 and my score bumped up 4.3 I now have two more GTX 580 cards coming and want to use all 3 to render and my mobo graphics card for the monitor.

Anyone here with experience in this set up?

TIA

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 3:44 pm
by kavorka
This is exactly the way you should set it up :)
you will be able to use Octane with zero slow down as your GTX 580 is not handling display. Also, you can be rendering and browsing the web/start work on another project without affecting your render time or slowing down your display :)

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 5:12 pm
by buzby
kavorka wrote:This is exactly the way you should set it up :)
you will be able to use Octane with zero slow down as your GTX 580 is not handling display. Also, you can be rendering and browsing the web/start work on another project without affecting your render time or slowing down your display :)

Thank you, now to switch it up a bit. My Intel card will only display 1280 x 800 so that is not going to cut it. I assume the on board GPU is useless in rendering as well as it does not show up in Octane as a Cuda device?

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:41 pm
by kavorka
ya, I don't think that would work.
If you have another PCIe slot open after the addition of those cards, you can get a relatively cheap card that will do everything you need for display.

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:48 pm
by FooZe
1280 x 800 doesn't sound right to me. This is an HD4000 right? Is windows showing this as a standard VGA adapter? You may need to install the correct drivers from intel - this will give you full resolution and multiple monitor support.
We have a few machines with HD4000's here and we had to do this...

Thanks
Chris.

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:13 pm
by glimpse
buzby wrote:.. Intel card will only display 1280 x 800 ..
3770k should output up to 2560x1600 & posibility to power up three monitors (if enough conections on the MB)

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:55 pm
by bepeg4d
i have a similar mb and works very well especially with the latest intel hd 4000 graphics drivers.
here is the details from the msi site:
- 1 x HDMI® port with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @60Hz
- 1 x DVI-D port with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @60Hz
- 1 x VGA port with max. resolution up to 2048x1536 @75Hz
ciao beppe

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 4:03 pm
by buzby
FooZe wrote:1280 x 800 doesn't sound right to me. This is an HD4000 right? Is windows showing this as a standard VGA adapter? You may need to install the correct drivers from intel - this will give you full resolution and multiple monitor support.
We have a few machines with HD4000's here and we had to do this...

Thanks
Chris.
Hi Chris thanks, I think I do have the latest drivers here are the properties. It think it is my Apple display that is the problem.

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 4:18 pm
by whersmy
I ran a 3770K with HD4000 and 2x 580s on a cinema display with no problems mate

Re: Using the motherboard built-in graphics card with Octane

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 4:25 pm
by buzby
bepeg4d wrote:i have a similar mb and works very well especially with the latest intel hd 4000 graphics drivers.
here is the details from the msi site:
- 1 x HDMI® port with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @60Hz
- 1 x DVI-D port with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @60Hz
- 1 x VGA port with max. resolution up to 2048x1536 @75Hz
ciao beppe

Thanks for the research beppe. My first thought was maybe it is a single link DVI-D but I have confirmed it is a dual link. I have confirmed the 1 x HDMI port with resolution 1920x1200 @60Hz on my Samsung 42" TV but the flicker is pretty noticeable, but I cannot get the 1920x1200 @60Hz on my Apple display. nor does my Apple does have a VGA connector for the 2048x1536 @75Hz.

I have to say I have gotten used to the 2560x1600 and it would be hard to give it up just for the sake of having the fastest render time as I use this computer for all my other applications as well.

So one last question, If I give up on the built-in HD 4000 and choose 1 of the 3 GTX 580 as the display am I losing that card for rendering completely or will Octane use the display GTX 580 in tandem with the other 2 GTX 580?