OTOY Forums

Hi,

I recently purchased Octane Render and since I've been using it, I've noticed some weird stuff happening with my system. I get screen glitches from time to time, while working in C4D navigating around the scene there's a lot of lagging and black frames sometimes, or the c4d viewer wont refresh so I get all these lines which make it impossible to see the elements in the scene.

And just today, I started up After Effects (without restarting the system) and got this message: 'The GPU does not have enough VRAM to operate'.

* is there a way to purge video memory like you purge/clean RAM?
I know that with After Effects I can purge memory and I also have the app called Memory Clean which helps out with freeing memory, but I don't think this targets the Video Memory as well, only RAM, right?

* I see that besides my GeForce GT 750M I have also a built in Intel Iris Pro with 1536MB - Does this mean that combined I have a total of over 3GB of GPU power? I've noticed that when I render (Picture viewer and LV) Octane only uses a couple hundred MB and leaves a LOT of free MB from the GPU. (I have my GeForce set to Priority and in a low setting, since I only have that one card) Any guidance on how to set this up would be great please.

What I am trying to figure out is if there's a way to prevent these glitches and running out of VRAM, wether it be by restarting every once in a while (which I'm not sure it helps cause sometimes even if I restart, my system behaves in a weird way either way) or via another app that purges the VRAM (if that is possible at all).

I know that my video card is not the best, or that my system configuration is not the best to fully experience Octane Render, but it's been performing just fine so far. I 'm just having these minor issues and I have to wait longer for renders than other people with for example two Titan 980's.

Thanks!


My Specs:

Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch (Late 2013)
2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB
OSX El Capitan 10.11.1
note: I have two monitors hooked up to the macbook pro which is closed at all times, I always use it with the two monitors.

You can see in LV how much free VRAM available. 2x980Ti will be faster than 20X or more. 750M is one of weakest gpus for Octane. It's a pain to try to work on.

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/sum ... 1x+GT+750M
https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/sum ... GTX+980+Ti

VRAM USAGE MATH for OCTANE
3Gb gpu + 6 Gb gpu = 3Gb VRAM for Octane not 6 or 3+9.

Also C4D opengl, other software and OS will take some VRAM from Gpu which is for desktop.
To turn off the monitor will not help to free some vram.

aoktar wrote:You can see in LV how much free VRAM available. 2x980Ti will be faster than 20X or more. 750M is one of weakest gpus for Octane. It's a pain to try to work on.

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/sum ... 1x+GT+750M
https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/sum ... GTX+980+Ti

VRAM USAGE MATH for OCTANE
3Gb gpu + 6 Gb gpu = 3Gb VRAM for Octane not 6 or 3+9.

Also C4D opengl, other software and OS will take some VRAM from Gpu which is for desktop.
To turn off the monitor will not help to free some vram.

Thanks. I know this is not the best Video Card, but it's what I am stucked with for the moment.

You said turning off the monitor will not help, so what does help to reset VRAM? Like I said, I can purge norma RAM with after effects and other applications, but I have not been able to do it with the Video Card. I am still having some glitch issues even after restarting the computer and not using c4d or octane at all, any suggestions? I have never had a glitch until after installing octane.

To turn off the itself of softwares should freeup the used vram by this softs. But unfortunately OSX spends lot of vram and Octane cannot find much space to run. I'm not fine on OSX's hardware but glitches can be due a defected gpu, vram or drivers. May be your gpu was potentially bad and Octane stressed the gpu too much.

aoktar wrote:To turn off the itself of softwares should freeup the used vram by this softs. But unfortunately OSX spends lot of vram and Octane cannot find much space to run. I'm not fine on OSX's hardware but glitches can be due a defected gpu, vram or drivers. May be your gpu was potentially bad and Octane stressed the gpu too much.

Know of any way to check on this? I bought octane to be able to learn more 3D but I still need my machine to work. From what you are saying, using Octane may be damaging my GPU right?

I really appreciate the help as detailed as you can give it to me Aoktar, I'm a freelance digital designer and animator and I depend on my machine for income.

Thanks!

Maybe or not. Just talking without seeing somethings. But if it's damaged that means your gpu is not very well, Octane can't be responsible. Hardware vendors should distribute solid devices. Anyway this doesn't mean it's corrupted or not. Maybe a driver issue. Due i'm not working on gpu programming that i can't talk strong. You may try change drivers and test it on different cuda/opengl softwares. You can ask to itself of Apple.

aoktar wrote:Maybe or not. Just talking without seeing somethings. But if it's damaged that means your gpu is not very well, Octane can't be responsible. Hardware vendors should distribute solid devices. Anyway this doesn't mean it's corrupted or not. Maybe a driver issue. Due i'm not working on gpu programming that i can't talk strong. You may try change drivers and test it on different cuda/opengl softwares. You can ask to itself of Apple.

Sounds good Aoktar. You've been very helpful. I'll talk to apple.

Thank you very much!

Hi, using Octane is most probably not damaging your GPU

You can free up VRAM by changing screen resolution and restarting c4d.
I've noticed the increase in VRAM usage since Mavericks. OSX is using more OpenCL in the latest versions and many people had problems, kernel panics and gliches with apps that use Cuda at the same time as OpenCL ( Preview, QuickLook.. etc. they all use it). I guess there is a problem of sharing resources between them. For example Adobe Premiere can use both so many people had problems with it also. Nvidia and Apple know about it but still no solutions.

Check out how old is this Adobe forums thread.
https://forums.adobe.com/message/822864 ... =0#8228648

I'm no expert but i've used GPU rendering on a mac for a long time before i got Octane. Best solution to avoid glitches and VRAM problems is to have a separate GPU for GUI. Safari, Preview, Quicklook.. all use alot of VRAM too. Also Nvidia Web Driver could help.

Aaaand of course all of those problems are gone as soon as Octane V3 beta arrives with OpenCL

Regards
Milan

milanm wrote:Hi, using Octane is most probably not damaging your GPU

You can free up VRAM by changing screen resolution and restarting c4d.
I've noticed the increase in VRAM usage since Mavericks. OSX is using more OpenCL in the latest versions and many people had problems, kernel panics and gliches with apps that use Cuda at the same time as OpenCL ( Preview, QuickLook.. etc. they all use it). I guess there is a problem of sharing resources between them. For example Adobe Premiere can use both so many people had problems with it also. Nvidia and Apple know about it but still no solutions.

Check out how old is this Adobe forums thread.
https://forums.adobe.com/message/822864 ... =0#8228648

I'm no expert but i've used GPU rendering on a mac for a long time before i got Octane. Best solution to avoid glitches and VRAM problems is to have a separate GPU for GUI. Safari, Preview, Quicklook.. all use alot of VRAM too. Also Nvidia Web Driver could help.

Aaaand of course all of those problems are gone as soon as Octane V3 beta arrives with OpenCL

Regards
Milan

Thank you very much for your reply! I really appreciate it. I talked to Apple yesterday, and their suggestion was to do an NVRAM reset, do a Hardware test and update the OSX, and to find a third party app to keep an eye on my GPU stats. I haven't been able to do any of these, i'm working on other stuff, but what do you think?

I am still looking for a straight answer out there to purge VRAM. I've been working with After Effects all day today, and I haven't used Octane or C4D for about two days now but my mouse pointer gets super big for a split second, and this has happened like 5 times today. That has never happened before using Octane. Maybe I need to do a fresh install of the osx? I don't know, hopefully the NVRAM reset helps.

So, in short there's not much I can do until Octane 3 comes out? I've read a little about Octane V3 and the whole OPEN CL thing, but I'm not sure I understand it, would you explain it please? I can't buy another computer right now, so it would be great news if the new update allows me to work stress free with my current system.

Also, I mentioned that I have the GeForce Video Card and the Intel Iris with almost 2gb, any suggestions on how to set this two up to do what you are saying? have one for GUI and the other one for Octane for example?

I'll check about the Nvidia web driver.

I appreciate the help!

*UPDATE*

I just downloaded the NVIDIA Web Driver. All I know is that the GPU should perform better with this driver, anyone could explain why exactly? Also updated the CUDA driver as well. So far, no random glitches.

Turns out that iStat Menus can monitor my GPU (Black dropdown in my screenshot).

Nevertheless here's what I still don't understand:

If I have two video cards - NVIDIA GeForce GT750m 2048MB + Intel Iris Pro 1536MB, why is Octane showing only 425MB of GPU usage? Here's a screenshot. Also, I know for sure that my GeForce is being used, because I see the "N" in the Istat menu bar, and I disabled the option to switch between graphic cards for better battery life, BUT, Octane is not showing up the name of the GPU, why? By the way, to get this info on my LV I had to click several times on "show gpu info", shouldn't this be on all the time?

I would appreciate any suggestions to be able to get the most out of my system and Octane Render.

Thanks!