Messages

31

Hardware / Is this workstation still decent? Anyone using one?

« on: 2019-03-26, 13:39:21 »

Hi

I'm looking at a second hand hp z600

Intel Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz x 2
24GB of Triple Channel DDR3 @ 664MHz
Asus NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960
240GB Samsung SSD

I don't have a huge budget to buy expensive or new kit as I do 3D and rendering to earn a bit of extra cash rather than full time occupation. However my current PC i5 4000 series 8gb ram is far too slow for rendering.

Is this hp z600 still a competent machine for rendering at 1920x1080 Res. I plan to use it as a node. Appreciate any advice or experience anyone has with dual x5650 machine
Cheers

32

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-26, 12:58:03 »

What does the benchmark mean exactly I assumed it give an indication as to how long a system would take to re set that scene with the tank in it. If a system could render that in 2min it would render my interior scene (3 white walls,1 with some tiles 2 windows naff all else) in seconds.

You need to compare how fast your current machine is on the benchmark - down and run it from https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark, and then you can compare that to the 2 minutes you found for the machine you looked up, e.g. your machine takes 4 minutes, then the machine you are looking at will be twice as fast. Let us know what your current machine benchmarks at, cheers!

Ok thanks I believe mine is a i5 4460 with 8gb Ram I've looked this up on benchmark and it has a time of 39min 57 sec

33

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-26, 12:38:14 »

What does the benchmark mean exactly I assumed it give an indication as to how long a system would take to re set that scene with the tank in it. If a system could render that in 2min it would render my interior scene (3 white walls,1 with some tiles 2 windows naff all else) in seconds.

34

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-26, 12:34:44 »

2 minutes on your I5?! Can you tell what exactly CPU this is? The best score on I5 i can find in the benchmark, is 2:46, not even close to your claimed 2 minutes. Maybe you're confusing the benchmark with the obsolete alpha4 benchmark?

No I meant for x5650 I looked it up on the benchmark you linked and a similar system with same ram as the one on eBay (below) was around 2min 2:40 or similar don't have it in front of me right now.

The system I'm looking at now is this one
Intel Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz x 2
24GB of Triple Channel DDR3 @ 664MHz
Asus NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960
240GB Samsung SSD

I need to know if this is going to be better than an i5 40somthing with 8gb Ram otherwise it's a waste if money.

I need to know if this machine Will reduce the render times from 8min a frame to something reasonable or its a waste of money. I'm not spending 1000s on this I only do this for a bit of extra cash

35

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-26, 12:23:15 »

Any suggestions to a good workstation I could pick up second hand that isn't complete dog sh!t?

 I don't have the money to spend £30,000 on a nuclear powered computer seemingly needed to render a simple white box with some simple moving square tiles.

So that Xeon in eBay is no better than what I got now?

36

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-26, 12:10:23 »

How can this with 2x Xeon and 24gb not be any quicker than what I got now? Corona benchmark says it took 2 min to render the benchmark scene

37

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-26, 10:26:11 »

Ok thanks but would the PC above be any good at Corona rendering? What kind of spec would be needed to render 3000 frames at a reasonable time ie not days. I don't wanna buy a PC only for it to be marginally faster.

I'm looking at a 3 year old machine in eBay.

Z600 Workstation, 232GB SS, 2x Intel Xeon Quad Core, 2.67GHz, 24GB, GTX 960

What can I expect from this machine?

38

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-25, 22:37:06 »

It will usually be explicitly called a Dual Xeon machine, or under the tech specs will say something like 2 x CPU type, the "2 x" meaning it has two of them. Single Xeon machines do exist, but defeat the point of a Xeon :)

EDIT, just a random Google to show an example of each (in no way a recommendation for either machine, just examples of how to tell the difference)

This is a dual Xeon:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1VK-001E-0F182

This is a single Xeon:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA68F6AC2948

Would this be any good? Assuming I check it out and it works

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Z800-Workstation-Dual-Xeon-E5640-2-67GHz-32GB-128GB-SSD-2x-2TB-Radeon-R7-370/303089265517?hash=item4691872b6d:g:uywAAOSwLMRcgmBd

Z800 it has dual Xeon and 32gb of ram. I'll be looking seconds hand and a couple if years old.

39

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-25, 18:31:28 »

I've just had a quick look and online and seen a few reasonably priced refurbished available. I don't know much about computers outside of the programs I use to be honest. What is a Xeon? It's the processor I assume. Seems to lots of versions about. How do you know if it has dual Xeons?

40

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-25, 17:05:36 »

Yes been doing that but the cost is outrageous makes it impossible to profit from the job. Would like a cheap way to add capacity such as building a couple of cheap render nodes

41

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-25, 16:32:42 »

What about Vray?  Used Vray in 2010 and it was on a average computer from that time era and ran fine.

Is there a way to add capacity to my computer like a render node? Is it possible to buy single render nodes rather than pre built farms that cost tens of thousands

42

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-25, 15:58:27 »

I know it's not the most powerful today but still shouldn't be taking 20min to render such a simple scene. I'll give the benchmark a try. I wish as hoping to there are some settings or something that can speed it up.

In any case I've been using 3ds max since 2010 and we had much lesser machines back then and we could still render animations in those days

43

[Max] General Discussion / Too slow to render for animation

« on: 2019-03-25, 13:14:59 »

Hi need help quick

I'm trying to use Corona with 3Ds max 2015 to produce an animation of approx 3000 frames in 1920x1080.

 The scene is a simple 12mx12m room with two windows (using light portal) the animation is the build up of a wall cladding system. It has some some brackets and tiles no complex geometry or textures nothing that should be difficult to render.

Textures are low Res 1024 highest most are less. A HDRI map is used as a sperhical bitmap in environment slot. Corona camera is used.

It's taking about 20min to render each frame with a pass limit set to 18 this is far too long for a simple scene. settings are mostly standard. Path tracing primary and UHD secondary.

Machine is a i5 quad core 8GB ram Nvidia k2200 graphics. Not the best machine I know but 20 min a frame is making the project unfeasible. Any suggestions? Any help much appreciated

Thanks