Messages

1

Hardware / Re: Need advice/recommendations for new 27 monitor

« on: 2023-10-11, 15:29:59 »

Hi! Maybe a bit late but I can recommend the Benq PD2705U, it should be sitting around that price now. I researched for a while in that price range and I couldn't find any better with good build quality, good color space coverage and color calibration. It's no EIZO but it does the work. I bought two and I am very happy.

2

Hardware / Re: Render Farm Build

« on: 2023-10-10, 14:31:16 »

Alright, thanks for the heads-up!

I added them to the list, and it went hands down straight to the top! It seems to be by far the most cost-efficient build and with 5 machines, it would make quite a big powerhouse for the price.
Also, I updated the prices with the ones I could find in another online shop configurator, and now Mac Studios do not seem so convenient any more but rather on-par with the Threadripper machines.

Here's the new list – I'll wait for the new 96 cores chips and update the list when they come out.
Ps. Was it so painful to keep a small render farm running? And do you do now GPU rendering with Corona??

3

Hardware / Re: Render Farm Build

« on: 2023-10-10, 12:29:05 »

Thanks for the update on the new Threadripper! I'll sure wait to check the prices and performance before making a new purchase.

Meanwhile, just to help me decide, I created a spreadsheet with some possible combinations of workstations – jpg attached. Prices are what I could find in my region for a finish build after discounts, I considered the cost of render node licences on a lifespan of 5 years. When the price to performance ratio was good, I tried adding more machines to the render farm. I assumed the render power would multiply linearly, which might not be the case, but I did not know how else to calculate it otherwise.

The results were not what I was expecting. It seems the best render farm could come from 5xMac Studios... I did not take electricity cost into consideration, but it would probably favour the Mac Studios, as it is very energy efficient (and silent, which in my office is a bug plus). Am I missing something?

4

Hardware / Re: Render Farm Build

« on: 2023-10-05, 12:18:24 »

Wow, super! Thanks a lot for the replies – I'll probably go with one powerful build (Threadripper 3990 or 5995 with lots of ram, just to be sure) so that in case I need more I can just (with time) side another machine in parallel. It seems also easier to maintain, plus, as you said, it counts as one node only and maybe it could function as a server too. Let's see!

5

Hardware / Render Farm Build

« on: 2023-09-07, 10:17:12 »

Hello Everyone, and thanks for your help.

I am now finally convinced to build my own render farm. I need more render power and online render farms are not an option due to long waiting lines (many still renders, so quick to process, but I need them fast), lack of control and random issues I always seem to come by.

I am happily rendering on Corona for C4D on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128 GB ram with no complaints: the machine is powerful yet super silent and sits quietly on my desk. Still, I need to speed up the workflow, thus the render farm.

A few dumb questions, to whom it has more experience in the field that I do:
_Do render nodes need to be as powerful as the main machine? (Probably not)
_Sometimes I find to be short on ram due to very high-poly-count scenes, does that mean that all the render nodes should also have 128GB of ram? (It seems quite unreasonable)
_Is it better to buy a big and powerful (and expensive) machine like a TR 5995 with lots of ram, or is it fine to have many cheaper render nodes?
_It seems that the new M2 Mac Mini has quite a good price to performance ratio and packs everything I need to set up the render farm. Is it a stupid idea to buy 10 Mac Minis instead of one big machine? Or do I need more ram on every unit?
_Do I need to move all my resources and assets to a dedicated server?
_What would you do with a budget of 5 to 10k?

Any suggestions? Thank you All :)

6

[C4D] Daily Builds / Re: Latest RC build crashes M1Max

« on: 2023-06-22, 08:02:50 »

I am not using SurfaceSPREAD, my plugin list is: Forester, Instasify, Megascan, Rhino IO, Vray.
C4D 2023.2.1 Mac Studio M1Ultra 128 GB macOS Ventura 13.0

I'll try to simulate the error again and upload the crash file.

7

[C4D] Daily Builds / Re: Latest RC build crashes M1Max

« on: 2023-06-19, 18:40:03 »

Hello there,

I just tried it – when handling bigger scenes after I stop the IR, it gives a plugin error and crashes. All fine until that point.

8

[C4D] Daily Builds / Re: Latest RC build crashes M1Max

« on: 2023-06-19, 16:36:52 »

Hi, same for me!

I was using an older DB (corona-10-c4d-daily-2023-03-09-mac) and it was working perfectly. I wanted to test the new features and updated to the latest RC, but it is unusable. It keeps crashing every time I try to resize the IR and on some other random occasions (I could not see other patterns). I'll switch back to the latest DB as suggested by other users. Cheers!

C4D 2023.2.1 Mac Studio M1Ultra 128 GB macOS Ventura 13.0