Node minimum requirements

[medico6601]

Hi There, My name is Thierry
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I can't find recommendations for node builds anywhere. I'm trying to keep it as cheap as possible with Ryzen 1700x and I'm wondering how a bare-bones node should look like?

I think I can save a lot in ram compared to my main system, but I'm unsure as I've  never worked with nodes.

Would something like this work? ... Ryzen 1700x, Cheapest Mobo, 120GB SSD, 8GB Ram, no graphics card? 

My very limited understanding is that Corona won't benefit from a graphics card, but I don't know how ram hungry it is...  My main system has 64 GB of ram.
Also, if I'm using a Ryzen 1700x computer as my main system, having a node with the same processor essentially slashes render times in half? What about 4 system or 8? Is there a point where you start to get diminishing returns?

Thank you

[TomG]

You are right about the graphics card, it would be redundant on a node for Corona, so you can go with onboard graphics or a low end card (just in case you ever need to plug in a monitor to work on the machine directly vs. accessing it remotely from the main workstation).

However, memory would not be redundant - nodes are best to have the same memory as the main machine if possible, as otherwise something might render on the main machine but not on the nodes because they run out of RAM. Nothing will "break" in the technical sense, DR and Backburner will still work if nodes have different amounts of memory, but if you try and render a scene that needs 64 Gb of RAM and your nodes only have 8, then they will run out of memory and contribute nothing to the networked rendering.

I do have 64 Gb on my main system, and 16 Gb on my nodes, but I don't render any heavy scenes so that works for me as all my renders need less than 16Gb so I am fine. That is likely pretty rare though, especially if doing any full-scale arch-viz work for example :)

[TomG]

On render times, there will be some overhead for the nodes to receive the files sent across the network, but that's usually small compared to render times, so pretty much adding a node with the same processor as the main machine means you can render twice as fast, give or take.

As for how many nodes, two things there - a standard Corona license allows for one workstation and 3 nodes, so if you want 4 or more nodes you will need to purchase the extra node licenses. And then the more nodes you have, the more network traffic there will be and the more that will become an issue and you may need to look into specialized network setups rather than just a standard "home router". Several users on the forum have got those set up and could comment more on that. I just use a regular home router to run 1 WS and 2 or 3 nodes at the most.

[cgifarm]

One thing to mention about using low memory on the nodes.. it might still work if you are using a fast SSD, as it will swap (using disk for extra ram).. but that will increase considerably the render time.. You could try to see what kind of results you are getting.. but nothing beats the ram speed at the moment... 

As for rendering distributed, make sure your paths are on a network drive. You could share a folder and mount it on both computers to have the same assets paths.

You should have N:/ drive mounted on both computers and use UNC paths inside your scenes so you don't get missing assets when rendering.

Good luck!

[Juraj]

'Cheap' nodes are basically passe due to prices of memory. The memory is inflated so high (and it's not going to be any lower for the next year at least) that it's mostly worth to find the best price point based solely on your memory requirements.
This makes Threadripper and Xeon builds even more viable solution.

Regarding the suggestion to use UNC paths with Mounted drive, you just need one of it. Mapping/Converting to UNC paths is quite annoying to manage, just map your Nodes with the same letters (mapping leading to your workstation drives if you don't use server/NAS).
I have 3 workstations, (+3 other devices), 4 nodes, and I managed without UNC paths for many years without single problem :- ).

[cgifarm]

Yep, it works fine for most of the time, if windows doesn't forget to mount the network drive when logging in, or if you are using a render manager that does this before rendering.

[Juraj]

Yep, it works fine for most of the time, if windows doesn't forget to mount the network drive when logging in, or if you are using a render manager that does this before rendering.

Yes this is something I could never put my finger on why it occasionally happens :- ).

But when it does, Corona currently collects it, so these are issues of the past.

[cgifarm]

Sure, presuming that because he wrote on the corona forum, this is the only renderer that's going to use... I will have to look into the thing you mentioned about "corona collecting it" I think you mean when it's rendering single frame distributed and it's getting the assets through the DR server, otherwise I don't see how it could happen if each node would render a frame on it's own and the path is missing. I usually like to have a solution that works for every case...

To get around windows failing to mount the drive, maybe a batch script that runs at windows startup would work better, found this one around, and it looks like it should work fine.

net use N: \\server2\share /user:bob2 password /persistent:no

[Ondra]

i guess it is time to finally do the memory optimizations :D