Recommended Rendering Hardware?

[FlytE]

Im interested in rendering hardware and was wondering if anyone can recommend some good renderers. Specifically, im interested in the renderer having the flexibility to use various 3rd party software like vray and maxwell, without being limited to predecided native plugin. Any advice/suggestions?

[FlytE]

Sorry I should be more specific....

 

Im wondering about seperate standalone rendering units like renderdrive or renderbox. From what I have seen of these they are good but you are limited to specific plugins - to use renderdrive as an example, you can only use the renderpipe plugin with that and im specifically interested in using vray or maxwell. I need the power of a standalone unit but be able to use the plugin of my own choice...

[AJLynn]

They don't have these (yet) - Maxwell and Vray run on PC hardware, and Renderdrives are proprietary systems. The problem is the price/performance benefits come from using specialized hardware (not PC hardware) and the hardware only runs that company's stuff.

 

But if those companies got together and worked on Vray or Maxwell render hardware, that would be pretty sweet.

 

Renderboxx is different - that's just a rackmount PC with AMD or Intel chips that Boxx markets as a render node, the advantage is since it's rackmount you can put many in a small space. You can run whatever you want on it.

[Hazdaz]

This is the single biggest and most frustrating problem with the 3D industry today.

 

Essentially the only thing that will really speed up a rendering is a faster CPU. I personally wouldn't even consider a RenderDrive or similiar unit for the simple fact that you are locked down into a proprietary unit - not good.

 

What is even worse, is that the technology is actually there to speed up rendering dramatically - yet no one can get their stuff together and make it happen.

 

At this stage in the game, good luck and just settle for a faster CPU or a simple renderfarm. Neither of which are optimal solutions.

[AJLynn]

Well, a Renderdrive is essentially a renderfarm on a PCI card that only run one program

 

I think if an FPGA synthesis company approached Chaosgroup and/or Nextlimit about making Renderdrive-type hardware, they could really be on to something. I think I'll suggest this to my friend who works at an FPGA synthesis company.

[Hazdaz]

Well, a Renderdrive is essentially a renderfarm on a PCI card that only run one program

Exactly... and there in lies the problem.

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The thing is, that rendering hardware should NOT be proprietary and should not be tied to one rendering engine, or even just one 3D application. It should run some kind of higher-level (and open) format.... sometime along the lines of OpenGL or hell, even Direct3D (yes, I know D3D isn't open, but MS is one of the few companies out there capable of 'forcing' the hardware and software companies to work together).

.

Truthfully, I think the graphic chip companies are the ones that have dropped the ball on all this - they are the ones that should be bringing out videocards that can essentially do realtime (or near realtime) rendering that can then be saved directly into a movie file.

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Am I dreaming? Yup, sure am, but with the tech demonstrations out for next-gen videocards and even next-gen game consoles, most of the rendering that we want to be done could probably be done in almost realtime if the software used the hardware to full advantage.

[AJLynn]

They're working on it. But don't be mad at ArtVPS - they found a market niche and filled it, and have a lot of satisfied customers. A big part of the reason these things only run one program is that it's impractical to make them run more than one program. To get 8 or 16 cores on one PCI card without costing 5x more than it does and requiring its own 800W power supply and liquid cooling assembly, they use specialized chips that are designed (and probably hardwired) only to run their software. These can not be Intel x86 chips with anywhere near the efficiency they have now. It could be an open platform, but there would need to be a company that does that or some kind of open source hardware group which has been tried but never worked very well, and the more functions the platform has the less efficiently it will perform each one.

[manta]

How about this :

 

http://www.rendercube.com/

[AJLynn]

That's pretty cool - but still just 4 x86 PCs in a convenient form factor, not really any different from a 4-unit rackmount Boxx with a network switch and KVM. But I like the form factor.

[FlytE]

interesting stuff. I could be wrong but from what i recall on the renderboxx website, brazil r/s was available as a fully integrated plugin but not vray. This may have changed since I last read it, but it got be wondering why more 3PP's were not available across the board.

 

The reason I ask this is that the office I work in currently has a renderdrive RD5000. It is now 3+ years old and I cannot help but think that for design modelling and the occasional full size high quality render, vray on a decent machine might be just as good. So I guess my next question is; would it be worth selling the renderdrive and investing in a less powerful system using v-ray/maxwell, or would this be throwing the baby out with the bathwater....?