archinano Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 Did anybody of you ever use the Renderbox from ARTVPS? is it worth getting one? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike. Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 (edited) i can only give an opinion about the price...since i never tested them. very expensive for what it is. i don't know why they charge so much. their boxes must be superoptimized or they have a fantastic customer support, or both, i don't know, but it's very expensive if i remember the start price is about 5500-6000 $ for one node containing two quad cores (8cores) i built myself a 64 cores (8 bi-quad nodes) renderfarm whith similar material, for 15000 euros (23000$)...make the count...it would have cost 48000$ but a i said, pehaps they are reaaaaly fast... i dunno. Edited July 16, 2008 by Mike. ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martincg Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 i think raybox is different technology - own software and own hardware raytracing processors, my opinion: definitelly uselles for archviz if you compare that for these days prices of quadcore desktop hardwares Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike. Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 (edited) 216658 raybox Sorry i was talking of renderboxx....boxxtech... my bad Edited July 16, 2008 by Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 That's completely different. Renderboxx is nothing more than a high end PC in a rackmount case. Consider how much render node power you want, how much you're willing to spend and how much it matters to you that you can put it in a smaller space, versus the price and the price difference for competing technologies (such as a bunch of normal PCs, or other manufacturers rackmounts because a Renderboxx rackmount PC is no better suited to rendering than any other rackmount PC with similar specs. Also remember that these things generate a lot of heat - a few hundred watts per node. So the room you put it in needs its own cooling. If you put a rackmount in a small back room without adequate cooling, your hardware will overheat and fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike. Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 That's completely different. Renderboxx is nothing more than a high end PC in a rackmount case. Consider how much render node power you want, how much you're willing to spend and how much it matters to you that you can put it in a smaller space, versus the price and the price difference for competing technologies (such as a bunch of normal PCs, or other manufacturers rackmounts because a Renderboxx rackmount PC is no better suited to rendering than any other rackmount PC with similar specs. Also remember that these things generate a lot of heat - a few hundred watts per node. So the room you put it in needs its own cooling. If you put a rackmount in a small back room without adequate cooling, your hardware will overheat and fail. no,i'm not the OP. in fact I thought the OP was talking of renderboxx, and then i compared renderboxx prices to normal rackmoount prices, to say it was realy an expensive choice. but in fact the op was talking about artvps. sorry if i'm not clear enough. i thought my english was understadable... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnvid Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 I used the Pure card from same company, though this isnt as power full as their render box, but I did many comparisons, and at the end of the day its probably better to stick with Mental Ray or VRAY or Brazil, you'll get more features and with banks of quad cores then you wouldnt need to worry about speed so much. Basically its a lot of money for a box that as yet doesnt do much else....where as more quad cores is way more fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 Sorry guys, the OP was referring to this... http://www.artvps.com/page/109/raybox.htm not the Boxxtech gear. Have a read, it's some interesting hardware and software. Archinano, I looked into the ARTVPS gear about a year ago, at the time their products weren't available in Australia so I stopped my research. I did get to speak to a few people who had used the equipment though and heard good reviews from each of them - I suppose you'd have to do some quick accounting to see if it's viable for you. The only downside I could see at the time is that you can't do any hardware upgrades yourself. The major upside is how easy it is to install and use. S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 I used the Pure card from same company, though this isnt as power full as their render box, but I did many comparisons, and at the end of the day its probably better to stick with Mental Ray or VRAY or Brazil, you'll get more features and with banks of quad cores then you wouldnt need to worry about speed so much. Basically its a lot of money for a box that as yet doesnt do much else....where as more quad cores is way more fun. 28 cores, raytrace optimised for $4000, £2000, 2500 seems reasonable. I guess it depends on your local hardware prices though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Hell, that's right, this actually is about ArtVPS. Well, FWIW, I'm reasonably impressed by the feature set they have now and the gallery images show they've made a lot of progress in some key areas - glossy raytrace, GI, HDR, etc. Though I'm not sure there are many people here using it... You should know that it only runs ArtVPS's renderer. It does not run mental ray, Vray, Fry, etc., so if what you're looking for is a way to make those faster the only route is more CPU power. (Or more scene optimization.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Burns Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 I had one of these last year for a trial for 2 weeks and it definitely renders in mental ray. You can use it by distributed rendering or export an .mi file and render that. They do supply some shaders that work well with the box. I was going to purchase until I seen a renderboxx which renders MR and VRay and I also got a new machine which at the time was just as fast as the Artvps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Did they change something? I had thought I'd remembered them making a deal with mental but I looked at their web page and it said in bold print that it doesn't support 3rd party renders, just the ART renderer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Burns Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Maybe they did but I used mental ray on it for two weeks no bother but it didn't support Vray at all. They give you some of their own shaders and advise you to use them for the best performance so maybe this is what they mean but then again why do they support .mi files are these not connected to mental ray? Tommy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 (edited) About an hour's reading has lead me to this, the Renderbox software has integrated mentalray 64-bit. It provides full integration to Maya and Max via plugins. They provide three materials (shiny, glass, mirror) which can be used in lieu of and alongside the materials available in each program. Here's an excerpt from an article at Vizdepot... "Brian Tyler, CEO of ARTVPS, said: "With 64-bit architectures now driving 3D applications, we are seeing model and scene complexity growing and increasing demand for ever higher quality images and faster performance. It is great to be working with mental images, whose products are an industry standard. As a result of our alliance, ARTVPS' next generation RenderDrives will also support the mental ray 64-bit renderer together with our RenderPipe material library." So it seems that if you're using MR4Maya or MR4Max, you're fine and also get 3 new optimised materials and your cameras/ area lights and IBL. Article at highend3D... http://www.highend3d.com/news/highend_network_news/ARTVPS-and-Mental-Images-collaborate-on-new-raytracing-solut-109.html I suppose if you're a mr user, they're kind of looking good now, especially as the price has come down. 28 cores @ 64-bit, install and start rendering, software and licences inlcuded. Yep, sounds like a really good deal! Edited July 17, 2008 by shaneis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 I'd do some more research on that - I can't find any web page mentioning RayBox and mental ray at the same time, but I do see some that discuss its compatibility with Renderman files. You'd think it would be mentioned on the faq or that googling raybox mental would turn something up, but nothing relevent. I think this might be a newer product that does not include mr support - did they continue with mr support on ArtVPS hardware after mental got bought by nVidia (meaning that it should be running on nVidia hardware sooner or later)?... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Mental Images bought Artvps some time ago, and MR is intergrated into it now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Hmmmm....I would swear on my life I read that MI aquires ARTVPS, but now I can't find any evidence of it....strange...anyway there is collaboration...from MI website... ARTVPS and mental images collaborate on new ray tracing solutions The field of ray tracing visualisation is set to see further developments in 2006, heralded by the announcement of a partnership between two of the sector's leading commercial forces. ARTVPS, developers of a unique graphics processor for photorealistic ray tracing, and mental images®, the developers of the globally leading, Academy Award® winning high-end rendering software mental ray®, have concluded agreements that will further the evolution of advanced ray tracing solutions for 3D visualisation. As part of the deal, mental images will license intellectual property from ARTVPS with the exclusive right to its sublicensing. ARTVPS in turn will become an OEM partner of mental images for the integration of mental ray in future 64-bit versions of its RenderDrive™ product range. In addition, ARTVPS will become a system integrator for RealityServer®, the unique software platform for the development and deployment of 3D Web Services and applications from mental images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Yeah, there's the press release from 2006, and they do have at least one mental ray product, but what I'm saying is that the poster should do specific research (call the company) to determine whether the exact product he's looking at has mental ray support, because to all appearances that model does not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 OK, I've emailed ARTVPS, here's their reply... "Hi Shane "RayBox uses our own renderer and is not compatible with Mental Ray. "Our Mental Ray Solution is RS-MR. From your email I guess that it is RSMR that you wanted more information on. RS-MR is a way to easily utilize standalone Mental Ray Licenses. "As regards you main concern - standard mental ray materials are covered. "If you have any further questions on RS-MR then please don't hesitate to contact me "Kind regards "Amy Plumb ART VPS Ltd 10 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0FG" Cheers, S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 sounds like desperately outdated technology trying to hold on. avoid at all costs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 (edited) ... Renderboxx rackmount PC is no better suited to rendering than any other rackmount PC with similar specs... Greetings all - Andrew, I will have to respectfully disagree with your assumption that our solution represents no better value for dedicated rendering than any other rackmounted PC... I don't want to turn this into a sales pitch (i don't work for our sales or marketing departments) BUT... renderBOXX was conceived, engineered and is sold specifically with distributed rendering as it's sole purpose. Its design allows it to use the highest performing components but achieve much better computing & power efficiency than any other other solution. And, with our approach, you can fit five (5) renderBOXX 10200 units (that's 80 cores) in about 4 RU's (rack units) of space. That's 5" tall x 30" deep in a 19" wide standard equipment rack. That's insane "compute density" compared to the alternatives. Plus, our renderBOXX 10200 units also have a very powerful IPMI implementation that makes remote adminitration of these nodes a breeze. You can even turn on/off the systems remotely - install/update software or EVEN reload the OS...all from a remote location. A the end of the day, we feel that this approach is the most cost-effective for those looking at building a dedicated renderfarm. Yes, more cost-effective than simply using "a bunch of PCs". As for the ArtVPS stuff, I believe do they are discontinuing their hardware-based rendering "appliances" and becoming a software-only product - bundling standard mental ray "stand alone" licenses with their very elegant and easy to use queue management software. Their raybox/rayserver/pure technology was very fast in its day, but the requirment to use only specially-compiled MR and Renderman shaders really put a limit on what you could do from a creative perspective. The "look" that was generated, while quite realistic, was very limited compared to standard software rendering approaches. Scanline & particles & dynamics were out of the question - as were new algorithms such as AO and FG. Plus, as multicore CPUs have become standard equipment in practically all PCs and workstations, the cost/performance benefits for using the ARTVPS's custom-designed raytracing chips have been marginalized. my $.02 Adam BOXXlabs Edited July 21, 2008 by BOXXLABS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Oh, come on now. I'm not saying your rackmounts aren't very good, but every hardware vendor and his grandmother's shoe store has a good rackmount solution these days. You'll have customers for whom your solution works out to be the best, and there will also be customers who will benefit most from somebody else's system or from a bunch of PCs in a corner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 That's true. If all one needs are a few extra processing cores for a small studio, then yes, I would agree that a few towers in the corner may well be the most cost-effective way to go. But if your business's plans for expansion include developing and growing a dedicated rendering capability then that approach probably isn't very effective... I'm just saying that there are some real, engineering-driven differences between tower PC's or standard rack-mounted "servers" vs. a product like the renderBOXX 10200. With all due respect, to simply lump them all into a single category isn't fair and it isn't accurate. ok , ok...enough of the sales pitch. I'm here to learn and share just like everybody else on these forums. I dno't want to bog-down the thread with this, but just wanted folks to know that there are real differences to learn about if one is so-inclined... Peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 (edited) Adam.... don't take this as an attack, but since you opened up, I'd be curious to hear your opinion on a few things that have caught my curiosity ever since I checked out the lastest renderboxxes...... ....with our approach, you can fit five (5) renderBOXX 10200 units (that's 80 cores) in about 4 RU's (rack units) of space. That's 5" tall x 30" deep in a 19" wide standard equipment rack. That's insane "compute density" compared to the alternatives. I see this as the biggest selling point to the renderBOXX I dig the layout, and I think I read somewhere that their configuration is made to be a more efficient use of power, but I would love to see a power consumption test to prove it, other wise it's just words that in todays green market it just sounds like good advertising to me if it isn't backed up. Plus, our renderBOXX 10200 units also have a very powerful IPMI implementation that makes remote adminitration of these nodes a breeze. You can even turn on/off the systems remotely - install/update software or EVEN reload the OS...all from a remote location. moot point in my opinion, most rackmounted or blade/server node systems can handle this A the end of the day, we feel that this approach is the most cost-effective for those looking at building a dedicated renderfarm. Yes, more cost-effective than simply using "a bunch of PCs". what part do you consider cost effective if an identically spec'd rackmounted server blade from Dell costs a over $1000 less ? Edited July 21, 2008 by BrianKitts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 (edited) Hi Brian, Thanks for asking...those are very good questions. Because we are essentially putting two dual-quad computers (16 cores) in the same chassis, we can leverage extra efficiency by sharing the cooling and power supply systems between both units. (yes, a single renderBOXX 10200 unit is seen by the network and/or your rendering engine as two separate 8-core rendernodes) This means that is takes less energy to cool the hardware and that the power supplies run at a higher current - and thus a high power efficiency rating when compared to two separate HP or DELL rackmounted 8-core "servers". As far as getting DELL or HP nodes with the same performance, features and capabilities for anything close to the same price...I would have to see a quote to believe it... Their "blade" servers have a very high price point for entry and come loaded with relatively costly features (such as redundancy, fibre channel/infiniband, hot swap, etc) which are of marginal value for applications such as distributed rendering. Even still, our product beats theirs in terms of computing density - the number of cores you can fit in a rack. The other big part about all this that matters to many people is that we ONLY sell our products to VFX and archiViz facilities. It's our only business and sole focus. Our sales and support teams are TRAINED TO HELP SOLVE YOUR 3D and Architectual Visualization challenges. If you call our tech support line with a problem that turns out to be related to Backburner or VRAY, we're gonna help you figure out & troubleshoot the issue. no questions asked and no additional fees. Will Dell? Will HP? Do they even have a clue what "Backburner' IS??? The answer is no. I would be happy to provide some additional data if you contact me directly. aglick@boxxtech.com Cheers, Adam Edited July 21, 2008 by BOXXLABS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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