Quote - Ah ok :) Thanks for clarifying :)

What's the big advantage of GPU rendering as opposed to CPU rendering?

 

Speed.  Octane using Cuda GPU processing, and virtually the same render algorythm as Luxrender (unbiased Path Tracing) can render up to 16x faster, and beyond, depending on your graphics card.  If you had a really high end card, like an Nvidia Titan, for example, Octane might render an unbiased, Path Traced HDR-environment-lit scene in close to real time, depending on how much geometry and textures it contains.  Even with the best CPU out there today, you'd never come close to that in Luxrender with the same scene, and lighting setup.

So while there are some limitations to GPU rendering to consider (texture limits and cost of Nvidia graphics cards), the results are FAST.  However, there is evidence out there that unbiased Path Tracing, like Luxrender, doesn't have to be slow on a CPU either.  Corona Renderer for 3dsmax, for example, uses it on CPU only, and it's about as fast as a mid-range Nvidia card in Octane.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.