So my lack of memory (actual, human brain memory) puts me into some weird situations.

Years ago I changed my computer, and got an Intel Xeon processor. Nothing too powerful, I can't afford the latest and best parts - it's an Intel Xeon E3-1230. At the time it was good, nowadays very meh. I remember that it had some limitations (like no onboard graphics card) but made up for it by being very good for working on 3d creation - but I forgot why it was good for working on 3d creation. In my mind, it was the go-to reason: performance.

I remember tweaking the Superfly render settings to render as fast as it could, I remember doing GPU renders and then giving up on those because, even though faster, it meant being unable to use my computer for anything else while it rendered, so I'd prefer the extra couple of hours if it meant I could keep working on other stuff outside of Poser for all the hours.

And then someone posted articles, only a few months ago, on how to tweak your Superfly settings to make them render faster, and I followed it for CPU rendering. And then I forgot that - and weeks later cue me being baffled WHY DO I HAVE TO LEAVE MY COMPUTER ON OVERNIGHT TO RENDER ANYTHING SIMPLE?

Yesterday I had enough of it, and just tweaked my settings again, and was baffled to find that it's much faster for me if I set my CPU render settings the same way the articles would tell you to set for GPU rendering. No Branched Path Tracing, larger bucket size. I'm here like "????" and went researching wth is up with my CPU.

Every article I read says that Xeon goes kinda badly in performance tests. It made me even more confused - why did I choose this processor then? And THEN I found out why: it has protection against corrupting files upon crashes and such. Which made me realize that yes, it's been years since I've last had a corrupted file, so thank you so much Xeon, I'd rather have a slightly worse performance than lose hours, days or weeks of work, specially as I terribly dread having to remake something I've already made.

... Still doesn't explain why I have to configure my Superfly renders as if I were rendering on GPU. And this is making me very curious. Does any of our tech-savvy members know?

I'm not very techie, so I could be wrong, but this is info that I've picked up in case it helps.

I have an i7-3930K processor which is very similar to your Xeon; the main advantage I have for rendering is 6 cores/12 threads rather than 4/8. One thread = one bucket, so with CPU rendering the more cores = the more buckets can be rendered simultaneously. The optimum bucket size will vary according to the scene. With CPU's you want to have as many buckets rendering as possible while GPU's render one bucket at a time. Therefore it is best to use the largest bucket possible without running out of VRAM on the GPU, but a smaller bucket on CPU. Complex materials and transparencies could cause a bucket to render far slower than the others so it's possible to be sitting waiting for the render to complete as one bucket is grinding away at one part of the scene (like hair).

The renders I'm doing at present tend to be 800 pixels square and only have simple materials and lights, no transparencies or SSS. I also turn off BPT, use pretty much default settings, bucket size of 40 and 40 samples and I get a final render out in around 15 minutes.

Yeah, the logic behind buckets I understand - what's pulling my hair here is why oh why my CPU prefers larger buckets and renders faster without Branched Path Tracing which, from my understanding, is actually limiting samples to make sure render time isn't going to waste. So it feels like my CPU is faster doing several larger buckets and wasting more samples!

Poor thing seems to like being special

Branched path tracing doesn't limit samples as such, it just allows you to set a lower base pixel samples number, then the various options, diffuse samples, glossy samples etc are multipliers of the base pixel samples applied to the relevant parts of the render. So you can easily end up with more samples. So if you look at the presets, you'll see high quality cpu (bpt) setting start with 8 pixel samples, while high quality gpu (non-bpt) uses 30 pixel samples.

The usual advice given to anybody who asks about improving render quality is bump up the pixel samples, and so the advantages of bpt, allowing a lower base pixel sample isn't used.

I think the trouble is for most of us we are really in the dark, since who wants to spend hours doing render passes to find the optimum setting in bpt, with all the possibilities as this is going to take longer than just setting a high pixel samples, start the render and go to bed! Especially as the best settings are likely to vary from one render to the next.

So have a look at your bpt setting, are the pixel samples much lower than those your are using with non-bpt, if not this is why the bpt renders are taking longer.

I had them at numbers varying from 0 to 3 though, most of them at 1, and still.... switching it off entirely made it faster the ones in Branched Path Tracing, I mean. The general Pixel Samples I just crank it up to 600, tick on Progressive Refinement and let it cook in the background until I'm satisfied and stop the render.

I was also having the problem of going to bed with a render cooking, then returning to find that my computer had simply rebooted itself sometime during the night. I think we have some short power outages on occasion at night time here, or it was rebooting from the heat (it's summer in Brazil and we're having a baaaad one). And yeah I wasn't enjoying leaving the computer on with this heat anyway.

Six Hundred samples!?!?!?! ~falls over in a dead faint~

I don't use BPT either, and my old laptop only had a CPU. I think the largest number of samples I've ever used was about 50. Currently I do SF renders with 40 samples and a bucket size of 100. I know that's larger than a lot of folks recommend for the bucket, but I read somewhere once to make the bucket size a number that the final render size can be easily divided by so, for instance, with an 800x1000 pixel render, 100 divides into each completely. I think the person who posted the comment mentioned using a number that doesn't divide evenly leaves extra small buckets around that still need to be rendered when the rest of the image is done.

Anyway, this new puppy is speedy with 6 cores instead of 4, and 16GB of RAM instead of 8, so one of my renders, which used to take about an hour now only takes about 12-14 minutes. A test render, usually with 20 samples, used to take 20 minutes, and now takes less than 5 minutes. I think the hardware plays a very large part in how long it takes to render an image.

Of course, most of the renders I do are while beta testing for vendors, so not full scenes as it were. I think one of the first SF renders I did that was a full scene with a HDRi took about an hour and a half, and I thought THAT was way too long. I don't think I'd ever have the patience to let something render over night.

Branched Path Tracing adds raytraces, concentrating on areas where a lot of effects are needed or a high rate-of-change of properties is encountered; it gives the benefit of a higher sample count only in the areas where it is needed. So, it will take somewhat longer, but it will be considerably better than a rigid number of samples applied to every pixel.

The E3-1230 is a 3.3GHz HyperThreaded quad core. If you want render performance, use a server/workstation motherboard with two CPU sockets and two Xeon processors. Buy two Xeons with the highest (mathematical) product of core count times clockspeed which fits your budget. Two HyperThreaded hex-core Xeons would give you twenty four render threads.

dual-CPU ATX mobo:

dual-CPU E-ATX mobo:

As far as I know, only Xeon processors can be run in parallel (two CPUs on a single motherboard).

Most dual-CPU motherboards are E-ATX (extended ATX form factor); this requires a case/chassis which will accommodate an E-ATX motherboard. The usual desktop motherboard is ATX. There are some dual-CPU motherboards which are ATX form factor; but, these are usually limited to 48GB RAM, and will likely have fewer PCIe expansion slots than the E-ATX motherboards.

I recommend shopping for used workstations, as the cost of new dual-CPU units is high.

I concur with seachnasaigh , With careful shopping you can get a very powerful system for a lot less money :D

Recycled HP workstation with no memory or cpus, posersupply and,purchased 2 x5670 cpus, 48 gig ECC memory, hard drive and various small items for a total cost of around 500 USD

Side benefit is no system crashes in two years

Just some general thoughts, too many known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

Depending on the render output size you're using, increasing the bucket size could be reducing the number of cores being used - might be an idea to check that all cores are being used by Poser at both smaller and larger bucket sizes.

Another thought is there a performance penalty associated with building a bucket. The CPU doesn't have the CUDA overhead of GPU but it does use the display driver which might make use of CUDA accelerated OpenGL. Try rendering via the queue manager to see if that improves render speed as that doesn't use the display driver.

Let me just clarify that I'm not shopping around for new parts xD the dollar to real conversion here in Brazil is at a historical height right now so anything that comes from another country is ridiculously overpriced, and on top of that I'm currently unemployed. I created this thread not to ask for parts advice, but to try to understand how the parts I already have deal with render settings :)

@Miss B: yeah 600 LOL! With Progressive Refinement on, the effective number is whatever it is when I stop the render anyway. Most often than not it doesn't seem to reach 1/10th of that when I'm satisfied enough and stop the render.

@ironsoul: my final render size for promos is 1500x1500. Currently using 126 bucket size, which seemed to do the best job so far. I might try 100 after what Miss B said. I have Poser set to using 5 cores, since from my understanding my CPU has 6 of them, and I like to leave one unattended so that I'm able to continue using my computers for other things (photoshop, zbrush, sometimes even playing some Overwatch) while it renders. The queue manager is a no-go for me: trying to guess how many pixel samples I need makes me waste the time of several renders trying around (with each scene), and then queueing a render doesn't let you see how it's going and stop the render and save what it looks like when stopped.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:36AM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376913

Let me just clarify that I'm not shopping around for new parts xD the dollar to real conversion here in Brazil is at a historical height right now so anything that comes from another country is ridiculously overpriced, and on top of that I'm currently unemployed. I created this thread not to ask for parts advice, but to try to understand how the parts I already have deal with render settings :)

@Miss B: yeah 600 LOL! With Progressive Refinement on, the effective number is whatever it is when I stop the render anyway. Most often than not it doesn't seem to reach 1/10th of that when I'm satisfied enough and stop the render.

@ironsoul: my final render size for promos is 1500x1500. Currently using 126 bucket size, which seemed to do the best job so far. I might try 100 after what Miss B said. I have Poser set to using 5 cores, since from my understanding my CPU has 6 of them, and I like to leave one unattended so that I'm able to continue using my computers for other things (photoshop, zbrush, sometimes even playing some Overwatch) while it renders. The queue manager is a no-go for me: trying to guess how many pixel samples I need makes me waste the time of several renders trying around (with each scene), and then queueing a render doesn't let you see how it's going and stop the render and save what it looks like when stopped.

If you render in background, allow Poser (FFRender in fact) to use all 6 cores, as the renderer in background uses a lower priority your system should still be responsive for other tasks.

If you are using the queue renderer you can open the exr file in blender whilst it is being created, and when it gets to a decent quality save it from Blender (this also lets you get an exr out of the queue manager rather than png or jpg. Then you just cancel the queue render.

I started using Superfly on my old system and almost gave up and move back to Firefly due to the very long render times but then some suggested not using Branched Path Tracing. The reduction in render times was significant so I stuck with Firefly. Just over a year ago I was in the very lucky position of having a lump sum from my pension that had underpaid me for years, as it was an unexpected windfall I decided to spend it on a new system. I was having it built as these days to like to use a computer not build or continually fix them. I did look at a dual Xeon system but even with a fair amount to spend they were outside what I had to spend. I finally went with a CPU for a system with 12 cores, 24 threads but there was a problem during the build. After a bit of negotiation on price I upgraded to the next CPU up, 16 cores and 32 threads. One of the first things I did was a trying to render with Branched Path Tracing and the results, while faster, were disappointing.

These days I still do not use PBT, set the samples to 50 with progressive refinement and just let it run. About 50% of the time I stop the render part way through once it has reached a point I am happy with. The render is fast and is of a quality I am happy with. PBT might create a better result but not that much better I am prepared to wait so long for the result.

@AmethystsPendant: thank you for the info! I didn't know another program could open a queue render while it's rendering. Still sounds like more trouble than it's worth though!

@hornet3d: yes seems with your information and others posted here that I was just wrong about how branched path tracing works!

Got nothing really to add, since it's been covered admirably. I can say that a Xeon-based system is a solid choice to go with. The ECC RAM ensures fewer memory errors, the CPUs, as mentioned, are made for greater parallel operations, the whole thing is built for heavy loads and longevity. You can always get an external GPU to plug in and do the 'oomph for GPU-based render engines (I'd flirted with that idea for my laptop, until I found one with a GeForce GTX built into it), or if you have the slots for it, I bet you can still buy and install a decent GPU/vidcard internally later on.

BTW - did you get a built-in RAID controller onto the motherboard?

Penguinisto posted at 12:47PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376924

BTW - did you get a built-in RAID controller onto the motherboard?

I honestly have no idea my hardware knowledge is only marginally better than a complete newbie's. My husband and I tend to pick our parts and assemble them instead of buying a ready to use system, but it's usually a matter of researching at the time of purchase, so I don't really keep up with everything that's available.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:03PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376918

@AmethystsPendant: thank you for the info! I didn't know another program could open a queue render while it's rendering. Still sounds like more trouble than it's worth though!

@hornet3d: yes seems with your information and others posted here that I was just wrong about how branched path tracing works!

I had no idea how Branched Path Tracing worked at the time and all I know now is just information gleaned from threads like this, someone suggested not using it and it made a massive difference to the render times. Also the ideas of setting the pixel samples high and then just stopping the render when the the render looked good appealed, I tend to let it run until there is not real grain apparent. Point is if I can set something up to give me a render I like with something like 25% of time saving on render time I am all for it.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 5:08PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376933

Penguinisto posted at 12:47PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376924

BTW - did you get a built-in RAID controller onto the motherboard?

I honestly have no idea my hardware knowledge is only marginally better than a complete newbie's. My husband and I tend to pick our parts and assemble them instead of buying a ready to use system, but it's usually a matter of researching at the time of purchase, so I don't really keep up with everything that's available.

Although I had my computer built you selected a base system and then there were a lot of choices over the configuration, such as case, motherboard, CPU, Graphics Card, memory, hard drives and so on. I had a number of choices like two or three case styles, may be three different motherboards and a choice from around thirty graphics card. The limited options were great in that I had a short list of components to research and, of course, all of the parts would work together, no chance of choosing a computer case and then finding the graphics card you had purchased would no fit inside the case. I got a good price on the CPU and graphics card as both had just been replaced by new models, so to a degree my computer was already out of date the day they built it. I spent a few years in the industry and it is so difficult to keep up with all the changes, now retired I find it impossible. I have a machine that works for me and no real money for any thing new so I just don't look.

hornet3d posted at 2:18PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376936

Although I had my computer built you selected a base system and then there were a lot of choices over the configuration, such as case, motherboard, CPU, Graphics Card, memory, hard drives and so on. I had a number of choices like two or three case styles, may be three different motherboards and a choice from around thirty graphics card. The limited options were great in that I had a short list of components to research and, of course, all of the parts would work together, no chance of choosing a computer case and then finding the graphics card you had purchased would no fit inside the case. I got a good price on the CPU and graphics card as both had just been replaced by new models, so to a degree my computer was already out of date the day they built it. I spent a few years in the industry and it is so difficult to keep up with all the changes, now retired I find it impossible. I have a machine that works for me and no real money for any thing new so I just don't look.

Services like that here in Brazil are overpriced. You end up paying so much more just to have someone give you a handy list of options, and assemble the final thing for you. Because we're somewhat savvy, and very crafty, we preferred to learn to assemble the stuff ourselves :)

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 8:00PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376956

hornet3d posted at 2:18PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376936

Although I had my computer built you selected a base system and then there were a lot of choices over the configuration, such as case, motherboard, CPU, Graphics Card, memory, hard drives and so on. I had a number of choices like two or three case styles, may be three different motherboards and a choice from around thirty graphics card. The limited options were great in that I had a short list of components to research and, of course, all of the parts would work together, no chance of choosing a computer case and then finding the graphics card you had purchased would no fit inside the case. I got a good price on the CPU and graphics card as both had just been replaced by new models, so to a degree my computer was already out of date the day they built it. I spent a few years in the industry and it is so difficult to keep up with all the changes, now retired I find it impossible. I have a machine that works for me and no real money for any thing new so I just don't look.

Services like that here in Brazil are overpriced. You end up paying so much more just to have someone give you a handy list of options, and assemble the final thing for you. Because we're somewhat savvy, and very crafty, we preferred to learn to assemble the stuff ourselves :)

I understand that, I have built my own computer for years, I think about 10 in total and I lost count of the ones I built during the time I spent working in a computer repair shop. It is just that I have reached a point where it is no longer fun and, in the same way I now pay a mechanic to service and repair my car, I would rather pay someone else to do it. There was a time when I had fun building and repairing computers but now it is a pain, I would rather just use them than try to fix them. I do fix them when I need to but I would much rather not. There is also the case that, while I am confident in building your average computer when the processor alone costs hundreds of pounds there is also something to be said for not taking the risk.

Completely understandable :)

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:18PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376913

I have Poser set to using 5 cores, since from my understanding my CPU has 6 of them, and I like to leave one unattended so that I'm able to continue using my computers for other things ...

The Xeon E3-1230 has 4 cores and with hyper-threading it can use 8 threads. One thread = one bucket, and the more buckets that are rendering simultaneously the quicker the render will be done, so might be worth checking on how many threads you have set in the preferences?

If you use branched path tracing, the render will clear at a lower -often much lower- overall pixel sample number as compared to a rigid (non-BPT) number of pixel samples. BPT adds more rays/samples only where it is needed. E.g., the crystal goblet would get extra attention, while the paneled wall and tiled floor just get the set number of pixel samples.

You mentioned your promo size was 1500x1500 and bucket size is 126. For Firefly, buckets are most time/memory efficient if you use an integer power of 2 (i.e., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256...). I don't know if Superfly has any such preference.

For either render engine, you waste render time if you use a bucket size which is not a factor of both the horizontal and the vertical pixel dimension of the render. So for example, for a 1500x1500 pixel Superfly (CPU) render, I would use a bucket of 15, 25, 30, or 50.

For Firefly, I'd set the render dimensions to 1600x1600 pixels with a 32-pixel bucket, or maybe 1200x1200 (the forum seems to reduce anything larger anyway) with a 16-pixel bucket.

I'd reset the number of render threads (in general preferences) to 8 for a H/T quad-core processor; you can still do other work while rendering. If the occasional response delay bothers you, you could lower Poser's (FFRender64) priority.

What are the chances of a postal packet with a few processors inside getting past Brazil's customs without huge taxes? Could you afford to scrounge up an (obsolete) motherboard with two 1366 sockets? I have HyperThreaded hex-core Xeons on my parts shelf.

Those are Westmere series Xeons, no longer in production. Any model number beginning with E (E5639, e.g.) is tuned for economy. Westmere Xeon processors beginning with L (L5520, e.g.) are a compromise between economy and performance. Westmere Xeons labeled X (X5650, e.g.) are tuned for performance.

X5650, X5660, X5670, and X5675 will run on motherboards with 1366 sockets rated for 95 Watts; the X5680 and X5690 require 1366 sockets rated for 130 Watts. The bare motherboard pictured in my earlier post is a SuperMicro X8D... model; ATX size, the dual 1366 CPU sockets are rated for the 130W Xeons. Letters/numbers after "X8D" indicate various combinations of RAM slots and expansion card (PCIe, etc.) slots.

caisson posted at 10:25PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376998

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:18PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4376913

I have Poser set to using 5 cores, since from my understanding my CPU has 6 of them, and I like to leave one unattended so that I'm able to continue using my computers for other things ...

The Xeon E3-1230 has 4 cores and with hyper-threading it can use 8 threads. One thread = one bucket, and the more buckets that are rendering simultaneously the quicker the render will be done, so might be worth checking on how many threads you have set in the preferences?

I just tested today again - rendering goes smoothly with 5 threads, but with 6 or more I get severe slowdowns and freezes on my computer. At 5 I can smoothly work in photoshop and zbrush while Poser is rendering.

seachnasaigh posted at 10:31PM Fri, 17 January 2020 - #4377002

If you use branched path tracing, the render will clear at a lower -often much lower- overall pixel sample number as compared to a rigid (non-BPT) number of pixel samples. BPT adds more rays/samples only where it is needed. E.g., the crystal goblet would get extra attention, while the paneled wall and tiled floor just get the set number of pixel samples.

Ok, that makes sense. So to use BPT I'd have to lower my general pixel samples, then use the BPT settings to multiply those samples per specific thing?

You mentioned your promo size was 1500x1500 and bucket size is 126. For Firefly, buckets are most time/memory efficient if you use an integer power of 2 (i.e., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256...). I don't know if Superfly has any such preference.

I'm a dumb and got my 128 and my 256 mixed. Sounds have been using 128 LMAO!

For either render engine, you waste render time if you use a bucket size which is not a factor of both the horizontal and the vertical pixel dimension of the render. So for example, for a 1500x1500 pixel Superfly (CPU) render, I would use a bucket of 15, 25, 30, or 50.

1200x1200 is the bare minimum for store promo pictures and I don't like living so dangerously ? that's why I use 1500x1500.

For Firefly, I'd set the render dimensions to 1600x1600 pixels with a 32-pixel bucket, or maybe 1200x1200 (the forum seems to reduce anything larger anyway) with a 16-pixel bucket.

Small buckets take very much longer to render for me. I was going 16 for a while and starting a simple render in the morning and having to leave it all the way overnight before I cranked that up.

I'd reset the number of render threads (in general preferences) to 8 for a H/T quad-core processor; you can still do other work while rendering. If the occasional response delay bothers you, you could lower Poser's (FFRender64) priority.

As I said above, everything freezes when I go over 5 threads, sadly.

What are the chances of a postal packet with a few processors inside getting past Brazil's customs without huge taxes? Could you afford to scrounge up an (obsolete) motherboard with two 1366 sockets? I have HyperThreaded hex-core Xeons on my parts shelf.

Customs here are very highly priced (60% over the value+shipping to get into the country, then an extra 18% of the value+shipping+national custom tax to get into my state), but they don't tax every box because they lack manpower. It's usually a matter of luck and if the box seems valuable for resale (I'm not even joking, they'll tax things that are easy to sell in hopes that you'll give up on your package, and then the high-ranking customs workers will take your stuff for their imports stores. It's a huge under-the-hood thing they haven't been able to dismantle for years). I'd love to try, but right now I can't afford even second hand ?

Those are Westmere series Xeons, no longer in production. Any model number beginning with E (E5639, e.g.) is tuned for economy. Westmere Xeon processors beginning with L (L5520, e.g.) are a compromise between economy and performance. Westmere Xeons labeled X (X5650, e.g.) are tuned for performance.

Sounds like going for the X series here would be at a good time, now that we're getting solar power installed so my power bills will decrease greatly.

X5650, X5660, X5670, and X5675 will run on motherboards with 1366 sockets rated for 95 Watts; the X5680 and X5690 require 1366 sockets rated for 130 Watts. The bare motherboard pictured in my earlier post is a SuperMicro X8D... model; ATX size, the dual 1366 CPU sockets are rated for the 130W Xeons. Letters/numbers after "X8D" indicate various combinations of RAM slots and expansion card (PCIe, etc.) slots.

Perhaps one day... ? Thank you for all the info, in any case!

By "freezes" do you mean the computer crashes or becomes 100% unresponsive? Does the problem of not being able to use more than 5 threads apply only to Poser or does it apply to all software?

Computer becomes completely unresponsive for a while, then starts responding again but very slowly (for instance, I type something and one character appears every three seconds), becomes unresponsive again a couple of minutes later, repeat.

I think Poser is the only software I use that lets me choose the number of threads. Zbrush causes that same kind of freezing+slowing when I work with too many polygons.

Ooooh, this seems to be going MUCH faster.

With all the things I've learned from here.

I'll see if those 20 pixel samples are enough!

Edit: shoot, forgot to adjust the bucket size. Well, it's going.

Ok, I think I'm actually awake by now - @seachnasaigh were you uh offering to GIVE me processors? I though you meant selling them to me but now I'm confused.

I wonder if the problem is overheating or an erratic power supply box?

These are the render settings I used for a recent mesh-lit scene:

I don't want to limit the maximum bounces; Superfly will only use as many bounces as needed to complete a raytrace. Setting clamp direct/indirect samples to zero removes the clamping. I don't actually wait for 210 pixel samples to complete; when the render cleans up (graininess disappears), I cancel the render and export the image.

Yes, I'm offering to give you processors (four? enough for two dual-CPU workstations?); I understand your budget constraint. I don't need them (these were pulled from my servers/workstations when I upgraded the blades to X5675 and the workstations to X5690) and they would give you a boost toward a rendering workstation. You'd need to either scrounge a dual-CPU motherboard (1366 CPU sockets), or better, buy a complete used workstation which has a motherboard with dual 1366 sockets. Here in the US, eBay is a good place to find used enterprise-grade computers. The used workstation can have lesser CPUs installed, or only have one CPU installed (or none). I'd get one which already has plenty of RAM installed. Replace any used hard drives, and get an OEM Windows license. I don't know if a packet with processors will make it past Brazilian customs without a big tax charge.

Woow those settings are HIGH. Something like that here would take forever.

Gosh - right, that's incredibly generous of you. I'm not sure how pricey the shipping to Brazil would be for you. If I do this, it would be a long project for me, as I'd need to save the money for the motherboard, and then probably the power thingie (power source? Not sure what it's called in english?) as I'm pretty sure that mine can't take those dual processors. Likely, to get around customs it would have a higher chance if it's tagged as gift and described as used. I'll check with a friend of mine who's more hardware-savvy then I am, to see if there are any motherboards that would work with the other parts I already have (GPU, RAM memory, etc) to see if I can pull this off!

... Mind running over things. What I meant above was "I'm not sure how pricey the shipping to Brazil would be for you, so I would cover that."

Maybe I missed it but I don't think you mentioned what GPU you have, cause you said your CPU renders faster. Up until September of last year I was running a Xeon E3 1246 V3 which is 3.5Ghz four core instead of your 3.2Ghz, so I was in a very similar situation CPU-wise. While a great and trusty CPU that never caused a crash for the five years I was running it, rendering was abysmally slow for me. The more complex renders could take all night, so I finally bought a 970 and my render times for my bigger scenes went from 10 hours to 3 at the most. Eventually I replaced my 970 with a 1070 for rendering and depending on the scene could drastically reduce render times again.

JohnDoe641 posted at 7:21PM Sat, 18 January 2020 - #4377088

Maybe I missed it but I don't think you mentioned what GPU you have, cause you said your CPU renders faster. Up until September of last year I was running a Xeon E3 1246 V3 which is 3.5Ghz four core instead of your 3.2Ghz, so I was in a very similar situation CPU-wise. While a great and trusty CPU that never caused a crash for the five years I was running it, rendering was abysmally slow for me. The more complex renders could take all night, so I finally bought a 970 and my render times for my bigger scenes went from 10 hours to 3 at the most. Eventually I replaced my 970 with a 1070 for rendering and depending on the scene could drastically reduce render times again.

Mine's a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 :)

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:47PM Sat, 18 January 2020 - #4377090

JohnDoe641 posted at 7:21PM Sat, 18 January 2020 - #4377088

Maybe I missed it but I don't think you mentioned what GPU you have, cause you said your CPU renders faster. Up until September of last year I was running a Xeon E3 1246 V3 which is 3.5Ghz four core instead of your 3.2Ghz, so I was in a very similar situation CPU-wise. While a great and trusty CPU that never caused a crash for the five years I was running it, rendering was abysmally slow for me. The more complex renders could take all night, so I finally bought a 970 and my render times for my bigger scenes went from 10 hours to 3 at the most. Eventually I replaced my 970 with a 1070 for rendering and depending on the scene could drastically reduce render times again.

Mine's a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 :)

Ouch, yeah that card is definitely not a render friendly card with only 2GB and lack of compute power/cuda cores, so I can totally see why your CPU renders faster. https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1607126-LO-NVIDIAGEF99&obr_sor=y

JohnDoe641 posted at 1:51PM Sun, 19 January 2020 - #4377098

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 6:47PM Sat, 18 January 2020 - #4377090

Mine's a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 :)

Ouch, yeah that card is definitely not a render friendly card with only 2GB and lack of compute power/cuda cores, so I can totally see why your CPU renders faster. https://openbenchmarking.org/result/1607126-LO-NVIDIAGEF99&obr_sor=y

I have a GTX 960 with 4GB VRAM that is adequate memory for most scenes. However, I an looking to upgrade for more render speed...

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:02PM Sun, 19 January 2020 - #4377032

Woow those settings are HIGH. Something like that here would take forever.

Well, I don't wait out the entire 210 pixel samples; I cancel once the render clears up the graininess. Those particular render settings used a lot of mesh light samples because the scene was lit by mesh lights.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:02PM Sun, 19 January 2020 - #4377032

Gosh - right, that's incredibly generous of you. I'm not sure how pricey the shipping to Brazil would be for you.

Not so bad, for the postage; it is only the customs duty/tax that might be high. Or, it might pass through customs unscathed. That's an unknown.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 11:02PM Sun, 19 January 2020 - #4377032

If I do this, it would be a long project for me, as I'd need to save the money for the motherboard, and then probably the power thingie (power source? Not sure what it's called in english?) as I'm pretty sure that mine can't take those dual processors. Likely, to get around customs it would have a higher chance if it's tagged as gift and described as used. I'll check with a friend of mine who's more hardware-savvy then I am, to see if there are any motherboards that would work with the other parts I already have (GPU, RAM memory, etc) to see if I can pull this off!

Here, we call the box inside the computer chassis which converts household alternating current electricity (120V 60Hz in US, 220V 50Hz Europe) into 12V DC electricity the power supply. Yeah, you'd want a 1000 Watt power supply for a workstation.

Your advice for tagging the package as "gift, used" sounds good.

As for re-using components, GPUs and other expansion cards would work. A workstation/server motherboard can take regular desktop computer memory, but you are much better off using registered ECC memory, preferably with metal heat spreaders. This is sometimes called "server memory". Registered memory has an extra chip on each DIMM which performs routing functions, figuring out what data needs to go where. That relieves the motherboard's memory controller of a lot of burden. So, the motherboard can use more memory if you use registered DIMMs. Memory sticks with ECC have Error Correcting Code, which spots and corrects most memory faults.

A used workstation/server motherboard of this vintage (dual 1366 sockets) will most likely take registered ECC DDR3, generally triple channel. The bare ATX-sized motherboard pic I posted has six DIMM slots with max capacity of 48GB; the pic inside the complete computer (named Galadriel) shows a larger E-ATX board size and has twelve DIMM slots with 96GB. The maximum amount of memory readable is determined by the motherboard's mainchip.

You must use a case/chassis which has the mounting pylons for the motherboard size which you wish to use. That Alienware chassis (named Galadriel) in the pic several posts above has mounting pylons for both the standard ATX size mobos and the larger E-ATX. We took advantage of that when her original 12GB single CPU board died, and converted her to dual CPUs with 96GB!

Come to think of it, my case is marketed as a server case - it's a Zalman ATX Z11. I wonder if it would still do.

Also, my friend tells me that, apart from marking the thing as gift and used, if you actually wrap it as a gift you lower by like 80% the chances that customs will mark it to be taxed

We're still checking here if we can find used motherboards for purchase that can take these. I'll let you know, and thank you so much again - maybe we should take this to sitemail though?

From what I read, the Zalman Z11 will take an ATX motherboard, but not an E-ATX motherboard, so be sure that you get an ATX size motherboard.

I would agree that sitemail would be safer for giving mailing address, et cetera.

I still have some Christmas wrapping paper; I could overwrap one of those padded envelopes with it.

Is there some site similar to our eBay, where you could search for "2x 1366" or "dual 1366"?

Yeah, on it already - that friend is helping me try to pick one among the ones available. Also checking if I'd better take an older mobo to keep my DDR3 memory chips or if I should invest in taking a while longer to go for DDR4 chips instead. And other technicalities like that :)

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 2:19PM Mon, 20 January 2020 - #4377247

Yeah, on it already - that friend is helping me try to pick one among the ones available. Also checking if I'd better take an older mobo to keep my DDR3 memory chips or if I should invest in taking a while longer to go for DDR4 chips instead. And other technicalities like that :)

Heh. You should get seachnasaigh to show you pictures of his **whole **lash up. Galadriel is just one box of many if I remember correctly. Gave StallionTek a bit of business. Had all those conversations from the Vue board marked, until the links went sour with an update.

One thing on the workstation. Do you need a server OS to take full advantage of the ECC ram? I know at one time you did, but that was before they transitioned to the NT kernel.

Dale B posted at 4:40PM Mon, 20 January 2020 - #4377262

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 2:19PM Mon, 20 January 2020 - #4377247

Yeah, on it already - that friend is helping me try to pick one among the ones available. Also checking if I'd better take an older mobo to keep my DDR3 memory chips or if I should invest in taking a while longer to go for DDR4 chips instead. And other technicalities like that :)

Heh. You should get seachnasaigh to show you pictures of his **whole **lash up. Galadriel is just one box of many if I remember correctly. Gave StallionTek a bit of business. Had all those conversations from the Vue board marked, until the links went sour with an update.

Well dang - that picture with all the processors lined up already got me baffled. I think if I see the entire set I might need to clean up a puddle of drool here.

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 4:43AM Tue, 21 January 2020 - #4377263

Dale B posted at 4:40PM Mon, 20 January 2020 - #4377262

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 2:19PM Mon, 20 January 2020 - #4377247

Yeah, on it already - that friend is helping me try to pick one among the ones available. Also checking if I'd better take an older mobo to keep my DDR3 memory chips or if I should invest in taking a while longer to go for DDR4 chips instead. And other technicalities like that :)

Heh. You should get seachnasaigh to show you pictures of his **whole **lash up. Galadriel is just one box of many if I remember correctly. Gave StallionTek a bit of business. Had all those conversations from the Vue board marked, until the links went sour with an update.

Well dang - that picture with all the processors lined up already got me baffled. I think if I see the entire set I might need to clean up a puddle of drool here.

At least one puddle. His rig was intended for Vue rendering, which can make the harshest Superfly rendering seem....tame. With a rendergarden you can distribute the buckets across the network, and crank the settings up to insane levels. I suspect there was some of the Potato Chip Effect at work as well. No one can eat just one, after all....

Hi there

You would definitely benefit from getting something like is Ryzen 2600X,2700X or newer 3600X, 3700X with B450 motherboard and 16GB of DDR4(32GB I would recommend get if you do rendering on CPU)

Ryzen 2nd generation like 2600X,2700X or 2800X are now priced pretty competitive and you will benefit from sheer speed in rendering, I'm still on X99 5960x which is OC 4.6Ghz but in CPU based render my CPU is spanked by AMD 3600X or 3700X

If you are need to render something very fast I'm very happy to help there, I use GPU for rendering and most of renders takes me up to 30-45 mins if I do very complex scenes at 60-90 samples that's at 2560*1440, like simple render with V4 or La Femme and simple scene etc it takes me at 1440p something like 3-5 minutes as max maybe bit more, I compared render engines in past like IRAY and SuperFly and both have been similar in rendering times

What I would recommend to use is Denoiser, you can try to use Intel or Nvidia denoiser, I use Intel one and no issues

Hope this helps

Thanks, Jura

jura11 posted at 8:53AM Sat, 25 January 2020 - #4377744

Hi there

You would definitely benefit from getting something like is Ryzen 2600X,2700X or newer 3600X, 3700X with B450 motherboard and 16GB of DDR4(32GB I would recommend get if you do rendering on CPU)

Ryzen 2nd generation like 2600X,2700X or 2800X are now priced pretty competitive and you will benefit from sheer speed in rendering, I'm still on X99 5960x which is OC 4.6Ghz but in CPU based render my CPU is spanked by AMD 3600X or 3700X

As mentioned before, I'm not looking for ideas to purchase new hardware - I can't afford it right now. But thanks anyway

Dale B posted at 9:17AM Fri, 31 January 2020 - #4377262

Heh. You should get seachnasaigh to show you pictures of his **whole **lash up. Galadriel is just one box of many if I remember correctly. Gave StallionTek a bit of business. Had all those conversations from the Vue board marked, until the links went sour with an update.

Dale B posted at 9:18AM Fri, 31 January 2020 - #4377315

At least one puddle. His rig was intended for Vue rendering, which can make the harshest Superfly rendering seem....tame. With a rendergarden you can distribute the buckets across the network, and crank the settings up to insane levels. I suspect there was some of the Potato Chip Effect at work as well. No one can eat just one, after all....

Ohki isn't likely to accumulate a lot of computers, but for those considering such, my advice is to buy used enterprise-grade machines with dual CPUs, with as many processor cores as possible, and plenty of memory. If they are going to only be render slaves (not used as a workstation), then server blades will be the least expensive. eBay is a good place to look; search for 2x Xeon, or 2x X5670 for example. Figure on supplying a new hard drive and buy an OEM Windows license - it must come with the holographic validation sticker!

Blades are those thin (vertically) chassis intended to be mounted in a rack. You can just stack them on a milk crate if you only have three or four, like so:

If you gather more, it will be more convenient to rack-mount the blades:

Scrounge one modest monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Connect all of the render slaves to the single monitor/keyboard/mouse with a KVM switch.

The "squid" type KVM is good for four or fewer render slave computers:

For more machines, a KVM switchbox will work:

If your workstation's motherboard has this oddball SIML-C slot (always at the bottom), you can install a KVM card and boot/monitor/control all of the render slaves from the workstation.

Once enough parts have been scrounged to assemble an extra working computer, Ohki could use either it or the pre-existing computer as a render slave ("remote", in Poser Queue Manager terms). That would enable you to offload a batch of promo renders or animation frames to the remote(s). You might also install Queue on your spouse's computer and the kids' computer. There is no limit on how many remotes onto which you may install Queue.

Here's a simplified diagram; where I have an unmanaged network "switch", that is often incorporated into a single box along with the modem, and called a "router".

On each remote, run the P11Pro installer, but at this window, change from the default (which installs Poser) to install only Queue Manager.

The first time you use the remote(s), your security software will challenge you for firewall permission. Give Queue Manager and FFRender64 firewall permissions!

I also have Vue's render engine and Lux installed on my remotes. Both of these render engines will distribute a single tough render across your network. Currently, Poser's Queue can only send the entire render to one remote, but cannot distribute buckets/samples across all of the machines in the network. My top Poser enhancement wishlist item is the ability for Queue to distribute buckets/samples across a network, so that all of your machines can cooperate on a single high quality wallpaper render.

Network rendering using the Poser/Reality/Lux workflow:

Network rendering from Vue Infinite:

Okay - I had to move my Wacom tablet for a moment. It was right below the line of drool.

No kids here. And my husband has just as much need of a powerful computer as I do - he's a motion designer/video maker. I'll be on my own for this, LMAO

For now, getting ONE functional computer with a dual Xeon will already likely take me the year. My current income is very, very low. Hopefully I can get things better soon and might make things faster, but in any case at first I'll focus on getting the one computer working better. I'll save this thread for when I can start working on render slaves

I fully realize that you won't be buying a stack of blades anytime soon, but someone out there might be interested in getting a few.

What is doable for you would be installing the render engines which you use onto hubby's machine, and installing any network-capable render engine he uses onto yours. Then each of you could exploit your spouse's computer when the spouse isn't using it.

And it is not uncommon for Poserfolk to get a new computer but still have the previous computer; that older computer can serve as a Queue remote.

Two HyperThreaded octal Xeons with 64GB RAM, $100 32 render threads!

I'm not sure if Adobe Premiere and After Effects can use external renderers? Besides, both our computers need down time - it's very very hot here in Brazil. So we can't really depend on using the other computer while the other person isn't using it.

Don't worry though, I'll make sure those Xeons will be put to good use!

I hope Ohki doesn't mind me sticking my nose in, but I have to ask Seachnasaigh; what on earth are you doing with all that gear?

At first I thought you were building a personal render farm. Then I thought, nah, it's a bit more than that, he must be hiring out a render farm. Now though, I've changed my mind again and suspect you must be intent on mining every BitCoin in cyberspace!

So what on earth are you building there, or rather, what for?

I tell you what mate, while I join Ohki and I'm guessing everyone else in here in envy, I don't envy your electricity bill

Afrodite-Ohki posted at 8:16PM Fri, 31 January 2020 - #4378445

I'm not sure if Adobe Premiere and After Effects can use external renderers? Besides, both our computers need down time - it's very very hot here in Brazil. So we can't really depend on using the other computer while the other person isn't using it.

Take the side panel off and leave it off (or even both of them) (if you haven't already). I ran one of mine like that for years and it was fine.Just get the canned air and blow it out periodically. Poor man's water cooling lmao