3ds Max computer Specs

[brad10104]

Hi all,

I started working at an engineering company last year and one of my tasks was to create 3d renderings using 3ds max. The Desktop they want me to use is a couple of years old. For the most part, it can handle what I throw at it. However, I have been rendering some animations and they have taken 5-7 days each. My boss wanted me to see if there is anything that could be done to improve the rendering times. I am thinking that it might be a hardware issue.

Since I do not have admin rights, I am not sure what all the hardware is, however, I do know that the processor is an Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1650 v3 @ 3.50GHz. The memory (RAM) is listed at 24.0 GB and the storage space is listed as 39.7 GB free of 224 GB.

Can someone help me figure out if the computer hardware is not up to spec, or is there someone that could possibly be done in 3ds max to speed up the animations.

Thanks for all the help guys!

[dgorsman]

That depends on a couple of things. You don't mention which render engine you're using; Mental Ray and other CPU-based renderers benefit from more cores. VRay and other GPU-based renderers depend on the video card (which you didn't mention). In both cases, render settings and scene can be as important as the hardware. Its a dark art, there is no "make it go fast" button to click, so posting a few details would help with the diagnosis.

Finally, there are some practical considerations. If you are producing a 10-minute animation at full HD/1080p running at 60 fps (~36000 frames, each taking 1 minute to render, is 600 hours of render time) there is very little you can do to reduce rendering times, at least on a desktop. You can cut that in half by switching to 30 fps (which is much more common), and depending on the desired viewing device switching to 720p (more common for mobile devices, YouTube, and hosting sites) will help a bit more. At that point you're still going to be looking at either distributed rendering using spare computers in your office overnight, or more likely renting time on an online render farm.

[brad10104]

dgorsman,

Thanks for the response. To answer your questions, I have been using the mental ray rendering engine. The video card is a NVIDIA Quadro K2000.

As far as rendering settings, they include, 1920 x 1080 Width x Height, Rendering 26 seconds at 30 fps. Sampling Mode is set to Unified/Raytraced. Samples per Pixel settings are at 0.25 for Quality, 1.0 for Minimum, and 128 for Max. Filter is set to Gauss with Width and Height both set at 2.0.

Contrast/ Noise Threshold has RBG and Alpha all set to 0.01.

The Bucket Width is set to32, whith the Bucket Order set to Hilbert.

For FG settings, I it set to the FG Precision Presets selection of Drafts. This set the Initial FG Point Dentisty to 0.1, Rays per FG Point to 50, Interpolate over Num. FG Points to 30, and diffuse bounces to 0 with a weight of 1.0.

Please let me know if there are any other setting that would help us solve this problem.

And as far as your practical considerations, I would love to rendering at one frame per minute; currently, I am rendering between 20 - 30 minutes for frame.

[larajones989747162]

Hi guys,

I just registered to take classes to master his software.

[rbcameron1]

You have a reasonably decent computer workstation. I know guys that don't even have a 6C/12T workstation that runs at that speed that would want your workstation.

That particular processor can not be in a dual processor configuration unfortunately. If I were you, I'd price out a new workstation and justify it with the time you'll save on just that one project alone.

If you're mostly in 3dsMax and rendering in mental ray or vray. I'd sacrifice core speed for total cores. I run dual Xeon E5-2670 v3's 2.6Ghz/3.1Ghz at home with 32Gb ram. 24 cores/48 hyperthreaded
I bust through 1080p on medium FG in less time you're going through draft FG. That is a huge quality difference.