standalone mental ray vs. 3ds Max's internal mental ray

[stusic]

Good evening all. Quick non-vital question: What are the advantages of using the standalone version of mental ray over the mental ray inside of 3ds Max?

Also, I couldn't find the price of it, and it also looks like it's not available by subscription. Does anyone know if the price is published online and if it's available by subscription?

Thanks and Regards,

[Steve_Bennett]

mental ray is used to compliment MAX, VIZ or Maya. When you purchase one seat of MAX or Maya you are limited to 8 free render nodes when using mr to network render and one with VIZ. Purchasing additional seats of mr is mostly to allow you to increase the size of your render farm without incurring the cost of a full seat of MAX, VIZ or Maya. The way I understand the license system to work is that the license views one CPU socket as one render node regardless if the CPU is single or dual core.

[stusic]

Okay, thanks Steve, that helps. See, I'm going to upgrade to a subscription to Max 9 and was going to compliment that upgrade with a separate rendering machine. I've got a decent machine now, but I'm using that to model; I thought setting up a small render farm would free my workstation up to be used while I'm rendering. It should be nice

I was going to get either one or two AMD Quad Core machines; can you tell me what are the vital components to get when building a node? I assumed, of course, that processing power is the most important. I also assume that a decent sized disk drive is important, but what about RAM? Or video cards? And before I essentially 8 processors: is my single seat of 3ds + 8 additional node seats? Or 1 + 7, for a total of 8? I think setting up these machines are going to really help me out, but I really know nothing about render farms aside from basic "I read about it in CGW"...

Thanks for your help Steve,

[dellis]

If i could add any advice i would say that RAM and CPU are the most important. Video card does nothing for rendering aside from display the image on screen. A fast hard drive is always nice but will, generally, only be needed if there is some paging going on when RAM runs out. All the top end rendering engines are multi threaded so if you can afford it...multiple processors are the way to go.

So in short....buy as much RAM as your machine can handle and you can afford...and your operating system can handle. Buy the fastest processor you can and try getting a decent video card that will allow you to use that rendering node as a workstation in a pinch.

[Steve_Bennett]

While a quad core would technically work as 4 nodes, the license should only view it as one license needed since there is only one socket being used.

As for the other things you asked about, here is what I would recommend.

• RAM- get as much as you can afford - OS will affect your upper limit. The more polygons and materials used in the scene will affect how much RAM is needed. If you exceed the RAM you are running you will need to get into paging the material on the hard drive of the computer(s).
• CPU- Quad core would kick some major butt esp. when trying to get quick results on an image for test renderings. Multiple quads would make me all tingly inside with anticipation of how fast you would be able to render images or animations. Be sure to get the fastest you can afford.
• Video- Be careful here, I've read that it is important to use the same video card for all systems used in the render farm. Using different cards could potenially affect color ranges in a still image or animation. On your modeling system, having the best card would be the ideal situation and for the render farm systems, a card of lesser specs would work. The vid card is mostly for on screen graphics - the more memory on it, the cleaner you materials and effects will display on screen and allow to be manipulated real-time.
• Hard Drive- Each render node will pull a copy of the scene and related support files to its local drive. Drive specs should be fast RPM, with enough storage capacity to hold your scene file, needed materials and any other temp files needed. Each render node will complete its job and transfer the rendered data back to the central location you specify. If you already have a network in place, you could try storing the data to a central drive on the server. Otherwise, you will have to make a folder on one of the machines Shared with read/write access for all machines. All machines need that to get the model/materials to process the job. I believe you will need a basic router at the very minimum to link them all up.
• Network- Don't forget about this aspect. Having a central point to store all scene data is really important. NIC speed, router capabilities, and system specs on all machines will affect how fast the data can transfer between them. Also, running a network license system for MAX/mr would be ideal too since you can use any station for emergency needs as Dwayne pointed out. Even if you own one seat of MAX, you can still do this. You will need to install MAX on each render system regardless of how many seats you own. They won't all be registered, just there to run the software on the render node.

Hopefully this answers your questions. If it made more questions than you had before, keep them coming!

[stusic]

While a quad core would technically work as 4 nodes, the license should only view it as one license needed since there is only one socket being used.

Well, it's technically four cores spread out over two dual core processors, but even then, I suppose it would only count as 2 licenses (one for each socket). That's good; that means, if possible, I could buy two machines and still have room for growth.

As for the other things you asked about, here is what I would recommend.

• RAM- get as much as you can afford - OS will affect your upper limit. The more polygons and materials used in the scene will affect how much RAM is needed. If you exceed the RAM you are running you will need to get into paging the material on the hard drive of the computer(s).

I was looking at that when I got RAM for my workstation: for Windows XP Pro, the limit is 4 GB, no matter what your motherboard told you (get it?). That's what I've got in my machine, and even now I wish I had more. Is 4 GB going to be enough for a node?

• CPU- Quad core would kick some major butt esp. when trying to get quick results on an image for test renderings. Multiple quads would make me all tingly inside with anticipation of how fast you would be able to render images or animations. Be sure to get the fastest you can afford.

Yeah, it's those test renderings that kill me more than anything else... That's where AMD comes in and Intel's Core 2 Duo gets left out. My brother works at AMD, so I am able to get a family discount on their processors (they're better anyways, hmph...)

• Video- Be careful here, I've read that it is important to use the same video card for all systems used in the render farm. Using different cards could potenially affect color ranges in a still image or animation. On your modeling system, having the best card would be the ideal situation and for the render farm systems, a card of lesser specs would work. The vid card is mostly for on screen graphics - the more memory on it, the cleaner you materials and effects will display on screen and allow to be manipulated real-time.

So how cheap can I get on a "card of lesser specs"? Junkie little $50 Radeon gaming card? Onboard graphics? I've got a Quadro FX 4500 for my modeling machine, so that's covered (and definitely not going in my rendering machine)

• Hard Drive- Each render node will pull a copy of the scene and related support files to its local drive. Drive specs should be fast RPM, with enough storage capacity to hold your scene file, needed materials and any other temp files needed. Each render node will complete its job and transfer the rendered data back to the central location you specify. If you already have a network in place, you could try storing the data to a central drive on the server. Otherwise, you will have to make a folder on one of the machines Shared with read/write access for all machines. All machines need that to get the model/materials to process the job. I believe you will need a basic router at the very minimum to link them all up.

I've got a NAS set up already for my photography (8mB per picture!, 1/2 TB already used) and am planning on using that as central storage. I kind of already do, but not really...

• Also, running a network license system for MAX/mr would be ideal too since you can use any station for emergency needs as Dwayne pointed out. Even if you own one seat of MAX, you can still do this. You will need to install MAX on each render system regardless of how many seats you own. They won't all be registered, just there to run the software on the render node.

Since I haven't done this before, I'm not sure, but how will this affect setting up the farm? Will having a full installation of 3ds make using it as just a node more difficult (i.e.; less automated)?

Hopefully this answers your questions. If it made more questions than you had before, keep them coming!

Thanks! Maybe it did make more questions, but it also answered a few I've got. I call that "progress".

[Steve_Bennett]

Well, it's technically four cores spread out over two dual core processors, but even then, I suppose it would only count as 2 licenses (one for each socket). That's good; that means, if possible, I could buy two machines and still have room for growth.

I was looking at that when I got RAM for my workstation: for Windows XP Pro, the limit is 4 GB, no matter what your motherboard told you (get it?). That's what I've got in my machine, and even now I wish I had more. Is 4 GB going to be enough for a node?

Ah, I see. Then for your motherboard on your main system, it will only take up 2 licenses. If you are running out of ram on your production beast, there is a good chance that will follow onto your render computer. Even though you can strip most processes from running on the render node, it most likely won't kill enough to free up ram. I would make sure you go with a system that can be scaled to run more ram than 4gb if needed.

Yeah, it's those test renderings that kill me more than anything else... That's where AMD comes in and Intel's Core 2 Duo gets left out. My brother works at AMD, so I am able to get a family discount on their processors (they're better anyways, hmph...)

ND quote: LUCKY!!!

So how cheap can I get on a "card of lesser specs"? Junkie little $50 Radeon gaming card? Onboard graphics? I've got a Quadro FX 4500 for my modeling machine, so that's covered (and definitely not going in my rendering machine)

Well, that part I don't have a specific recommendation for. I've recently found http://www.cnet.com/ to be of great help in product reviews...

I've got a NAS set up already for my photography (8mB per picture!, 1/2 TB already used) and am planning on using that as central storage. I kind of already do, but not really...

NAS? Norton Anti-Security?

Since I haven't done this before, I'm not sure, but how will this affect setting up the farm? Will having a full installation of 3ds make using it as just a node more difficult (i.e.; less automated)?

Thanks! Maybe it did make more questions, but it also answered a few I've got. I call that "progress".

No, having a standalone vs networked version of MAX won't make a difference. As for the mr license, once you exceed your base limit, you will have to go to a networked license version (I think - not entirely certain). Still, even if you go with standalone, create a deployment image of MAX on your server storage device thingy and install onto your systems with the deployment image. If you add extra systems later you can just run the deployment image again and you have your system all set to go. If it is not a network license system for MAX, and you want to run more than 8 sockets using mr, then you might be in a bind. If it is not a network license, how will the mr licenses realize that you have another seat of MAX installed? They wont. You would have to uninstall MAX, create a new install using the network license system. I don't know what kind of growth your firm is experiancing, but its a real pain to have to go through that.



Keep the questions coming! This is a great thread to kick this forum off!

[stusic]

I would make sure you go with a system that can be scaled to run more ram than 4gb if needed.

Since XP limits my RAM, how could I add more? Could my nodes run Linux? I could switch my OS to Vista, but I'm not real keen on that just yet...

Well, that part I don't have a specific recommendation for. I've recently found http://www.cnet.com/ to be of great help in product reviews...

I've been meaning to sell my 3500 for a while now; I may just slap it in my new machine. It seems like overkill, and although I don't plan on using this machine as my workstation, it would be nice to be able to in a bind.

I'm thinking I'm going to just get one beefed up machine for my node instead of two machines. It'd allow me to 1.) save licenses, 2.) save money, and 3.) would ensure that I can get the computer that'll fit my needs, rather than two that don't quite cut it. Then I can put the 3500 in that and not have to worry about color variations (thanks again for the heads-up on that one ).

NAS? Norton Anti-Security?

Sorry, "Network-Attached Storage".

I don't know what kind of growth your firm is experiancing...

LOL, not that much.

Keep the questions coming! This is a great thread to kick this forum off!

Good, because without your help, I'd be completely lost!

[Steve_Bennett]

Since XP limits my RAM, how could I add more? Could my nodes run Linux? I could switch my OS to Vista, but I'm not real keen on that just yet...

I've been meaning to sell my 3500 for a while now; I may just slap it in my new machine. It seems like overkill, and although I don't plan on using this machine as my workstation, it would be nice to be able to in a bind.

I'm thinking I'm going to just get one beefed up machine for my node instead of two machines. It'd allow me to 1.) save licenses, 2.) save money, and 3.) would ensure that I can get the computer that'll fit my needs, rather than two that don't quite cut it. Then I can put the 3500 in that and not have to worry about color variations (thanks again for the heads-up on that one ).

Sorry, "Network-Attached Storage".

LOL, not that much.

Good, because without your help, I'd be completely lost!

If you are buying a new machine, spec hardware that will be able to run vista at a later point. That way, you can have a motherboard that supports both OS's, start with 4gb of ram, but go with more than 2 slots for RAM...

Good thing you specified what NAS was. I was gonna post back: "NAS? Is that what street racers use in fast and furious?"

[dellis]

There is a 3gb switch for XP that will allow you to adress more RAM.

Dwayne