Page 89 - 3D World - October 2017

InsIght
V-Ray
V-Ray HybRiD bencHmaRkS bReaking THe gpU RenDeRing
To measure the speed boost of gpU coReS VS. cpU coReS memoRy baRRieR
adding CPUs to the GPU mix, Chaos While V-Ray Hybrid can render on Memory limitations inherent to
Group Labs benchmarked two CPUs and GPUs simultaneously, GPU computing have always been
scenes from Dabarti Studio. CPU cores and GPU cores are not a fundamental challenge when
the same. For example, a GPU rendering on GPUs. With recent
HaRDWaRe with 2560 cores is not simply 320 advances to V-Ray GPU, Chaos
Benchmarks were run on a powerful times faster than an 8 core CPU. Group has reduced overall memory
Lenovo P900 workstation with 40 To determine the actual speed usage by up to 70%, and up to 700%
logical CPU cores, 128GB RAM, and difference, real-world benchmark through On-demand Mip-mapping, an
two NVIDIA Quadro GP100s. tests are required. intelligent way to automatically resize
cpUs gpUs textures. Since textures consume the
most memory, solutions like these
2 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 3.10 GHz 2 NVIDIA Quadro GP100 w/ 16GB each will radically increase the size and
40 logical CPU cores
128 GB RAM 7168 CUDA cores complexity of the scenes artists and
designers can render. Now with V-Ray
Scene 1: maRS RoVeR Hybrid, if a particular scene won’t
gpU only cpU only gpU and cpU fit within GPU RAM limits, it can still
render on CPU.
Mars Rover 4:27
1920 x 1080 5:03 26:25 13% faster than nVlink
0.01 noise threshold GPU only
In addition to memory-efficient
Scene 2: SalT anD peppeR software developments, V-Ray is
gpU only cpU only gpU and cpU now the first commercial renderer
to support NVIDIA’s powerful, high-
Salt and Pepper 9:11 bandwidth interconnect NVLink,
1920 x 1080 11.33 40.52 25% faster than
0.01 noise threshold GPU only which allows video memory to be
shared between graphics cards.
For these scenes, the addition of CPUs helped reduce render times by 13% NVLink is now available in the latest
and 25%. It’s a welcome speed boost, rather than leaving these powerful NVIDIA Quadro GP100 and NVIDIA
CPUs idle. Tesla P100 cards.

maRS RoVeR: with V-Ray hybrid, render times was reduced by 13% SalT anD peppeR: this scene had an incredible 25% reduction in render time

or 12GB is perfect for us. We can fit 95% of V-Ray 3.6. We’ve worked with V-Ray since it to GPU rendering, while continuing to
scenes we produce on this. And if we can’t, began, and with GPU for about three years take advantage of existing CPU resources.
it is possible to render it with the Hybrid now. We were early adopters of V-Ray GPU Additionally, if there is an empty PCIe slot
engine. We used the new features quite because we went full scale CPU to GPU, and on a workstation or render node, adding a
heavily like Aerial Perspective and Adaptive there’s no going back!” GPU can give it a radical speed boost without
Lights as well. Running it all together like “everyone loves the speed of GPU replacing the whole machine.
a production stress test, all the renders ran rendering because it is also three to four “There are some very cool optimisations
well, there were no issues. times cheaper to render, and way faster in V-Ray GPU, like on-demand textures
‘Salt And Pepper’ was an internal project as well, but it’s also faster to work with in which makes it possible to render truly huge
for Dabarti Studio. An experimental visual to terms of creating the scenes and creating the amounts of textures,” says Wyszolmirski. “I
render out photoreal peppercorns and large shaders, so you’re not only saving time on was able to fit close to 400 textures on 8GB
grains of rock salt. “We developed a tool for rendering, but also in preparation of the of memory, including 150 textures that were
capturing textures and wanted to test it out,” shot itself.” 6K wide. you could use those textures for
Wyszolmirski explains. “The imagery is all As CPU machines are ready to be replaced, printing up billboard advertisements. This is
rendered on a GPU on the beta version of V-Ray Hybrid can help ease the transition ‘crazy-impressive’ to me!”

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