Hello, I would like to inquire about the new versions of Terragen and GPU render

[north861025]

I have received emails regarding the new versions of Terragen and GPU renderer and would like to inquire about a few questions
1.Regarding terragen, is there any way to activate it offline? All four computers in our cg studio work on the intranet. Is there any way to activate it without connecting to the Internet
2.Does the GPU renderer mean that the number of CPUs is no longer important, or that CPUs will no longer participate in rendering in the future
 

[Kevin Kipper]

Thanks for your interest in Terragen 4.

Terragen 4 Professional requires a license key file to run in commercial mode.  You can download the key file from your account's purchase confirmation page from any computer connected to the internet.  Then copy the license key file to your workstation that is not connected to the internet.  We have license server solutions if you want to manage several licenses across many workstations; just contact us at Planetside Software support for more information.

Currently GPU rendering for Terragen 4 is in development.  CPUs are still very important.  More than likely the existing CPU solutions will still remain relevant even when the GPU renderer is complete.

[north861025]

Thank you for your reply. I would like to ask about the GPU renderer
Will Terragen in the future use CPU+GPU hybrid rendering or pure GPU rendering
2. I am using e5 2686v4 x 2 with 36 cores and 72 threads. If I use a GPU renderer, does it mean that there will be several times the rendering speed? For example, if I need to render one image in 10 minutes now, does it mean that I can complete the rendering in 1 minute using a GPU renderer
3. Does the GPU renderer have high requirements for video memory? The current project requires 50g of memory. If GPU rendering is used, will there be a situation where there is not enough video memory? For example, 4090 has 24g of video memory. Can 4090 complete a 50g memory project

[Matt]

Will Terragen in the future use CPU+GPU hybrid rendering or pure GPU rendering

CPU+GPU. The new renderer that we are developing (VOLR) works equally well on CPU or GPU, and there will be a hybrid mode to use both CPU and GPU to share the load.

However, VOLR is only for volumetrics (clouds and atmosphere) at the moment. CPU will be needed for rendering other things in the scene. As we continue to develop it, more may be possible with CPU+GPU. I expect terrain rendering (perhaps with limitations) will be one of the first extensions to VOLR after clouds and atmosphere are released.

2. I am using e5 2686v4 x 2 with 36 cores and 72 threads. If I use a GPU renderer, does it mean that there will be several times the rendering speed? For example, if I need to render one image in 10 minutes now, does it mean that I can complete the rendering in 1 minute using a GPU renderer

It should be a lot faster. But we still have a lot of work to do to support complex scenes with multiple cloud layers and node graphs, so I can't give you any meaningful estimates yet.

3. Does the GPU renderer have high requirements for video memory? The current project requires 50g of memory. If GPU rendering is used, will there be a situation where there is not enough video memory? For example, 4090 has 24g of video memory. Can 4090 complete a 50g memory project

VOLR aims to be able to render image quality superior to TG4 without needing as much RAM, because it won't rely on high res voxel buffers. Those voxel buffers might be useful for optimization but won't be strictly necessary, so this should allow most scenes to render on cards with only a few Gb. A 4090 will be very capable.

We are many months, possibly a year away from releasing this, so there are a lot of unknowns at this stage.