I'm no tech expert so please forgive my ignorance here. Terragen is still in its early development stage but I think we can start to see how it will evolve over the next year to final release. I was wondering what would be the ultimate/best/most rreasonable rendering system. Given that multiple threads/cores will be supported are there any specific points to bear in mind when building a setup for running terragen? Is there any real differance between AMD and Intel? What kind of setup gives best bang for buck? I'm sure that the 3d preview will be inprooved but I dont see it taking advantage of some of the more esoteric opengl functions available in some graphics chipsets. That said X-Fire (or is it Cross Fire) support would be cool if it improoved redraw times.
Whats everyones thoughts on this?
Richard Fraser
There are rumors that an 8-core Apple Mac Pro is going to be released soon. That would be the ultimate rendering system for Terragen, since Terragen doesn't use video cards for the final render, only processors.
Yeah, the 8-core machine would be pretty awesome ;).
that is if terragen 2 gets optimised to use all 8 cores ;D ;D ;D it would be awesome at rendering no doubt
Matt said once that he will try to optimize Terragen so that it will take as many cores as there are available :).
something like what Apophysis has would be great where it lets you select how many cores your cpu has up to 8cores...
Programming for multiple cores is difficult.
I once saw on apple website, they were offering this:
A 16 Core processor
16TB HDD
8TB Ram
About 4GB of Video Memory (dont remember this figure exactly)
plus other accessories including 30" Apple Cinema Display
It was all adding up to the price of US$16000 (I am not making this up)
now THAT would be an Ultimate Rendering System for Terragen
But I dont see that page anymore....and ya....this was before Intel chips were introduced into MAC's
that hardly looks like a desktop pc 8TB of ram????
it is not windows based pc...its MAC
dhavalmistry - even though I would love it if Apple came out with one of those, I don't see it happening right now. I don't think you could fit 4TB RAM inside anything smaller than a room ;).
you guys dont believe me......I am gonna have to find that page....
Perhaps it's Apple bending the figures by using the decimal system instead of the binary and sneakily putting Tb instead if TB. The RAM is definitely the most suspicious figure there - 8TB of RAM is very high considering the hard drive only has a capacity of 16TB...
Yeah... Apple usually doesn't do that, though. If you look at their current pages, everything is in honest-to-goodness GB and TB.
sorry guys...my bad....its not computer...it is Xserve (Raid server)
They have changed the page since I last visited about 2 years ago.....
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/6564005/wo/x25M2YnROVgD2ZMh8EMjCZRjlxi/2.?p=0
Quote from: old_blaggard on March 20, 2007, 01:58:06 PM
Yeah... Apple usually doesn't do that, though. If you look at their current pages, everything is in honest-to-goodness GB and TB.
Apple regularly make up rubbish about the quality of their security so my suspicion was not totally unfounded...
Quote from: dhavalmistry on March 20, 2007, 02:01:12 PM
sorry guys...my bad....its not computer...it is Xserve (Raid server)
They have changed the page since I last visited about 2 years ago.....
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/6564005/wo/x25M2YnROVgD2ZMh8EMjCZRjlxi/2.?p=0
What a shame...
One of these (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6547) looks like a good option ;D
The constant flow of information about how much power that thing uses up worries me, but it does look like a good option...
Quote from: andytw on March 21, 2007, 03:31:38 PM
One of these (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6547) looks like a good option ;D
I wonder if it can be overclocked?
But seriously, I have been trying to work out why Xeons are seen as inferior to their Core 2 Duo cousins for a graphics workstation. As far as I can see its a historical/symantic issue. Because Xeons in their early development were made for the server market they have never been seen as a good choice for a graphics workstation. In fact, as far as I can tell, Xeons are no differant to the Core 2 Duo, although they do come in more pricey, need specialised RAM (I think) and have the advantage of being able to be mounted on dual socket boards. I'm seriously starting to lean towards a dual socket Xeon system with a stack of ram.
Richard
Xeons *were* historically "inferior" for the most performance-demanding applications, especially non-multithreaded ones, because they have generally been lower clocked (including bus speed) as compared to their desktop/workstation brethren. They tended to be upgraded at a slower rate as well. This is all theoretically in the service of maximum stability - more rigorous testing is supposedly done for server-level CPU's and so they clock them lower because fewer of them can pass the rigorous tests at higher speeds. Not sure if I buy that, but there you go.
In any case in the past the disparity between Xeon (server CPU) and desktop CPU's was greater. Now they are based on much closer fundamental architecture and are more on parity in terms of performance. You do pay a good premium for Xeon baseline hardware, but the CPU's seem roughly price-competitive I believe (maybe a slight premium per clock). The thing is with Core 2 Duo and now quads, you can have a dual or quad core system in a workstation case with other normally aspirated components for the same or less than a Xeon system - the Xeon offers little advantage in that case. The only upshot of it is you can pack even more into a Xeon *if* you have the money - e.g. dual quad cores. Me I'd still go for a Core 2 Duo (or quad core if I could afford it), but if you're really interested in Xeon the Mac Pro's may actually be the cheapest way to enter that market from a major retailer (building it yourself may be cheaper).
- Oshyan
when amds 4X4 motherboard is released having 2 quad core cpus will make a nice render machine...though its a power hungry setup
Yeah, I'd really rather just have an Intel quad core and I question whether there would be much price of performance difference. If you take the cost of the whole system into account the 4x4 is going to need a bigger PSU and probably more expensive motherboard, so it is almost bound to cost more unless you use pretty cheap X2's in it.
- Oshyan
I don't know about you guys... but I could go for this: http://cray.com/products/x1e/specifications.html
1024 CPU's, 18.4 TFLOPS, and 4TB of RAM could come in handy I think :P
Now to find somewhere to place all those cabinets...
Umm, a Cray X1E Supercomputer isn't that called over kill? Not to mention the cost, the power requirement's (Dedicated substation I would think) then there are considerations such as space, having the floor reinforced, the noise and HVAC considerations.
As to the Tyan PSC I have come across these before and if you could get TG2 to run on one that would be sweet render times would be reduced by orders of magnitude, but I don't think TG2 was coded with parallel computing in mind, or even if you could run it on a cluster?
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
Haha I know, I just thought I would throw a massive supercomputer in here for varieties sake.
Another (http://www.armari.co.uk/overview.asp?selCat=Eight+CPU) option which should run Terragen quite well (if it can utilise all 16 cores).
Note that while it is aimed at the server market, it can be configured as a workstation with (up to) Quadro X2 graphics.
It could be interesting if it compatible with AMD's Quad core Opterons (when released) giving a handy 32 cores to play with.
Quote from: andytw on March 22, 2007, 06:22:21 PM
Another (http://www.armari.co.uk/overview.asp?selCat=Eight+CPU) option which should run Terragen quite well (if it can utilise all 16 cores).
Note that while it is aimed at the server market, it can be configured as a workstation with (up to) Quadro X2 graphics.
It could be interesting if it compatible with AMD's Quad core Opterons (when released) giving a handy 32 cores to play with.
lol....thats some POWER!!!
starting price £5500 :o :o
that thing would cost a arm and a leg to power, its for 4 psu's....
also the top end one is £18000...
maybe something like this. the top of the line by tyan, 10 quad core cpu's...
http://www.tyanpsc.com/Products/ProductDetail/tabid/64/Default.aspx?id=5&data=1 (http://www.tyanpsc.com/Products/ProductDetail/tabid/64/Default.aspx?id=5&data=1)
dhav, you single handedly reduced my system to a pocket calculator, I'll never feel adequate again :'(
Interesting that all these uber machines are all Tyan, isn't anyone else making something in this league?
Richard
Quote from: VorpalBlade on March 26, 2007, 01:01:44 AM
dhav, you single handedly reduced my system to a pocket calculator, I'll never feel adequate again :'(
dont feel bad...my computer is no faster then yours.... ;)
$1000 could get you a PS3, and if that works out well, could be quite a good 8 core workstation :P
Technically speaking the "Cell" processor in the PS3 is capable of parallel processing my understanding is that some cancer research scientist's what to do with the PS3 what the SETI institute did with the PC, and that is use PS3's not been used by there users to play games (Down Time) and make use of the "Cell" processors' in them to do Anti Cancer Research.
If TG2 where capable of parallel processing then you could take advantage of the processing power in the PS3 if you designed your software architecture to do so then you could have a type of render farm, maybe.
Regards to you.
Cyber-Angel
disco, technically it'd be 6 cores, b/c 1 is like a back-up kinda thing and the other is reserved for the OS, but it'd still be nice.
Well, keeping it realistic... an 8-core Mac Pro was just released using a special Xeon processor at 3Ghz, which makes it arguably the fastest personal workstation on the planet right now.
If CPGPU was developed enough to allow consumers to use it,TG2 would render quite fast. especially using something like a 8800 generation core
Mm yes, 6 cores, but still, that's 6 dedicated cores, since on PC if you use single core it's still running your OS :P
CPGPU...eh...fun indeed..
A PS3 (Cell) "core" is not at all the equivalent of a general purpose core on for example a Core 2 Duo or Athlon 64 X2 CPU. Just something to keep in mind. ;) PS3 probably *would* make a good render machine, but it's hard to say just how it would compare a good dual or quad core machine. It's not likely that we'll be supporting PS3 any time soon though.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on April 09, 2007, 04:54:22 PM
It's not likely that we'll be supporting PS3 any time soon though.
Blast! :P Well, not so much PS3 but Mercury's PCIe
Cell Accelerator Board - http://www.mc.com/products/productdetail.aspx?id=2590&ProductTypeFolder=56 - looks really tasty too... except for the fact it's $8K. But still, nice to see this sort of thing happening - at least the option is there if you are a pro with the budget to match.
The Cell Accelerator Board (CAB) is a PCI Express® accelerator card based on the Cell Broadband Engine™ (BE) processor in a package designed for high-performance environments. This comprehensive user-programmable solution offers order-of-magnitude faster processing for graphics, image, and signal processing workloads. Performance scales dramatically when the application is distributed across multiple Cell Accelerator Boards in a cluster or across the network.
Mercury has mapped key algorithms onto the solution, significantly increasing the performance advantages for high-performance computing applications.There's always dreaming for the rest of us. :)
Hehe, and right there lies the problem. PS3 costs $600 and has a Cell processor at a higher clock speed (3.2Ghz), albeit with only 6 cores available for processing (as opposed to 8 on the Cell Accelerator Board). Still, for less than 1/10th the price you can get an overall siimilar performance (or perhaps slightly less). The main differences are in the fact that it's a separate unit, not a board in your computer, and in the software. But bottom line I'd sooner see PS3 support for rendering through major apps than support for that thing. I do wonder if anything worth mentioning even supports it yet too. Cell is not an easy thing to take advantage of and even big development houses like Autodesk would have to invest significant resources to get for example Maya rendering properly on it.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on April 28, 2007, 01:32:56 PMCell is not an easy thing to take advantage of and even big development houses like Autodesk would have to invest significant resources to get for example Maya rendering properly on it.
Some developments - http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200708/07-070E/index.html - Sony will be showcasing their new "Cell Computing Board (prototype)" at Siggraph - a board designed specifically towards "computer graphics and scientific computations". It looks like they'll have Houdini running on it - http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/b2b/broadcast_production/display_systems/release/31008.html - Hopefully it wont be too long before other players jump on it also - not much use if it stays niche and priced at a gazillion dollars (assuming that's currently the case??).
All we need now is to get TG2 locked and out of the door as soon as pos so the guys can start recouping some money, hire more hands, and get Tezza running on something like this...
:)
Edit: Looks like mental images have got in on the act too - http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/b2b/broadcast_production/display_systems/release/31006.html :)
is terragen multi threaded and is it 32bit or 64?
It is not yet multithreaded and is currently 32 bit. The render engine will be multithreaded before release and we do also hope to provide a 64 bit version.
- Oshyan
Just out of curiosity, how could 64-bit help enhance the program? It would obviously make much more RAM available for those of us who need large object populations, but would it also help improve render speed?
It is possible it could help improve render speed. Most rendering these days requires fairly high precision and the calculations could be done faster in 64 bit I would think (I could be way off base on that though ;D). Also simply having access to more memory could speed heavy scenes up a lot, of course. Only time will really tell how these possibilities pan out in practice.
- Oshyan
Well I'm also planning to buy a new computer since I've just pre-purchased TG2.
If I'm correct AMD will release the Barcelona-(quad)core in Q4 2007 and I think this will further reduce the prices of quad-cores.
I think the best time for buying a new render computer would be at the end of this year.
It will probably be a 3GHz quadcore with (at least) 4GB RAM.
Martin
Quote from: old_blaggard on August 10, 2007, 06:57:32 PM
Just out of curiosity, how could 64-bit help enhance the program? It would obviously make much more RAM available for those of us who need large object populations, but would it also help improve render speed?
As I understand, 64bit helps with greater precision when using large numbers. For example, in any 3D program, if you have a point that is very far away from the origin, say 1,000,000,000,000,001 units, then the 3D program will need to round the number to a length that it can handle, which results in irregularities. 64bit allows for greater precision allowing you to maintain stability when dealing with large numbers.
64bit doesn't necessarily speed up renders, as much as it does to handle numbers better. The speed of the CPU is what you need to increase to help speed up rendering mainly.
Thanks for the clarification :).