Networking 5 Graphics Cards
RexRed
Posts: 1,298
I would like to make this a discussion rather than answering one question, I would like to critique and review my new system while asking advice.
I have read in the forums that I can install my DAZ content on as many computers as I own and personally use (within reason).
I am wondering about sharing my content with a second PC so I can speed up renders though I would prefer extending my PCIE slots
I just bought two Titan RTX and I still have my three 1080 Ti. 1080ti's have an ample amount of cuda cores.
Currently I have two Titan RTX's and one 1080ti in my system. The other two 1080ti's are sitting on a shelf.
At first, I thought well, why not sell my 1080ti's?
Then the idea of having them in a second machine became appealing to use the cuda cores.
My idea is for single frame rendering where I use a ton of geometry, all the bells and whistles, a lot of VRAM and uncompressed textures, I will use the two Titan RTXs to render alone.
But for animations, I will use a lot of texture compression and set the iterations low and keep the scenes under 11 GB.
Then I can use all 5 cards to render and utilize all the cuda cores...
This is easier said than done...
I am thinking of sharing a hard drive with my Daz content with a second PC to render my scenes.
Or i would prefer just building a motherboard extension so I can add 3 more PCIE to my existing rig.
Then there is the question of bandwidth...
How many graphics cards can I add before I run into a PCIE lanes bottleneck?
I could use the two the Titan RTX in my main board and with the third PCIE slot, buy a PCIE extension cable and run that to a remote board where I can put my three 1080ti's.
Would that remote board have enough lanes access in my main board to run all three cuda cores at top speeds? I have an Intel I9 12 core CPU.
I think the lane configuration is 44 lanes though some are used for system stuff. I really don't think all 5 cards' cuda cores will bottleneck out the lanes.
I would rather not duplicate my DAZ content but go with the external PCIE board and run some power extenders to my power supply.
I have a 1600-watt power supply I would think that would be enough to run all 5 cards.
I do have an extra 32 gb 3000mhz XMP ram, another 1000 watt power supply, I would need another motherboard and chip, hard drives, a tower case, fans and DAZ networking software and monitors where the heck would I put them?
What would you do?
I have enough cuda cores to render a large single frame scene it takes about 2 hours or a bit longer to render a single frame at 10000 x 10000 with the two Titan RTX's
But to render an animation at 1080p it can take up to 6 hours to render about 7 seconds of video and that is with setting the iterations really low and compressing textures so the scene will fit in my 11 gb threshold.
With all 5 cards running that might cut it almost in half.
I need to make a lot of small animation clips.
I need at least two Genesis 8 characters, hair, clothes, 4k textures and a minimal environment with nice lighting.
I am leaning towards extending my PCIE lanes I would like it all in one machine if possible.
What hardware board and enclosure should I buy to do this?
The Titan RTX’s are really nice, the memory size in NVLINK is almost overkill.
The lacking element is cuda cores but only when it gets to rendering animations.
I need a system that will fly through simple HD animations.
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Comments
Today I was thinking that if I put the 1080ti's into a separate pc then while one PC is rendering I can be creating scenes with the other PC.
I can always set up a rendering network for at night while I am sleeping and they can both render.
So now I am shifting from having once PC with an extension PCIE board to have two dedicated PCs...
I know I can use a script to be able to have two instances of Daz open at once but the Iray preview will not be very snappy with the PC rendering in the background.
That's what I did; splitting all my acquired GPUs across two systems. Venturing off the more beaten paths with 4 GPUs in a regular consumer case has caused me a lot of headache that I brought on myself; I'm convinced that these configurations just aren't tested by all the vendors. I won't be doing that again when I upgrade.
Thanks for the help on this Mystery, I appreciate the input and it was very useful. I bought a second computer last night.
Awesome.
You've probably got the system RAM for it, so If you've been participating in the trend to get Daz content into Blender, it is actually very easy to get one instance of Blender per GPU, and to render alternating frames in each. The speedup is actually greater than rendering with all GPUs in one instance.
Hmmm I am not very proficient with Blender though I would love to be. Blender has a lot of side tools that are great.
I am shocked that I was able to buy a computer for around $600 that matches the speed of my I9 that I paid $3500 for three years ago.
I am going to try the network rendering, the new computer comes with 2.5 GB LAN and 4.0 PCIE but only 24 lanes. My other PC has 44 lanes.
That should transfer files quite fast.
I am swimming in details and considerations. Which computer should I use for what?
They both have their own unique strengths and weaknesses.
I am learning huge things that a week ago I had never even heard of or considered before.
That has been the case lately.
I am going to try and share my Daz runtime over the network and see if that works. I don't even know how to do that yet but Google has the instructions.
I have a spare 32 gb of ram left over from when I upgraded my other computer to 64gb.
I don't like the idea of downloading all of my models again but Daz content manager would do it with no problem and I have fiberoptic internet.
I could probably download them all within a couple hours.
I have over 2000 Daz Store products, that is a lot of duplication what are your thoughts on that idea?
I have 442 GB of Daz models, I am becoming more inclined to the idea of mirroring the files on a local hard drive on the second computer so all I need to do is share One Drive project files.
I'm sorry, I don't really have any ideas on that because I don't understand how the Daz Runtime works. Granted, I haven't really tried either, but it seems overly complicated.
At the risk of belaboring the point, Blender doesn't suffer from these problems, and a person like you, who obviously likes being creative about the whole thing and has no fear of pushing buttons and twisting knobs, would benefit from a program that actually supports you in your endeavors: A .blend file can be made into a self-contained unit so that all that is needed is the .blend file, and any cache files generated by simulation, or animation data. It can be made todo many things just from the command line, like being told to use a specific GPU, and render every 4th frame. I know it's no small task, but it really seems like you would love Blender for many reasons beyond just the visuals it can produce.
I really love Blender but I go in there and look at the interface and my mind gets put in a Blender. I know it is just the beginning learning curve I am experiencing and just a few YouTube videos on Blender and I would be well on my way to learning it.
I am having so much fun in Daz though. Everyday I learn new things that Daz does.
I have learned so much so fast in Daz I am hoping someday I do not take a small break from it and suddenly forget half of what I know now.
I am hesitant to use Blender because I have not seen the new converter convert a figure "and its pose" into Blender yet
That would be a deal breaker.
I really feel that if I was going to take the time to learn Blender that I would probably do better to learn Maya or Max.
On the other front, I have two computers (well one is coming soon) and all the the parts for the most part will interchange into each other.
All of these parts are varying degrees of strengths.
Like I have 64 gb of ram and 32 gb of ram which computer would benefit from more ram?
I have one copy of Windows 10 home and one copy of Windows 10 Pro.
Which computer would benefit from from the Pro version?
I am thinking that since Pro has remote desktop capabilities the computer without the onboard Daz content might benefit from the pro version.
Also that computer also has a 2.5 gb ethernet lan.
But maybe the pro version has better hardware features and can help speed up my renders.
I am just at first going to get them both up and running and then switch things and test them out that way if the need arises.
@RexRed
The Diffeomorphic Daz Importer, at least right now, is superior to the Daz To Blender plugin in just about every way. If you're going to make a judgment call about Daz content in Blender, you might want to take that into consideration. The material conversion is pretty darned good, vastly superior to DTB, and @JClave is working on an IRay shader for Cycles. All three of these projects are going to work together.
The products to convert items to Blender sound very cool, A lot of things from Blender (simple objects) can be brought into Daz but there are many things that need to remain in Blender because of the complexity of the systems and how they relate to the renderer. Also, the inherent geometry is different.
This reminds me of my two computers. They are redundant in many ways and each one has its strengths and weaknesses. There is isn't a clear-cut definitive answer to use one for this and one for that in most cases because there is so much gray area that overlaps.
DAZ sure has a lot of model resources available.
For years I tried to use Daz studio and failed every time.
The reason why was every time I would try to use it I would start out by importing an object from some other 3d program (Poser or Bryce) into Daz.
I would add a pose or hair and the model would turn into spaghetti.
It was not until I learned that if I stuck solely with Daz models and remained in Daz Studio all the way to the render that I could actually build a scene that would not come crashing down due to tweaking one minor thing.
Once I realized this, I immediately began collecting thousands of Daz models.
I rarely ever need to import or export anything.
Every once in a while, I will need an object that is not available in the Daz Store.
Then I have the option of trying to learn Blender and spending day and days... weeks to learn to make one single object i.e. a donut with sprinkles.
Or, I can look for the obj file in one of the free sites.
This reminds me of my music.
Some people are band members they play one instrument… well, they come in play their part and leave and I have to, write the lyrics, sing the vocals,
edit their parts, mix them into the song, master the song, publish, advertise, respond to all the fan comments, and see that royalties are collected.
Other people don't even know how to play an instrument, they only like to dance and listen to music.
One stage there are the front people, the actors who face the audience and the background people who work with pulling ropes and securing the scene design.
All the world is a stage, but not everyone is on it.
Like computer programs, making a computer program working for hours on end programing in a dungeon and rarely seeing the light of day.
And then there are the users who use your program and they have millions of subscribers and show everyone how to use your program. They are in the front while the programmer is in the back.
That is the way I see Blender vs Daz .
Background people make the models in Blender and someone like me takes their hard work and places it in a scene with a bunch of other models that took months perhaps years to make and my scene is what the world eventually sees.
But when I go into Blender I am lost.
I am a front person, I sing in the microphone I don’t work in the factory making the microphone, I don’t work with the mixer in the shadows, I make the scene not the models. I make the music I don't program the software that is used to make the music.
Though, I may make suggestions on new features that might be helpful.
I do know my place in this world and behind the scenes my abilities are lost.
People need to find out where they belong, on stage or behind the stage supporting the productions.
Does Stephen King want to be an actor or a writer? lol :)
Do they make the scenes or make the elements that make up the scene?
I think this is why I find Blender, ZBrush, 3DMax, Maya... too difficult to master.
The idea of creating a character or making their skin from scratch when I can just double click and the character is there for me and I can morph them into whatever.
I can symphonize all the elements rather than concentrating on only one thing.
When I get bogged down in a scene and one element takes many hours to make, I lose something in the creative process.
Perhaps some originality is sacrificed but it is the overall composition that is the originality not the individual elements.
It is a final complex scene and not a render of one thing alone.
This is where I seem to be across the board, in music, on stage and in visual design.
I would rather be in front of adoring fans than locked in a cellar for months on end compiling code...
I would rather buy my paint brushes than go plucking hairs off camels.
:)