multi GPU experiences ?

thell_michael

Hi

I m currently running DAZ on my PNY A5000 and I m always quite on the dedicated VRam limit so while i m having eyes on the new A6000ada being released soon i m not sure if the stiff price will be worth the invenstment.

So... as Windows and other programms constantly use at least 1-2 gig dedicated VRam and Daz itself takes 2-4 gig dedicated VRam all the time I was considering adding another GPU to the system for basicly running Windows and apps while the 5000 is just rendering

Would that work without using ton of special tools or software hacks? Anyone having any experience with using multiple GPUs

my Ideal upgrade by end of the year would be 

2x A5000 purely for DAZ Iray rendering (does NVLink work ? getting mixed info on that)
1x A4000 for Designing Scenes in DAZ and handling the other Windows crap

oh and i m running on Win 10

thx

robertswww

@thell_michael I'm not sure how you are running out of VRAM unless you are using 8K textures and high subD settings, as the PNY nVidia RTX A5000 Ampere card features 24GB GDDR6 GPU memory. Many Daz Users can get by with 4GB-8GB of VRAM (while not using the computer for multi-tasking in other apps while rendering).

Look near the bottom of your log file for your last rendered scene to check your amount of Geometry Memory Consumption, Texture Memory Consumption, etc.
Daz Studio HELP Menu --> Troubleshooting --> View Log File

FYI: The A5000 does support NVLink..  According to nVidia it's, "Faster than PCIe-based solutions".

Sources: 
https://www.pny.com/nvidia-rtx-a5000
https://pnypartners.com/wp-content/uploads/nvidia-rtx-a5000-datasheet.pdf

2 tools by V3Digitimes that you may want to look into...

Scene Analyzer Organizer Simplifier
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-analyzer-organizer-simplifier

Scene Optimizer
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

PerttiA

robertswww said:

Look near the bottom of your log file for your last rendered scene to check your amount of Geometry Memory Consumption, Texture Memory Consumption, etc.
Daz Studio HELP Menu --> Troubleshooting --> View Log File

Nvidia removed the information about the VRAM usage of geometry and textures from the log in later versions. DS 4.15 has them.

thell_michael

robertswww said:

@thell_michael I'm not sure how you are running out of VRAM unless you are using 8K textures and high subD settings, as the PNY nVidia RTX A5000 Ampere card features 24GB GDDR6 GPU memory. Many Daz Users can get by with 4GB-8GB of VRAM (while not using the computer for multi-tasking in other apps while rendering).

Look near the bottom of your log file for your last rendered scene to check your amount of Geometry Memory Consumption, Texture Memory Consumption, etc.
Daz Studio HELP Menu --> Troubleshooting --> View Log File

FYI: The A5000 does support NVLink..  According to nVidia it's, "Faster than PCIe-based solutions".

Sources: 
https://www.pny.com/nvidia-rtx-a5000
https://pnypartners.com/wp-content/uploads/nvidia-rtx-a5000-datasheet.pdf

2 tools by V3Digitimes that you may want to look into...

Scene Analyzer Organizer Simplifier
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-analyzer-organizer-simplifier

Scene Optimizer
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

hi

i have many 4k+ renders with at least 5+ (non background) figures in the scenes, mostly gen8.1 and now more and more gen 9s, subD is between 2 and 4 depending on how close to the camera and if there are scars or similar morphs in play
on larger scenes with 10+ charas I moved to composit rendering the scene 2-3 times with different non interfering characters invisible
and i know about the vignette ideas, but that s not really working for me as much as i have often scene series where most/all characters are somehow moving 
i can do my work ;) i d just like to do it quicker by throwing more computing power to the mix

i know about the NWLink in theory how it works. But i have also seen some creater videos on youtube claiming it doesn t work anymore in DAZ and crashes whenever enabled 
I ve contacted DAZ support on the topic, but they couldn t tell me if it works or not and will come back to me (that was 2+ months ago)
so far i don t have a definit answer and i didn t find anyone running an nwlink setup currently, at least on previous post, i didn t get any replies about it, just comments that it is supposed to work...

 

 

robertswww

@thell_michael Wow, it does look like you really do max-out the VRAM usage with high subD settings and multiple detailed characters in a single scene.

Unfortunately, not too many Daz users have 2 NVLink GPUs, so it's hard to come by good info, and especially recent info in regards to Daz Studio iRay.

@pandapenguingames was the last Daz user that I heard of that got NVLink to work in June 2020 "2x 2080TI with NVLink and memory pooling"
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5701921/#Comment_5701921

There's also this article online...

How to Enable and Test NVIDIA NVLink on Quadro and GeForce RTX Cards in Windows 10
https://www.pugetsystems.com/support/guides/how-to-enable-and-test-nvidia-nvlink-on-quadro-and-geforce-rtx-cards-in-windows-10-1266/

Hopefully, someone who has recently tried multiple GPUs with NVLink and a recent version of DS will see this thread and comment on its current status as viable or not.