Questions about an NVIDIA GPUs & Maya

[blastframe]

Hi, I have a few questions about NVIDIA graphics cards & Maya. My focus is 3D animation & digital movie rendering.

1. Do NVIDIA GPUs accelerate CPU rendering in mental ray (through iray) in Maya?
2. Do mental ray/iray support multiple GPUs in Maya?
3. Can anyone recommend a CUDA-enabled NVIDIA GPU for use with Maya?

Thanks!

[alanmonroigcompany]

Hello,

As far as I know, mental ray does not use GPU at all, so the multiple GPUs question is irrelevant because it does not use even one. Mental ray works only using CPU and GPU does NOT accelarate the render. GPU is only used in maya for dynamic simulations and rendering the viewer. 

There are GPU based rendering softwares like "Furyball", GPU renders are faster and can manage real time rendering, but they are quality limited. Even thought they look like a good option in the future of rendering software.

For the CUDA question, I can not help you, but I am sure nVidia support can help you choosing what GPU best fits your needs.

Cheers,

Alan Monroig

[blastframe]

Hi Alan,
Thanks for the response. I was looking at the NVIDIA site and it looks like Ambient Occlusion is rendered on the GPU in mental ray (unless I'm reading it incorrectly).

I reached out to NVIDIA support, thanks.

[damaggio]

That's all correct, seems though that we might see GI also running on GPU for Maya 2015....in 2014 you can already use the GPU for AO I guess by setting up your String Options....Elementalray has posts on that in detail...........http://elementalray.wordpress.com/

[Anonymous]

Ambient Occlusion on the GPU is already integrated into Maya 2015 using a checkbox in the Passes Menu for AO pass attributes.

Global Illumination on the GPU is a preview (unfinished) feature in 3.12 with a CPU counterpart for times when there is no GPU available or the needs of the scene are too high for the GPU memory.

NVIDIA has promised one new GPU feature introduction every year in mental ray starting with 3.11

Previously mental ray could render CGFX shaders on the GPU and composite them into the final framebuffer but this was never integrated and GPUs had such limited capabilities that it didn't look great.