Error "[gpu] no compatible NVIDIA GPUs found (GPU-rendering)";

[blastframe]

Hello,

I recently purchased a subscription to Maya 2020 and I'm trying to get Arnold to work with my GPUs. They are a bit older, NVIDIA Titan Blacks, but they are running their latest driver (457.30). I use these GPUs for rendering in other software: Octane in Cinema 4D, Cycles in Blender, & the Adobe Creative Suite with no issue.

When I open Arnold's Render View and change the Render Device to GPU, I get this error and it stops rendering:

error -noContext "[gpu] no compatible NVIDIA GPUs found (GPU-rendering)";
// Error: [gpu] no compatible NVIDIA GPUs found (GPU-rendering) // 

I have MtoA 4.1.0 and Arnold Core 6.0.3.0 installed.

How can I get Arnold to recognize my GPUs? Thank you.

[Stephen.Blair]

Do you see nvml.dll in C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI ?

If not, can you try copying nvml.dll from C:\WINDOWS\system32 to C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI (after you create that folder) ?

[blastframe]

@Emmanuel Belvisée, I appreciate that your problem is similar to mine, but it might be for different reasons. Please open your own thread for this issue so we both can get attention and focus to our specific configurations. You can follow this thread if you think it might provide answers to your problem. Thank you.

@Stephen Blair Thank you for the suggestion. I followed your advice, but I'm still getting the error.

[blastframe]

@Stephen Blair I've linked my Maya .log file. From what I can tell, the gpu error is the only message about the issue (line 1641).

https://pastebin.com/c4CePK4k

[thiago.ize · Accepted solution]

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK GPU uses the Kepler architecture. Arnold requires newer GPUs. See https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5ARP/Supported+GPUs for details.

[blastframe]

@Thiago Ize Thank you.

[Thavasi_Varatharaj]

did you find any solution? I too got the same error and I use Nvidia GEFORCE GT 730. Appreciate your help.

[thiago.ize]

Your GPU is too old as it's based on the Kepler architecture.

[Thavasi_Varatharaj]

Thank you. which one you would suggest

[thiago.ize]

https://techgage.com/article/mid-2021-gpu-rendering-performance/2/ has some GPU comparisons using two scenes in Arnold. Also important to consider is how much memory the GPU has as your scene will have to fit within GPU memory. You can roughly get an idea for that by rendering your scene on CPU, seeing how much memory was reported used by arnold, and then add on a few more GB for GPU.

[Thavasi_Varatharaj]

Thank you for your valuable input