Rapid RT Render info

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've used a lot of different software over the past 20 years and been through a good few different render engines.  However I'm trying to find details on the best hardware configuration for running Rapid RT rendering.  I cannot find any comprehensive information about it.  

I've currently got a machine which is built to produce the fastest renders for another piece of software which runs Redway rendering.  Therefore it uses the cores (threads) on the processor to produce the fastest renders.  Hence I'm running a PC with a dual Xeon setup which gives me 88 threads to play with.  However I know they all tend to work differently and I may have to improve my GPU, switch to a faster clock speed on an individual i7 instead etc etc.  

Any info or pointers on this Rapid RT render engine would be very much appreciated.

Kind regards

Nathan Mincham

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I have seen your post and have tried to research this topic for you but so far I have come up empty handed.  I am assured by one of our 3DS Max specialists that your current configuration should be more than adequate.  If I can find some more details on the Rapid RT rendering engine I will add another post.

I apologize for this late reply but I was hoping that I could uncover more facts for you.

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

Thank you for replying.  I've only just come across your post.

In practice my PC does seem more than fine however its one of these things where by having a PC tied up rendering it completely halts all other work.  If we could find out more information regarding the Rapid RT engine it could be very beneficial.  In fact the option of Cloud Rendering is a very attractive one.  I also use Autodesk Fusion 360 and the Cloud Rendering function on that is very useful.

Surely Autodesk must have contact details for the engineers responsible for Rapid RT?  Are there any other senior figures who may have this type of information?

Thanks in advance

Nathan

[john.vellek]

Hi Nathan, 

I have tried reaching out internally and didn't get much response. Let me try again to see if I can get you some more specifics.

Thanks again for your patience on this issue.

[Anonymous]

Thank you John, I really appreciate your help.

Nathan

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I haven't forgotten you. I finally found some folks to talk to about this.  They assured me that they would try to pull something together for your information. I am still waiting but I think we will get some answers. Thanks again for your patience.

[larsene]

Having a fast CPU with many cores is the most important aspect for running RapidRT.  How old is your CPU?  If it is > 5 years old, consider upgrading to a system with the latest CPU.  You will also need a significant amount of RAM: 8GB, 16GB or greater is ideal.  This also implies the system should be running 64-bit version of Windows to make full use of the RAM; 32-bit is not recommended for RapidRT.  RapidRT does not make use of the GPU, so nothing is necessary there.  That's really it: fast CPU, a lot of RAM, GPU doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Hi Larsene,

I'm running a dual Xeon setup.  Using two of these:

https://ark.intel.com/products/91317/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2699-v4-55M-Cache-2_20-GHz 

So 22 cores each but only 2.2GHz.  I just wondered if there was any way to increase the render settings and speed them up.

Thanks for your reply.

Nathan

[larsene]

Yes, those Xeons are plenty fast enough. If you haven't already tried, I'd suggest experimenting with options in the RPREF dialog.  Low or Medium preset, Render By Level < 5, Render Accuracy Draft or Low.  You will get faster renders however quality will probably be lower.

[dgorsman]

You're getting into the region where hardware matters less, and work processes and settings matter more e.g. avoiding "expensive" materials and textures, limit needs for shadows and transparencies, simplify geometries, and so on.

I don't see you mention how much RAM your system has.  A good rule of thumb for CPU-based rendering is 1 -2 GB per hyperthreaded core, so if you have 44 physical cores you should have ~ 48 GB.  If the processors support hyperthreading you should be considering 1.5x to 2x that amount; if you have "only" 16 - 24 GB your system may be starved for RAM and is resorting to paging to the hard drive to support the extra rendering threads.

You're likely at the point where you should be looking at other software such as Navisworks or 3DSMAX for improved rendering results.  Both of them work with CPU-based renderers which are quite fast even with large, complex models (provided the settings are optimized; 3DSMAX has extensive settings available to help balance quality vs. speed).  Both programs are included with Suite and Collection licenses.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> however its one of these things where by having a PC tied up

>> rendering it completely halts all other work

In the taskmanager you can assign cores to the ACAD.EXE, by default the renderjob takes every processor power he can get.

You can then change the assignment e.g. to not use core 0 and 1 (so they stay free to other processes).

... as shown >>>here<<<

- alfred -