Maya 2015 GPU Rendering and Hardware

[Anonymous]

Hi, Quick question.

I am running Maya 2015 SP5, with an Nvidia K4000 Graphics Card and Nvidia K20 Tesla.

Is Maya is able to harness the K20 for GPU rendering (primarily in viewport 2.0) along with the K4000?

When I look in Preferences/GPU Cache, it only seems to recognize the K4000.

I've done a lot of research on this, and seems the K20 isn't of much use in Maya, unless I am using a plugin that can harness the k20 (like Octane Render).

Anyone have any thoughts?

aA

[pshwayka]

See the thread linked below...

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-general/noob-rendering-with-gpu/td-p/5532646

[Anonymous]

Interesting that MRay is beta-testing GPU Rendering. Will check that out.

My main concern, however, is whether Maya 2015 is utilizing the K20 card for any standard applications (Viewport 2.0, Dynamics, etc.)

[pshwayka]

Since Viewport 2.0 operates in either OpenGL or DirectX11 mode, it has to utilize the K20 card...and the higher-end compatible cards should certainly provide an advantage in terms of speed, smoothness, etc.

[Anonymous]

I agree. Maya should use the K20 for Viewport 2.0, but I can't find anything in the settings that actually confirms Maya is recognizing anything outside of the K4000 graphics card. The K4000 is doing its job in Viewport 2.0, but I'd like the K20 to work in tandem with it.

[Anifex09]

The answer to your question is No it does not. Now in the future DIRECTX 12 will be able to use the Tesla's RAM but for now it can only take advantage of the card driving the Display.

[alfred]

Hi, I'm new to this forum. Hope this is the right group to as the following question.

Trying to find out what are the best configuration for a PC to run Maya simulation like bifrost, fluid and cloth.

Same goes for rendering speed.

Hope someone can point me to the right direction here. Thanx.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback.  That was my assumption, good to get some solid info.  Will DX12 be a thing by Maya 2016?

[Anonymous]

Hey Anifex.

Check out this link.

Nvidia maximus builders guide: 

http://www.nvidia.com/content/quadro/maximus/maximus-system-builders-guide-win-7-64.pdf

[pshwayka]

Did you see this part?  Seems to indicate that the Tesla does indeed help with rendering.  (But not Viewport 2.0)

[Anonymous]

Yes, we did see that here, and are investigating our Nvidia Maximus setup. Seems our config may have been wrong initially.

In the Nvidia control panel, it's important to set your Graphics Car (K4000 in my case) to 'dedicate to graphics tasks', and Tesla (K20) to 'dedicate for compute needs' with 'Enable Error Correction Code' ticked. Next step is to check drivers..(will update when I have more info).

Interesting tidbit. Maya will only see the Graphics Card in the settings, but if you have your Computer and Nvidia hardware/software setup correctly, looks like Maximus technology handles utilization of the K20 for Maya in the background via the K4000. 

[pshwayka]

I was wondering about that...the part about Maya not seeing the card.  Since it's really just a co-processor, I'm not sure Maya ever will see it...even under DirectX12.  (Even if it does eventually help in the Viewport.)

[Anonymous]

Agreed. It is odd that Maya doesn't see the K20 co-processor, when other programs like After Effects CC do.

[pshwayka]

Your K20 is probably defective.  I can dispose of it for you. 

[Anifex09]

I can tell you that the Tesla Card is a huge time saver when using Motion Blur, Depth of field, Re time, Lens Flares and so on in Compositing apps that use GPU acceleration such as Nuke and Adobe After effects. As far as DirectX 12 goes - it is brand new and will most likely not be seen until Maya 2017. Things to be hopeful for would be GPU accelerated Fluids, GPU accelerated nDynamics, just task that could take advantage of the computational power of the tesla card.

[Anonymous]

Good to know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't some of the newer features in 2015, like Bifrost, utilize GPU acceleration already? If so, I'd be interested to know a standardized list of apps within Maya using the Tesla going forward

[Anifex09]

Last year Realflow 2015 managed to create a Hybrid system that could take advantage of the GPU using OPENCL while still using the CPU and it works quite well. The problem with adding GPU acceleration is creating that bridge so that when a sim exceeds the GPU memory cap it can continue using the CPU. Also the're several different methods to code for GPU such as CUDA that will only work with Nvidia. This code has access to all types of multitask acceleration to boost Maya's performance but, once again is every changing and would require a lot of time and effort for only the Maya users that used Nvidia cards. I am not certain but I do not think Bifrost uses any GPU acceleration when computing a sim, only CPU. Don't worry a lot of work is being done to eliminate the bridge between CPU and GPU.

[Anonymous]

interesting. seems maya 2015 is 'cart before the horse' with dedicated nVidia tesla computing. maybe jumping the gun with this k20 card as it relates to maya 2015?

[Anonymous]

**UPDATE**

If anyone is interested, after lots of testing here, we got the following response from Autodesk support regarding the Tesla K20:

"To my knowledge there is no GPU compute (CUDA) accelerated features in Maya 2015 other than the mental ray GI prototype (not enabled by default).
The Nvidia K20c Tesla card is a compute only card and so will have no effect on viewport performance either."

So it seems, if you are primarily a Maya user, nVidia's Maximus Technology isn't terribly relevant, esp. with Tesla compute cards.

I think the Mental Ray GI prototype is the 'beta' version that was mentioned earlier in this discussion string.