simple question about maya, vray and GPU-rendering

[begerdesign]

Hello,

is somebody out there using a mac with osx (not windows) with maya, v-ray (not vray RT) and a nvidia cuda GPU who is able to render with GPU.

If so, please give me the configuration.

Yesterday I tried with different settings, different maya versions, different drivers and different cuda graphics cards. But no configuration works. Best result was that the rendering started but then the rendering stopped and the image became black.

If you have a working configuration, it would be nice, if you could post it.

Thanks a lot

Thomas

[sean.heasley]

Hi @begerdesign

Can you attach your scene file here or via dropbox/google drive so I can try to render on my machine?

[begerdesign · Accepted solution]

Hi Sean,

thanks for your answer.

Meanwhile I found out, that GPU rendering is possible only with polygons not with nurbs-surfaces, This was my fault.

Thanks

Thomas

[ripster8690]

Hello

Is it possible to render in vray using a gpu, with maya 2014 on a mac pro 2009 4,1  ??

am currently using osx 10.11.6, and an Nvidia K5000 card. it starts to work, then after a minute, it stops rendering. I have updated it with all of the latest CUDA, and video card drivers.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

10.11.6 isn't on our certified system requirements for Maya 2014 so that may be why you're seeing this issue.

I'd recommend upgrading to a more recent version of Maya (at least 2016 since that is officially supported for your OS version).

[ripster8690]

hi Sean
I am currently on a 2009 mac pro 4,1 8 core, which only allows me to upgrade as high as El Capitan 10.11.6
are you saying that I need to be running a newer osx than el capitan for this to work?
if so
The problem i am currently faced with is getting my 4,1 flashed up to a 5,1 so i can run sierra or high sierra
however to that, i need the firmware links from apples website, but they have taken the links down.
you wouldn’t happen to know where these firmware file links are from other customers by chance?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

No your OS version is fine, you would need to upgrade the actual version of Maya.

You mentioned being on 2014, 2016 and up is where we support your current OS version.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

I'm just checking in again to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestion I provided on Friday work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[ripster8690]

hi Sean

I send more details on this case on 5-6-18. did you receive them. all i received was an email with a link to you asking if i need more help. let me know and i can resend the email, as it has attachments. 

thanks

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

I'm only handling the forum post specifically not your case if you have one.

If you'd like, please post the details here and I'd be happy to help you further!

Also, did you try updating your Maya version?

[ripster8690]

hi Sean
I took your advise, and dl maya 2018 as a trial to test it out with my K5000 card
i then setup all the proper drivers and restarted the computer.

Not sure what's going on but after I installed 2018 on my mac pro 2009 running osx 10.11.6, I had all kinds
of weird things happen. the finder windows icons had the text splashed across the files icon:


Curious to see it work, I tested maya 2018 on some existing files, and it seem to render them
properly on my network of CPUs.

So then i tried to use the K5000 to render 3 spheres using CUDA, and it seem to work, but took much too long to clean up
even on a simple scene of three spheres, inside a simple interior i made, i would expect that to render almost realtime, but it
took about 2minutes to clean up.

Also, i would think that running 4gig of video memory, i should be able to move fluidly around in my view port, it did not, it was
sluggish, and when testing with larger files, it was as if the card was not being used, but it shows up in all my settings.

Another thing that was happening, was that the attributes editors tabs in the maya interface would glitch. Something kept
appearing above the tabs called "Ai color temp" with a slider to the right of it, see attached:

normal


glitch


I tested the card in both maya 2014 and 2018, and got pretty much the same results

any thoughts

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

It sounds like the rendering issues are with CUDA not Maya itself since you mentioned it works normally until you tried to render with CUDA.

As for the viewport being slow, 4GB should be enough and those issues shouldn't be appearing. What GPU are you using and when you get a chance can you possibly show a video of these performance issues?

If you need a video capturing program, Screencast is a great option that we use here at Autodesk

As for the images you shared, there weren't any in your post which may have been because you responded by email. If that is the case, please come back here and manually post the images so I can take a look at them!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

Just wanted to check in to see how things were going. Are you still having this issue?

If your issue is resolved, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[ripster8690]

see notes

It sounds like the rendering issues are with CUDA not Maya itself since you mentioned it works normally until you tried to render with CUDA.
Yes thats true, there are no issues rendering with CPUs, and the CUDA Cores do a little bit of rendering, it just seems that rendering on a GPU, using over 1500 cores would take more time than 24 cpu cores on such small test files

As for the viewport being slow, 4GB should be enough and those issues shouldn't be appearing. What GPU are you using and when you get a chance can you possibly show a video of these performance issues?
Actually I got this part of the problem resolved, so the card is working when it comes to the video performance, i just don’t think that all the CUDA cores are being used when rendering, and am not sure if it has something to do with maya 2018, or osx 10.11 or both.


If you need a video capturing program, Screencast is a great option that we use here at Autodesk
i have one, thanks

so
I am not sure if this is an issue with maya 2018, if there something going on with the OSX, but there was a lot of glitching
while opening files, see attached screencast



what do you think is causing this problem?

[ripster8690]

no, still trying to resolve some issues
i just sent you a video showing glitches in maya 2018
let me know if it doesn’t go thru
thanks

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

The screencast didn't go through.

This might be happening if you are responding by email which if you are please come back to the forum and attach the screencast manually so I can take a look at it!

[ripster8690]

here is the screencast link using dropbox, its small, but you get the point

https://www.dropbox.com/s/88oi7db4jjq9p5k/Maya2818%20glichs.mov?dl=0

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ripster8690

Thanks for attaching the video!

The scene file you have open, is that from 2014 or is it a scene you completely made in 2018?

If it's from 2014, it's possible there's issues with the file being so old hence why the issues appear in 2018.

If it's not from 2014, you might want to change your rendering engine:

Please let me know if anything changes!

[ripster8690]

ok thanks, i will try that 

BTW, i did get the card to work in relation to the 4gig of video memory, the view port now moves very fluid, even with a 1.4 gig scene.

Our whole objective here is to find a solution to rendering animations. We just lost a customer who wanted us to do an animation project done at 1080p, of which i had to turn down, due to the fact that when i calculated it out, 

the processing time alone would have taken over 7 straight days to render.  

An Apple tech i talked to yesterday said that for some reason, Apple does not completely support CUDA, in that if you render using CUDA, you will only be able to use some of the cores, not all of them ??   

have you heard this at all?  perhaps from other customers?

We just need your recommendations as to whether or not there is anything left to explore with this card, before i send it back. I only have about 15 days left on the return policy. the K5000 card is the card that Autodesk recommends for my computer to do GPU rendering.

As always, we appreciate your help

[dgorsman]

---

@ripster8690 wrote:

ok thanks, i will try that 

BTW, i did get the card to work in relation to the 4gig of video memory, the view port now moves very fluid, even with a 1.4 gig scene.

Our whole objective here is to find a solution to rendering animations. We just lost a customer who wanted us to do an animation project done at 1080p, of which i had to turn down, due to the fact that when i calculated it out, 

the processing time alone would have taken over 7 straight days to render.  

An Apple tech i talked to yesterday said that for some reason, Apple does not completely support CUDA, in that if you render using CUDA, you will only be able to use some of the cores, not all of them ??   

have you heard this at all?  perhaps from other customers?

We just need your recommendations as to whether or not there is anything left to explore with this card, before i send it back. I only have about 15 days left on the return policy. the K5000 card is the card that Autodesk recommends for my computer to do GPU rendering.

As always, we appreciate your help

---

4 GB is pretty low for a GPU these days.  I'll also note that the K(epler) series is pretty "long in the tooth" at this point, already superseded by both the M(axwell) and P(ascal) series.  Most renderers are expecting those later series which can fully support newer DirectX, OpenCL, and OpenGL features.

I'll also point out, that rendering any length of animation at 1080p/30 FPS is going to take more than a few days.  That kind of work is normally run on a server or a distributed node arrangement, and will still be multiple days at finish quality.