Laptop specs and rendering times

Kgon · Post by **Kgon** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:23 am

Hi there guys
I have been an Artlantis user for a long time ago (4 years exactly) but i guess now is time to take my renders to the next level

...so i have a question...i want to buy a new laptop for rendering (a lap top because i travel most of the time so a desktop pc it's not an option) its a toshiba i7 (quad-core) with 32 gb RAM and 2 gb nvidia video card...so what can i spect from a machine with this specs using Indigo ? I mean...its posibe to get nice and clean renders in less than 4-5 hours for example?? i know the rendering time depends of complexity the scene so i have 2 examples of what i want to achive in that time ( if posible)

http://www.indigorenderer.com/images/mo ... ogue-style
http://www.indigorenderer.com/images/li ... mkitchen-0
http://www.indigorenderer.com/images/ea ... irs-render
http://www.indigorenderer.com/images/room-sunny-day
http://www.indigorenderer.com/images/concrete-house

Do you guys think those renders were made in less than 7 hours with a machine like mentioned before ?:roll:

Greetings

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:50 am

These renders you show here a quite complex, and took for sure some time to compute.
The main question is the resolution you aim to render in!!1!

That Gallery resolution could be archived in (way) less then 7h for sure.

maybe the people who made these images can tell more about the actual resolution the rendered in and for how long.

Kgon · Post by **Kgon** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:10 am

Well ..almost all renderings i make are not so big, most of them are big enought to fit in a letter paper size.
So..knowing that do you think these laptop spects are enough to handle sigle house projects without any problem or without having excesive rendering times ?? (To me more than 5-7 hrs per render is excesive ) or maybe i need to look out for another options ?

ENSLAVER · Post by **ENSLAVER** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:12 pm

Kgon wrote:Well ..almost all renderings i make are not so big, most of them are big enought to fit in a letter paper size.
So..knowing that do you think these laptop spects are enough to handle sigle house projects without any problem or without having excesive rendering times ?? (To me more than 5-7 hrs per render is excesive ) or maybe i need to look out for another options ?

Generally speaking an i7 is good value for money in terms of rendering power unless you want to build a small renderfarm or carry a server tower around with you.

If you can wait a while some of the interior specialists will probably have good information for you =)

Kgon · Post by **Kgon** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:40 am

I can wait to see what indigo specialist say about it .. i mean 3,300 bucks is a considerable amount of money to spend in a portable machine, so i'd really like to know if it's well worth for use it with indigo. I truly want to start using indigo with a right computer

Pibuz · Post by **Pibuz** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 6:57 am

3300 $ are a quite high budget to get a laptom, in my opinion!

You can easily get good images in relatively short times with a 2000$ machine for sure.

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:28 am

for 3k I would get a bunch of slaves that help render, and use a average laptop as master to feed them.

But atm the big mass of data that needs to get shifted from master to slave (the actual scene) and from slave to Master (often even bigger, the rendered IGI) is a handbrake for that option.
A Cloud would actually do the same without the need to buy slaves...

The Problem is that such a high end Laptop can't beat a average gaming PC regarding performance :/

galinette · Post by **galinette** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 8:06 am

Some laptops actually have similar performances than desktops, I had one in hands a few weeks ago. But they are quite heavy and the power supply is huge (not mentioning the price)

What about a shuttle with an i7?

For 3000$, I would buy two desktop i7 for making a small cloud at home/work and one 1000$ laptop (i7, 8Gb RAM) for moving

Headroom · Post by **Headroom** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 12:00 pm

For $3k I'd had myself a nice MacBook Pro with retina display and 16gig of memory

But really only if it has to be all mobile. The approach with a "normal" notebook supported by one or two render slaves would provide you with very much more render power and has a much better price/ performance ratio.

One thing to consider is that GPU support - while not overly useful yet for complex interior scenes - will not be so great on a Notebook, unless you want to drag around one of these gamers notebooks with a " non" mobile graphics card. The vast majority of notebooks is only equipped with mobile graphics chips and these lag in performance quite a bit behind the full blown desk top version with the same name.

PureSpider · Post by **PureSpider** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:33 pm

Headroom wrote:For $3k I'd had myself a nice MacBook Pro with retina display and 16gig of memory

And therefore picked the WORST price/rendering power ratio ANYWHERE on earth? Nice!

Kgon · Post by **Kgon** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:50 am

Ok , thank you so much for your comments and sorry for the late reply

Well...the main "problem " here is the deadlines that the firm i'm working for gives me for rendering the projects , they are really short and the render times that unbiased rendering takes to get "clear" or finished are very high....i've seen in some places that a sigle interior takes even 119 hrs don't know if these persons renders with a coffee maker ...

...however sometimes i've had to render 10 images in 2 days because everythng " is urgent " ...that it's posible with artlantis ...the quality it's acceptable but never ever like INDIGO'S QUALITY AND REALISM

Let's get a little bit technical.....what probably might be the computer (s) specs that i need to keep this productivity of 10 -12( 6 images minimum ) in two days with indigo ?? as you said before it's hard to give the precise data but an stimated idea would be fine.

I really want to make indigo part of my daily working process

Thanks in advance for your help
Greetings from Mèxico

Headroom · Post by **Headroom** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 7:30 am

Two days as in 2x24 hours ?

Kgon · Post by **Kgon** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 7:42 am

Yes sir....well not exactly 48 hrs .....lets say 2 workdays like 18 hrs , the machines are at office

...with my actual dual core laptop i can render a sigle exterior 1280x 960 without trees , cars and grass in 10-15 hrs

CTZn · Post by **CTZn** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:01 am

Did you (or your office manager) consider a rendering solution such as the Ranch ?

I have no practical experience with that, but most renderings would be done in 10-15 minutes if I'm correct. Such a solution would give an enormous boost to your productivity I believe.

Anyone please feel free to correct me, or to confirm with an example image issued by the Ranch by a given time.

See:
http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/vie ... =1&t=11983
http://www.ranchcomputing.com/indigo-ho ... it.en.html

Kgon · Post by **Kgon** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:46 am

Sweet !!..10 - 20 min per image that it's awesome i hope that can be true !! For my personal projects i can wait 2-5 hrs per image, but for the office it's amazing....i'll check the prices and i hope be able to afford the option that suits me best...something is telling me that it's no going to be cheap