Is 4.15 PB better at rendering larger scenes than 4.21 Pro and 4.22 Pro?
ArtAngel
Posts: 1,688
Is 4.15 better at rendering larger scenes, than V4.21 or V4.22? I rendered a fairly large scene in 4.21 PRO and it was slow about 36 minutes. The same scene faired no better in 4.22 PRO, and seemed a few seconds slower. Render settings were identical in all renders. Advanced : Compression switched from 512 to moderate compression at 6100 and higher compression if exceed 8.1k. The dimensions were 17.25x8.5, pixels were 5175x2625. The scene has 4,944,745/2,105,20 vertices, 13,376 Triangles, 3,934,972/1,626,760 Toptal Quads, and 3,948,348/1,640,136 Total Faces . So after reading the 4.21 log, I was surprised to see that the render was using 2 GPU devices, not one. I thought I'd try it in 4.15 PB just for kicks because none of the characters in this scene were G9. I double checked all the render settings because 4.15 does like to change them.The scene rendered in 7 minutes on the 4.15 despite me adding 15 slime decals to clothing, characters and hair. So the only difference was the scene was larger for the 4.15 render because I increased the decals and shaders, from 13 to 28. I retried it with 4.22 and by the 8.39 minute mark, it was at 26% about to switch to 27%. The funny thing is all 3 programs logged the same performance issues, initially using 2 devices to render. Both RTX 2080tis (NVlink) which would at the same mark temporarily run out of memory and the bulk of the rendering was picked up using 36 core CPU. The the log indicated GPUs regained memory and were utilized again. After each log I copied the log and started fresh (blank log file) so the details would not be muddled in a neverending log. The three logs were almost identical.The original scene had a huge snow plane, with a long trail of footprint impressions. the building was Throne2 with a ton of geometry modifications to create/seperate surfaces. I added various shaders, and custom PS made signage to surfaces. Four characters where customized with a ton of dials for eyes cranium, nose parts/skins, and wore hair, hats, a beard & outfits with fur and some customized textures. I cannot belive it rendered superfast in 4.15. 7.39 minutes vs over half and hour in the newer DAZ Studio versions. Anyone else seeing variances like this?
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Comments
Interesting find. I just wonder if rendering animations would also be faster.
Another thing to consider is what of the new releases items will not work in 4.15.
I've moved to 4.22 but I've kept 4.15 installed 'just in case'.
On my laptop, after I switched to 4.21 from 4.15, I discovered that scenes with 5 or more characters (sometimes less) would crash Studio, and I could render no more than two G9 characters without a crash.
I rolled back to 4.15 a while ago, UI changes made newer versions a pain to use for me.
With 4.15 you will probably find G9 doesn't work to well, but G8.1 will as 4.15 was the release version for G8.1.
Changes to systems, shaders and/or Iray is likely what's causing longer render times.
I am writing-designing-illustrating a 32 page picture book I wrote years ago and there are things that won't work without 4.22 and others for 4.21 but most do. I'll attach a few screenshots of the program render info. The 'scene' mentioned earlier, is a partial page render, that will require heavy postwork and other additional layered renders.
Based on my logs I would bet it's trying to default to CPU and the CPU does not have enough cores. I am seeing a couple of things in the logs that seem to trigger my RTX 2080ti's from
So far I was unable to use the LIE fur with omni-shaders in 4.15 or 4.21. It really does require 4.22 (and I bet the volumetrics that don't use 2D technology do too . . . bought them but have not tried them yet). I tried using Nikolai but his skin rendered gray in 4.15 so the G9 skins require 4.21. But it is doable if you reskin him.
That's a smart thing to do. I keep them all too because I've invested a truckload of money in some products that only play well in older versions. I try not to forget to keep the plug-ins and default resources for each version, because some plug-ins/products I use and need work better in older versions.
Based on my logs I bet it's kicking over to the CPU and crashng because there are not enough cores.
What sucks is some great products exist for 4.21 & 4.22 Some people claim fast rendering on 4.21 and 4.22 but I wonder if they are aware that in advanced the program is defaulted to compress images (4.15 is too). Hopefully they make 5 a little backward compatible but i really doubt that will be the case.
For visual 'stats' Here are some screenshots with 'crudely written by mouse' notes.
Here is some log info regarding dual card usage, VRAM fallbacks and also a warning about using SLI vs NVLINK.
Edit: So the 4th log screenshot shows VRam issues which is expected for huge 4 character scenes, but I found it interesting how the the program would revert back to GPUs once increased memory was found. For the duration of the render, after the 'memory recovered' DAZ Studio reverted back to GPUs. This occurred 3-4 times during the 4.21 31+ minute render. 4.15 seemed to replicate this behaviour as well.
Typically I render large scenes in parts, so this large scene was a smaller partial scene from a bigger one. I actually have much bigger 7 character interior scene that I rendered in one shot. It included a G9 Santa Remake with beard hair and clothes, in a bed surrounded by these same 4 slime-ridden elves. The scene has a newer bed, furniture, & various props, deconstructed in Geo Editor and the extra surfaces retextured in PS, a dforced Duvet, the 6th character is Drutherson fully dressed (no-slime) but reskinned and facial morphs etc, and the 7th, a custom human type, furry character, made for me by 3D Universe, which I changed a tad, and it rendered in about an hour or so. Because Santa was created from a G9 Base using G3 Skins, I think I used 4.21 or 4.22 . . . not sure . . . I'll see if I have a screen shot that shows the version. Either way, it seems to be the CPU that matters most IMHO.
Oh, and a giant furry dforce body pillow. With memorized poses and simulations for pillow, but Duvet not memorized but simulated. These log screenshots pertain to the exterior scene in the above post.
You're right. I reinstalled 4.15, and I can render 27 G8's even when it goes to CPU. I guess 4.15 is where I get off the carousel.