Cheap hardware rendering

Archived
1

Hi,

I think there is not the problem with AW or MR or PRman,etc, but with the WAY we think...

WE WANT:
FAST IMAGES, FULL QUALITY,RELIABILITY,etc....

WE GET:
ALL THAT WITH VERY IMPOSSIBLE INVESTMENT COSTS for the mainstream artist...

Why not to make hardware acceleration for rendering.

For interactive 3D: HW accel OpenGL BOARDS
For Video: HW accel Video Boards
For Sound: HW accel Audio Boards
FOR 3D Rendering: ?!?!?! NO HW ACCELERATION (only CPU) ?!?!?

There is all HW accelerated, BUT 3D ANIMATION IS NOT .... poor technology.

So why aren't there competitors who develop such things like the Renderdrives or pci cards like ICE but for 3D RENDERING.

There is no target at all into this area.
Hw OpenGL like the new Geforce3 blast, 7gb/sec, so why not develop a chip who puts out (hardware accelerated) a render image with all the needed calculations on a pci card.
I 've seen so far only the renderdrive engine being available (not cheap) in such a important area as 3d rendering ?!?!

I MEAN A PCI CARD WHICH ACCELERATES ALL THINGS IN THE RENDERMAN STANDARD !! (shadows,rays,etc...), and perhaps to be able to put 2 or three such cards in a pc (paralellism). But not as expensive like the Renderdrives (not more than 2000 bucks)

Now THIS would REVOLUTIONIZE 3D animation.

But there is nothing now available for ANY 3D package (and perhaps nothing planned)...
I mean special purpose chips like the ICE board for AfterFX, but for Area Lights,Rays,Shadows,Radiosity/GI.

What do you do with a Wildcat if you have to wait 3 Years on the cpu SW Rendering of all polys a Wildcat can show in realtime in a frame... hmmm....

HW Developer guys out there think about that...

ENILNACS

Let's simulate atoms in realtime..... ?!?!?!

2

[deleted duplicate]

Edited by =Oblagon= on 03/18/01 12:25:33 PM.

3

Argh.. stupid highend won't let me post a long message so I'll just make the short-short version.

a> its never fast enough.. soon as you develop a faster chip someone will figure out a way to max it out.

b> it takes alot of money and infrastructre to make microprocessors... they'll get there one of these years. Then again maybe not [see a>]

c> cpus on a card was marketted before... back a few years ago you could get a bunch of Mips cpus on a pci board for pc's to render lightwave/3ds frames.. I remember seeing the ads for them in video toaster user before that went OOP.

d> theres still alot of things current technology won't be able to do in anywhere near realtime... such as.. hmm.. generate refracted raytraced motionblured objects =).

e> Its faster to cheat the effects you want.. this is done all the time... as long as it looks the same ... thats all that matters =).

4

Building things like that will be much easier when the price of chips come down to nothing.
Which wil happen very soon. I keep hearing they will not have to use gold in a chip , they have almost gotten a cooper dirivative(alloy? to bead properly at a small enough level to create mirochips from it.
If that happens, well no problem getting 30 procressors ganged together for the price of 5 currently.
This is just hear-say, but I've been hearding this for a while so it has to be some truth to it..

.............

5

a> its never fast enough.. soon as you develop a faster chip someone will figure out a way to max it out.

yes but i don't mean that, but to have realistic deadlines in a production pipeline with FULL rays and no compromises at a cheap price

b> it takes alot of money and infrastructre to make microprocessors... they'll get there one of these years. Then again maybe not [see a>]

True, but there is HIGH demand for this solution in the industry, so it would be worth of it.

c> cpus on a card was marketted before... back a few years ago you could get a bunch of Mips cpus on a pci board for pc's to render lightwave/3ds frames.. I remember seeing the ads for them in video toaster user before that went OOP.

yes, but there are no many competitors so that the price is pushed down, and it's not so affordable for a mainstream artist with low budget, i mean a solution with no more than the price of a fire gl 2 or quadro 2 pro card but not higher than a wildcat.

d> theres still alot of things current technology won't be able to do in anywhere near realtime... such as.. hmm.. generate refracted raytraced motionblured objects =).

I don't mean near realtime or realtime but that a image that renders in 5 min. on a SW scanline renderer(prman) you could render in the same 5 min. (or less) with full HW rays/shadows/gi/perfect multisampled, and no compromises and workarounds.

e> Its faster to cheat the effects you want.. this is done all the time... as long as it looks the same ... thats all that matters =).

Yes, but not because it's better, but it's faster. The subtle effects of GI you can't deny. You can't say that it always looks the same. Yes there are cases where it does, but the beauty of GI and full physical calculations with no special light setup and/or shader tricks, you can't deny.
I ask you: what would you do if there would be such a thing ?

  1. Programm 3 days a shader that looks perfectly like what you want for a single scene, and then doing 10 workaround for lightning/animating realistic the scene ?

or

  1. Buy such a thing and having full effects fast w/ no compromises in the SAME time and at a low budget.

I would go the second way...

Imagine how much time you would win if you wouldn't workaround all the button's and tweaks for performance but for you imagination and creation of the scene. And how nice the results would be.

The scanline technique is wonderful on generic cpus and the ONLY option NOW for calculating fast images on pc's.

ENILNACS

Let's simulate atoms in realtime..... ?!?!?!

6

Isn't the render drive $20000 not $2000?
Dan

7

There are already implementations available for OpenGL and DirectX in this area.

In OpenGL you have OpenGL Shader:
http://www.sgi.com/software/shader/http://www.sgi.com/software/shader/

In DirectX you have programmable Pixel and Vertex Shaders:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/welcome/dsmsdn/directx01152001.htmhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....ctx01152001.htm

The DX version even has support for skinning.

Not the end all, be all translation of Renderman shaders to HW, but it is a start.

adam...

8

simple solution, for $3,000 buy four 1.2GHz T-Bird setups and overclock them to 1.4GHz and network render your stuff. It's a workaround for now. It's hard enough investing in a $1,500 OpenGL card you know is going to be obsolete in 3 months, think about an accelerator board for rendering which is cool now, but doesn't support the coolest new feature everyone is raving about (like caustics or radiosity). There will always be something more to rendering and the speed will NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER be fast enough!!!!! Until we reproduce REALITY in EVERY DETAIL in REALTIME we will ALWAYS be asking for more....end of discussion!

Windows 2000
Abit KT7 non-raid
Duron 700@1000
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64MB DDR
512 MB Corsair SDRAM
21" Sony F500
3DMARK 2000 = 6915

9

I hope perhaps there will be a renderdrive pci card version only with the chips, without the HD, ram (768mb), network card, etc...
and would use the system for HD/ram.

would be chaper than 20 k....

ENILNACS

Let's simulate atoms in realtime..... ?!?!?!