Thea Edition v1.2

[whiterabbit]

I must be on the dim side but I cannot fathom the difference between Thea Renderer and Presto, they both seem to have the GPU support? please could I get a simple explanation.

Also does the Presto or GPU aspects work through the sketchup plugin?

So far the GPU engine is amazingly fast and clean, what a breakthrough...thank you all.

[giannis]

Hi

Indeed, there may be a confusion here, so let me explain how this works.

Once you install presto on your computer, Thea render will be loading this as a plugin all the time. So, on windows, either you start presto or Thea (from the start menu links) the result will be the same: Thea launching with presto enabled.

The choice of putting presto in a separate installer was also influenced by the need to avoid tagging the whole Thea render package as vendor dependent.

Best wishes

[leminilab]

the scene should fit in RAM for CPU rendering.

I have a GTX670 with 2GB of RAM -->my .scn.thea must be less than 2Gb
Is that what you mean?

[notareal]

the scene should fit in RAM for CPU rendering.

I have a GTX670 with 2GB of RAM -->my .scn.thea must be less than 2Gb
Is that what you mean?

Scene's memory use is probably larger than it's size on HD, sometimes a lot. For example if you have used lots of instances, all of those will be copied to GPU's RAM. Render image size naturally does affect and so... Instancing support in GPU renderer would help.

[leminilab]

the scene should fit in RAM for CPU rendering.

I have a GTX670 with 2GB of RAM -->my .scn.thea must be less than 2Gb
Is that what you mean?

Scene's memory use is probably larger than it's size on HD, sometimes a lot. For example if you have used lots of instances, all of those will be copied to GPU's RAM. Render image size naturally does affect and so... Instancing support in GPU renderer would help.

Seems too complex to calculate... I think an error message is needed in these memory excess cases.

[nigec]

You can get some idea how much memory is needed to render something by how much memory a CPU render needs.. this works for me anyway, I only have a Quadro 600

Try starting Thea, note the amount of ram it uses
load a scene note the ram used
Do a render with BSD exterior preview, note the ram
If you subtract the Thea start usage from the render/scene combined usage it'll give you an idea of what to expect from the GPU

Unlike system ram which will start running like a dog at around 85 to 90% I find my GPU starts running bad just past half way but mines only 1gb

Aero desktop themes use about 10% of the GPU.. worth a mention

[giannis]

Check the Console, it write down the memory used vs memory available.

Yes, we will introduce warnings related to this situation.

Best wishes

[leminilab]

Alright, opening Thea cost me 32Mb of Ram, opening my most complex scene raised the used Ram to 800Mb and lauching a render with preset 22 BSD Exterior Medium raised it to 1.5Gb (and rising...).

So I should have enough Ram on my Graphic card to process this scene I guess (or shoudn't I? ).

On the other hand, Giannis, I can't see the usedvs available Ram info anywhere in the console.
Where must I look for this info?

[naudofr]

On the other hand, Giannis, I can't see the usedvs available Ram info anywhere in the console.
Where must I look for this info?

It's at the end of the text in the console when you render in darkroom only I think.

[leminilab]

Hi Arnaud,

Well nothing really happens for me in the console tab...
Here's my console log after 3 renders including a 60x30px one.


I don't see any Ram info...