Greg wrote:
> [posted to rush.general]
>
> Thanks for the info!
>
> I just got off of the phone with yet another Red Giant tech, he told me
> basically the same thing. That Knoll LF hits the GPU during a render
> and that:
> #1: you've gotta have a supported video card in your node
> #2: you've gotta have a monitor plugged into that card
>
> Further he said that this behavior is a bug and that it will be fixed
> next year, though of course he couldn't tell me when that fix was expected.
>
> However,the Red Giant tech was a little fuzzy about how Knoll actually
> does its rendering. What I understood is that Knoll initializes itself
> by pinging the GPU, but still render on the CPU. I'm hoping that's the
> case. Otherwise, I would imagine having lots of fast CPU's wouldn't
> speed up Knoll rendering at all, if each instance of aerender was trying
> to use the GPU all the time....
GPU rendering is a bit tricky; it's tough to blame the vendors
because basically they're trying to use hardware in a way that
the hardware wasn't really designed for.. so weird things like
having a monitor plugged in is something it sounds like the
video card's hardware actually needs in order to initialize
sufficiently to be able to provide GPU services. (My guess is
once the monitor is plugged in and the graphics comes up,
you /may/ be able to then remove the monitor and it will
continue to operate (until rebooted)).
I *think* some KVM switch boxes may simulate a monitor sufficiently
to help graphics cards think a monitor is connected enough to operate;
you might try that. (IIRC, SVGA cables are actually bi-directional;
they not only receive video signals, but also communicate info back
to the graphics card about the monitor's resolution, etc. which in this
case probably helps the graphics card's driver to initialize sufficiently
to provide GPU services.)
--
Greg Ercolano, erco@(email surpressed)
Seriss Corporation
Rush Render Queue, http://seriss.com/rush/
Tel: (Tel# suppressed)ext.23
Fax: (Tel# suppressed)
Cel: (Tel# suppressed)
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