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Computer Purchase for Cinema4D: Navigating Corporate Pushback.


BLSmith

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7 hours ago, srek said:

GPU manufacturer have clear priorities when developing and maintaining drivers and they are based on the target market. If you have a problem with your high end gaming card when rendering? Tough luck, any fix by the manufacturer will first make it into the pro drivers and, maybe, later into the game drivers. Same in the reverse case of gaming with a pro card. 

 

That certainly makes some logical sense, but I'm not entirely sure it truly works out that way. For every one pro 3d artist using a Quadro card there are probably ten using GeForce cards. Meanwhile gamers and Miners sure aren't buying Quadro. The GeForce cards have game drivers but also studio drivers for content creators. Nvidia isn't going to ignore their far larger customer base.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Icecaveman said:

 

That certainly makes some logical sense, but I'm not entirely sure it truly works out that way. For every one pro 3d artist using a Quadro card there are probably ten using GeForce cards. Meanwhile gamers and Miners sure aren't buying Quadro. The GeForce cards have game drivers but also studio drivers for content creators. Nvidia isn't going to ignore their far larger customer base.

 

 

I can only talk from own experience, while i was in QA we had identified GPU  driver issues that were taken care of within weeks in the pro drivers and it tooks several months for the fix to come up in game drivers. If you had a different experience you were lucky.

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5 hours ago, srek said:

I can only talk from own experience, while i was in QA we had identified GPU  driver issues that were taken care of within weeks in the pro drivers and it tooks several months for the fix to come up in game drivers. If you had a different experience you were lucky.

 

Fair enough, and you could very well be right about Quadro support > GeForce. 😃

 

Again though, I always use the Nvidia Studio drivers for my GeForce cards rather than the game drivers. This is the Otoy developers recommendation for Octane. GeForce customers can choose game drivers or studio drivers when downloading from the Nvidia Experience app.

 

(Related note: The Otoy folks also suggest always doing a clean installation, which takes just a minute or so longer)

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4 hours ago, Icecaveman said:

 

Fair enough, and you could very well be right about Quadro support > GeForce. 😃

 

Again though, I always use the Nvidia Studio drivers for my GeForce cards rather than the game drivers. This was what Otoy developers recommend for Octane. GeForce customers can choose game drivers or studio drivers when downloading from the Nvidia Experience app. (The Otoy folks also suggest always doing a clean installation, which takes just a minute or so longer)

I think the key point to remember is the following:  What will nVidia do when a problem is reported to them by a software developer?  

 

It really is not an issue with whether or not the GPU will work with the DCC application but rather for those corner cases where a problem is found, and it can ONLY be fixed by the GPU developer making a change to their drivers.  

 

Now, this does NOT mean that EVERY problem will be fixed but rather where that problem sits in the GPU developer's list of priorities.  You only need to read the drivers release notes to understand that priority.  For GeForce cards, problems with "Call of Duty" will go the top of nVidia's priority list.  For Quadro cards, problems with Solidworks, or pretty much any product from Adobe or Autodesk will be at the top of the priority list.  Problems from Maxon?  Well, they "may" fall under problems ALSO reported by larger companies, so they get fixed as well, but I think only once did I specifically read a Maxon reported issue in the release notes.  Not saying that doesn't happen as I don't read every release note.

 

But here is the worst-case scenario:  You are using a GeForce card and your DCC application crashes constantly.  The DCC developer says "Not us...it is your driver. We have reported it to nVidia, but there is no response because it is not a priority.  We suggest you get one of the reference cards we use".   

 

Will this happen often?  No. 

 

Will it be a rarity?  Probably. 

 

If it happens once, will that be enough for you?  Most definitely.

 

It happened once to me many, many years ago with that old problem when using AMD GPU's with C4D.   So long ago, I can't even remember which version.  But I constantly had to edit the registry to get it fixed.  Fortunately, that was an easy fix, but it did make me rethink my GPU selection.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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If I was to list the top 500 concerns in my life...studio driver support for my two 3080 cards wouldn't be one.

 

(Maybe I'm under-appreciating the impact that might have on my life some day.)

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17 hours ago, srek said:

GPU manufacturer have clear priorities when developing and maintaining drivers and they are based on the target market. If you have a problem with your high end gaming card when rendering? Tough luck, any fix by the manufacturer will first make it into the pro drivers and, maybe, later into the game drivers. Same in the reverse case of gaming with a pro card. 

 

A counter point. Every 2080, 2080ti, 3080 and 3090 system in the studio works great with octane render. The quadro rendering boxes crap out with driver errors far more often.

 

Edir:

As for vendor support... I don't put a cent of value on it in most cases. Otoy support will tell you you have a faulty computer, go ask the hardware vendor. The hardware vendor will tell you the machine is fine, its buggy software. With these sorts of things, if youre not able to fix it yourself, or at least diagnose the cause, then you wont get very far.

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Quote

Our system vendors are Lenovo and HP. "Puget Systems," is not an approved vendor. Some of the components in your parts list may not be an option from Lenovo or HP. Example, in the high end systems, Lenovo and/or HP may only offer Intel's Xeon Processors or may only offer DDR4 Ram.

I think your company needs to redefine its vendors.

You need to lobby for that, otherwise you will be paying for it every day, unless you're on a hourly rate... 🙂

Your productivity is going to be lower and the PC more expensive...

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6 hours ago, imashination said:

 

A counter point. Every 2080, 2080ti, 3080 and 3090 system in the studio works great with octane render. The quadro rendering boxes crap out with driver errors far more often.

 

I fear that often enough the solution to a driver bug is for the software company to work around it.

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25 minutes ago, srek said:

I fear that often enough the solution to a driver bug is for the software company to work around it.

Ahh...interesting statement.  And good to hear.

 

So I have to ask: If there were driver bugs on an RTX-A5000 and a GeForce card and one software fix within C4D does not satisfy both of them...which one would get priority?

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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11 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

Ahh...interesting statement.  And good to hear.

 

So I have to ask: If there were driver bugs on an RTX-A5000 and a GeForce card and one software fix within C4D does not satisfy both of them...which one would get priority?

 

Dave

Green? I have no idea, this would be a matter of ressources, possible risks, .... Certainly not something where my opinion would be of high import.

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13 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

Ahh...interesting statement.  And good to hear.

 

So I have to ask: If there were driver bugs on an RTX-A5000 and a GeForce card and one software fix within C4D does not satisfy both of them...which one would get priority?

 

Dave

 

Perhaps IMASHINATION answered your question, if you take the time to consider.

 

There is an American proverb that tells a universal truth:  "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

 

The sheer overwhelming population of the GeForce user base allows them to squeak, squawk, shriek, and shout with the sheer volume that demands attention. When there are perhaps 5000x more GeForce cards than Quadro cards, that user base won't go neglected. This, despite whatever rhetoric or marketing messages you may hear.

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On 7/22/2022 at 7:20 PM, Icecaveman said:

Your original part list doesn't even mention a GPU and that's the single most differentiating component. 4000x series Nvidia are just around the corner and they will be wildly faster.

 

I may be misunderstanding, my original post mentioned two GPUs. Understood about the 4000 series, but sadly the decision must be made soon and I don't have control over the timing. 

 

On 7/23/2022 at 8:22 AM, 3D-Pangel said:

Couple of things to note:

  • Now, not sure how the two RTX-3090Ti's at 24Gb each in the Puget system would compare to a single 48Gb A6000. 
  • You can add them together with NVLInk hardware bridge but that is only for A5000 cards and above.  Apart from the memory size of 24Gb vs. 48Gb, the only difference in specs between the two is that the A6000 memory bandwidth is 768 Mb/sec vs. 1008 Mb/Sec for the RTX-3090Ti. 
  • do you also need also need full 48Gb of memory?
  • There are just no 8TB SSDs in the Lenovo configurator. 
  • Why nothing on mirroring drives for data protection (RAID 1)?  
  • Warranty:  This is what attracts me to Lenovo as they are one of the two PC makers that I know which offer a warranty over 3 years.  

 

Regarding 2x 3090 vs. 1x A6000: Interesting point about memory not scaling 1:1 with two cards over one. In Octane, it gives the impression that it's using the memory from all your cards but perhaps that's misleading. 

 

Regarding memory: My models are mostly rips straight from CAD. They're often 1-2GB large without anything added to them, throw in particle effects for fuel etc., it starts to get nutty slow. I'd imagine the added video memory would help cache some of this. 

 

On 7/23/2022 at 9:50 AM, Jeff H1 said:

I have the Lenovo 620 w/Threadripper Pro and QuadroRTX.   It's a screamer.


Very happy to hear!

 

Part Number 30E1SD9300
Country/Region USA
Preload Type Standard Image (Preload)
Preload OS Windows 10 Pro 64 preinstalled through downgrade rights in Windows 11 Pro 64
Preload Language Windows 10 Pro 64 preinstalled through downgrade rights in Windows 11 Pro 64 English
Platform Tower WRX80 1000W
Motherboard MB AMD Castle Peak V1.2
Processor AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5965WX Processor (3.80 GHz up to 4.50 GHz)
Memory Selection 32 GB DDR4-3200MHz (RDIMM, ECC) QTY(8)
Storage Controller Adapter AMD Integrated Controller
Graphics 2 x NVIDIA® RTX™ A6000 48GB GDDR6
Onboard M.2 SSD 1 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opal QTY(1)
Onboard M.2 SSD Boot Drive Yes
Second Onboard M.2 SSD 4 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Performance TLC Opal QTY(1)
Ethernet Integrated Ethernet
Keyboard USB, Traditional, Black - English (US)
Mouse USB Calliope Mouse Black
Audio Card Integrated Audio
Line Cord LineCord - USA
Publication Publication-English
Warranty 3 Year On-site
5WS0U26649 3Y Premier Support Upgrade from 3Y Onsite

 

Lenovo put this system together for me today, and it is expensive but this may be the best approach since I've managed to get the IT department and my manager to agree on the purchase. Any red flags stick out to anyone? 

 

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