Faitel

Berk_Erdag
Did anybody do a pyro test with XPU?

In the Houdini 19 HIVE presentation Adam Swaab shows how to render pyro with XPU which is by using the new pyropreview material but I can't make it work.

Any ideas?

You need to convert all Houdini volumes (Density and Scatter at least) to VDBs with Convert VDB node.

Yep that did the trick. Why didn't I think of it before.

Thank you very much!

I've made one frame pyro scene for testing.
Nvidia 2060 super
XPU:0m 30s
ACES color space is enabled.

Maybe I had to do something heavier :S

I would love to see metal (M1 Mac) support for Karma XPU. With 32 GPU cores in the new M1 Max chip, this would be a great setup. As soon as my machine arrives, I’ll post Redshift speed tests (since it fully supports metal).

XPU 1:17 at 1280 X 720 in mplay on my AMD 8 cores and GTX 1650 4GB VRAM

Did a quick test on a 13" MacBook Pro M1 (NOT the new M1 Pro/Max).

Karma CPU: 31:54
Karma XPU: 39:02 (only uses CPU, no GPU (no Metal support))
Redshift: 4:00

That's pretty significant (albeit a slightly different setup) when the GPU is utilized. The M1 Max GPU is 4x the speed of the current M1, so we should see a linear increase in performance as well. Can't wait until XPU supports Metal.

Redshift looks good I must say, but I plan on doing lots of ocean work in the next couple of months, and all that image map exporting paradigm in Redshift is not something I want to get involved with, so Karma it is for me, but thanks for the test, it looks awesome!

The Rhino Scene:
Karma CPU was taking too long for me to wait for it. It said the ETA was 2 hours after waiting for 10 minutes.
Karma XPU: 06 minutes 45 seconds

Pyro Scene:
Karma CPU again couldn't wait for it to finish, was stating that it will take 35 minutes.
Karma XPU: 39 seconds

i7 9700F 3.0GHz
32GB RAM
RTX 2060

Hey @GCharb, could you export an abc of the rhino to compare in other softwares/renderers ? Thanks

lucas195ec7cc0d984f4a
Hey @GCharb, could you export an abc of the rhino to compare in other softwares/renderers ? Thanks

I made the scene in Apprentice, and Apprentice only exports OBJ files!

The model is a 3D scan of Alfred Jacquemart's rhino scupture, easy to find online!

Pyro Scene:

CPU : 4:23
XPU : 0:26

Rhino Scene:

CPU : 12:08
XPU : 03:43

TR3970X / RTX2060 super

Rhino Scene on 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max (32 GPU cores) w/Redshift: 1:33

On the 13" MacBook Pro M1 (non Pro/Max) that times was 4:00.

3900X / 56gb 3266mhz / RTX3060(12GB) / W10 19043.1288

Pyro Scene:


XPU: 0:22
CPU: 10:20

Rhino Scene:

XPU: 3:04
CPU: Too long, Elapsed: 31:00 - Remaining: 37:58

Below a comparison between Karma XPU, Cycles-X(1024samples), which took only 18.6 sec, and Cycles-X(200samples) with similar noise to XPU, at 6.23 sec, yes. All in ACES, same hdri, materials, rhino was using glass shader instead of principled transmission that looked very dark, no time difference.

So in this test, XPU was an order of magnitude faster than CPU, and Cycles-X another order of magnitude faster than XPU .

rmagee
This chart shows what is in Karma CPU and Karma XPU compared to Mantra:

https://www.sidefx.com/faq/question/karma-vs-mantra/ [www.sidefx.com]

Xpu does not surpport (Cvex)Lens Shader for now, will it be surpported in the near future?

guys do you compare karma CPU and mantra?
and what do you thing karma CPU vs arnold?

habernir
guys do you compare karma CPU and mantra?
and what do you thing karma CPU vs arnold?

in what speed? scalability? reliability?

working in both right now. Both are very robust and devour those Asset dense, FX rich scenes I throw at them.
Arnold is a bit faster, Karma comes with free Tokens and therefore scaling better.
Both have a great shader toolset.

sekow

habernir
guys do you compare karma CPU and mantra?
and what do you thing karma CPU vs arnold?

in what speed? scalability? reliability?

working in both right now. Both are very robust and devour those Asset dense, FX rich scenes I throw at them.
Arnold is a bit faster, Karma comes with free Tokens and therefore scaling better.
Both have a great shader toolset.

in speed , how much arnold is faster than karma CPU?
how much is a "bit faster" (especially in pyro) ?

i know that its just a render engine but still.....

zzhj
Xpu does not surpport (Cvex)Lens Shader for now, will it be surpported in the near future?

Most likely never, as XPU will not support VEX. Will we see some other implementation of lens shaders? Perhaps, but probably not very soon.

EdganHomt
3900X / 56gb 3266mhz / RTX3060(12GB) / W10 19043.1288

Pyro Scene:

XPU: 0:22
CPU: 10:20

Rhino Scene:

XPU: 3:04
CPU: Too long, Elapsed: 31:00 - Remaining: 37:58

Below a comparison between Karma XPU, Cycles-X(1024samples), which took only 18.6 sec, and Cycles-X(200samples) with similar noise to XPU, at 6.23 sec, yes. All in ACES, same hdri, materials, rhino was using glass shader instead of principled transmission that looked very dark, no time difference.

So in this test, XPU was an order of magnitude faster than CPU, and Cycles-X another order of magnitude faster than XPU .

XPU is in alpha, and Cycles-X is a biased version of Cycles, therefore much less precise than Karma, I don't see the point of comparing Houdini to Blender, Houdini is way more powerful than blender, which is why I switched to Houdini, I got tired of hitting a wall with blender all the time, Houdini might not be free, but with it I am free of the limitations of blender!

GCharb

EdganHomt
3900X / 56gb 3266mhz / RTX3060(12GB) / W10 19043.1288

Pyro Scene:

XPU: 0:22
CPU: 10:20

Rhino Scene:

XPU: 3:04
CPU: Too long, Elapsed: 31:00 - Remaining: 37:58

Below a comparison between Karma XPU, Cycles-X(1024samples), which took only 18.6 sec, and Cycles-X(200samples) with similar noise to XPU, at 6.23 sec, yes. All in ACES, same hdri, materials, rhino was using glass shader instead of principled transmission that looked very dark, no time difference.

So in this test, XPU was an order of magnitude faster than CPU, and Cycles-X another order of magnitude faster than XPU .

XPU is in alpha, and Cycles-X is a biased version of Cycles, therefore much less precise than Karma, I don't see the point of comparing Houdini to Blender, Houdini is way more powerful than blender, which is why I switched to Houdini, I got tired of hitting a wall with blender all the time, Houdini might not be free, but with it I am free of the limitations of blender!

I smell a bit of salt? Cycles-x just barely go out of alpha, and the biased argument is just funny, but hey if you are happy thinking that...

EdganHomt
I smell a bit of salt? Cycles-x just barely go out of alpha, and the biased argument is just funny, but hey if you are happy thinking that...

Cycles-X is biased, the develloper admits it himself, they are cutting back on quality to get more speed, I used blender for 5-6 years, it is very limiting and you need tons of workarounds to make it work the way it should, and what I find funny is people comparing blender to Houdini, when clearly Houdini outshines blender at almost everything!