The time has finally come for us to make our GPU farm available to the masses. While we are, and have been, actively working to support a variety of GPU render engines, there have been a variety of new obstacles to overcome. Quirky licensing mechanisms, openly hostile end user license agreements, and assorted and sundry software conflicts are still being addressed. In the meantime, we hope to start working through any issues that exist with our GPU farm by releasing support for Blender Cycles GPU rendering. It’s available now to all customers, if you want to take it for a spin.
A few items worthy of note:
- Pricing is charged per Octanebench point hours, see our Support Portal for an explanation of that
- The GPU farm is entirely independent of our CPU farm from a hardware perspective
- Our own proprietary job scheduler is commanding the GPU farm
- Only Blender Cycles GPU rendering is initially supported (yes, we’re working hard on a few other render engines)
The availability of GPU rendering on Pixel Plow right now should be seen as a “soft open”. We’ve tested it and believe it to be ready, but there are always possibilities of unforeseen problems. We will keep this in mind at billing time if you keep it in mind at render time. Please do report problems to us. We’re adding new content to the Support Portal to address common questions as they arise.
Render Endlessly! (on a bunch of GPU’s)
