Lightwave gpu renderer?

[raymondtrace]

...the latest LW release is not supported anymore on simple machines like laptops without a dedicated graphics card....

Are you certain? I have a $250 junk laptop that I use for web browsing. I believe I tried LW2020 on it at one point, without any issue except for the speed.

[Marander]

Are you certain? I have a $250 junk laptop that I use for web browsing. I believe I tried LW2020 on it at one point, without any issue except for the speed.

Yes, that's the information I got from LW support (LWB-5892):

(When clicking any object in the Layout 2020 viewport, LW immediately crashes on a laptop with Intel Chipset 8th Gen Core-i7. This happens even after deleting all config files and restarting Layout. Works fine on desktop machines.)

"Your system reports "Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620" - and that's what I think is the main issue.
Our recommended minimum spec for video card is an nVidia or AMD/ATI video card. Your laptop doesn't meet minimum recommended system specs."

"At this point - we develop for nVidia and AMD/ATI - we cannot look to having all the other things that require CUDA, OptiX, or anything up-coming that will not work on those chipsets.

That's why we have to have minimum system specs."

I'm not saying it doesn't run on any laptop, but on my Intel 8th Gen Core i7, any LW 2020 version crashes immediately while older versions used to work.

And because of CUDA or OptiX, well that's no reason for the application to crash. AMD/ATI have no CUDA or OptiX support. Other 3D applications with OptiX don't have issues like that - they run fine, some functions are simply disabled if the hardware doesn't support it.

If it's of interest I could test on other laptops with 4th Core i5 and 10th Gen Core i7 Intel chipset. I didn't so far because I use only the Dell XPS 13" / 15" laptops for 3D and music besides the desktop machines.

[Tim Parsons]

Yes and unlike the LightWave render engine, Corona Render is very successful because

- it's easy to use
- it's stable
- it's fast (for a CPU engine)
- it delivers outstanding quality

There would have been a lot to learn for LW. Well too late now.

The only negative thing about Corona Render is the rental licensing in my opinion.

Was Mark ever able to really optimize the rendering engine? I doubt it as he was let go before the release of 2018. He probably was just able to get the bugs worked out before being let go, so who knows what he could have done if given the chance. Mark is well known for his rendering chops and probably could have squeezed a lot out of the renderer.

[Marander]

Was Mark ever able to really optimize the rendering engine? I doubt it as he was let go before the release of 2018. He probably was just able to get the bugs worked out before being let go, so who knows what he could have done if given the chance. Mark is well known for his rendering chops and probably could have squeezed a lot out of the renderer.

Yes I think with more budget and time it would have become better. But I also doubt the LW3DG has ever had a proper software development management, experienced software architects or someone competent for UI and UX.

The LW 2018+ render engine was a good basis for a CPU engine but far from what I would call an ideal implementation, specially from a UI point of view - confusing parameters, no useful preset settings, no material libraries, no learning materials except some badly made developer videos, no context sensitive help etc. They could have learned so much from established rendering solutions but I think the LW developers live in their own bubble. Nevertheless for only about 2-3 guys working on a render and shading engine from scratch between 2015 and 2018, it's a very respectable result.

LW 2019 was a good update with the additional shaders, denoiser etc.

The LW 2020 render 'improvements' with two new GI methods seems the usual NewTek development mess to me - why didn't they look into other implementations and do it properly from beginning? Irradiance Cache and Brute Force - other 3D apps have this working since a decade.

[jwiede]

perhaps check Kray

Don't bother. At this rate, v3 will be generally usable shortly after the glaciers re-cover most of N America & Europe.

[erikals]

really, thought it was producing good results ?

[Marander]

Don't bother. At this rate, v3 will be generally usable shortly after the glaciers re-cover most of N America & Europe.

LOL agree. I was interested once - years ago - but after looking into their forum a bit and following their progress for a while I came to the same conclusion - it's not leading into anything useful within a reasonable amount of time.

[jwiede]

Was Mark ever able to really optimize the rendering engine? I doubt it as he was let go before the release of 2018. He probably was just able to get the bugs worked out before being let go, so who knows what he could have done if given the chance. Mark is well known for his rendering chops and probably could have squeezed a lot out of the renderer.

Except they didn't "get the bugs worked out". Around half the lights were broken in LW2018 at release not working with shading/surfacing or GI. Standard material was crashy, and refl/refr wasn't stable in either Standard or pBSDF. Specular/metallic-type materials had huge firefly issues. At release, LW2018's surfacing/rendering weren't near release-quality code, let alone production-ready quality code.

If they were dead set on CPU, yeah, Corona Render would have been another GREAT choice to integrate into LW to replace native engine, though I'd argue Octane's integration was already well-bound to LW by then and thus the more logical / direct native replacement / augmentation.

[jwiede]

really, thought it was producing good results ?

Given an absolute minimal set of features, with barely-usable UX, and as long as you're using a version or two behind current LW (LW2015 usually better), maybe. Even then, "good results" is pushing credulity. Read the Kray forums "Kray 3 development -> technical information" thread for a long discussion of all the many functional aspects that are just "Gregor must fix!" away from working better than any other render engine... according to Janusz.

[ELinder]

My 2015 Macbook Pro with an Intel Iris Graphics 6100 runs LW2020 without problems. I've never seen a requirement for NVidia or ATI graphics.

[Marander]

My 2015 Macbook Pro with an Intel Iris Graphics 6100 runs LW2020 without problems. I've never seen a requirement for NVidia or ATI graphics.

Minimum Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9 series or ATI Radeon HD 4000 series (minimum)
Minimum Screen Resolution
1280 x 1024 pixels
Recommended Graphics card
GeForce 10 series or newer at 1920 x 1080 or better

[erikals]

Read the Kray forums "Kray 3 development -> technical information" thread...

um,... shame,... oh, well.  

[ELinder]

Minimum Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9 series or ATI Radeon HD 4000 series (minimum)
Minimum Screen Resolution
1280 x 1024 pixels
Recommended Graphics card
GeForce 10 series or newer at 1920 x 1080 or better

The Mac version requirements must be more lenient, because it definitely works fine on my laptop.

[Lewis]

Minimum Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9 series or ATI Radeon HD 4000 series (minimum)
Minimum Screen Resolution
1280 x 1024 pixels
Recommended Graphics card
GeForce 10 series or newer at 1920 x 1080 or better

I use LW 2019.1.5 and 2020.0.2 on my Intel i5 laptop which i bought in 2012 which has Intel GPU and Nvidia 540M graphic card. No crashes or problems with either GPU used.

Only 2 apps refuse to work or even install on that laptop are Adobe AE 2020 and Adobe Premiere 2020 (Photoshop CC 2020 works fine) but manily due it's WIN7 laptop and apparently for those two i need Win10 (older versions of CC 2018 AE and PR work).

[genesis1]

Download the demo of Octane if you really want to stay with LW and see how it works for you. It's pretty easy to come to grips with. I don't use it, but if I needed the speed and wanted to stay with LW that's really the only option. The node system isn't too bad.

I did but it keeps crashing. Even though the gpu specs in the info say it will run a lesser card specs from gtx 600 onwards, I think my old gpu memory is perhaps too low at 1gb. It chokes with the cuda 700 error in the log file.