LuxCoreRender Forums

juangea wrote: ↑Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:02 pm Interesting, I'm eager to see the results

Dade wrote: ↑Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:49 am

Dez! wrote: ↑Sun Apr 25, 2021 12:58 am I didn't understand the situation. Are we in a panic?

No but there is quite big strategic decision ahead: what to do ? And how to get there ?

My current feeling is to start to make (most of) CPU code compatible with CUDA C++: you can compile the code with a normal C++ compiler for CPUs or with CUDA for CPUs and GPUs.
At that point I would have all the building blocks to write new CUDA-only render engines solving a long list of problems:

1) One single source code (no more C++ and OpenCL C code for the same stuff). The current code is expansive to maintain (i.e. it slows down the development of new feature);

2) Writing a new material in OpenCL C is currently mind bending. Writing the interpreted code is extremely hard (i.e. I'm the only one who has ever done it and it is likely to ever do). Plain C++ will solve the problem.

3) Solving #2 would finally allow me to introduce a new material system (or better to extend the current options).

4) Having all the same building blocks available both for CPUs and GPUs would allow to have the same rendering engines available for both: stuff like BiDir on GPUs, light tracing on GPUs, etc.

5) more fine grained control of GPU memory would allow to have a scene editing on GPU as fast as CPU editing;

And more.

This is what the stinky corpse of OpenCL is costing us at the moment. The draw back is to sell our bodies and souls to NVIDIA.

Blender Foundation is effectively locking in all Blender user base with NVIDIA. Don't have any doubt: if you think to have Cycle X for AMD or Intel, you are drunk. The technical architecture of Cycle X has CUDA written all over the places. There is never going to be a fully functional Cycles X outside CUDA. The best case scenario is to have an half broken support like current Cycle OpenCL support.

Are we going to lock in all LuxCore user base with NVIDIA too ?

JulianoLisboa wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:22 am I think it would only be worthwhile to continue with AMD if there was a financial contribution by it to Luxcore.

Dade wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:12 am

JulianoLisboa wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:22 am I think it would only be worthwhile to continue with AMD if there was a financial contribution by it to Luxcore.

Funny historical side note: the only hardware vendor to have ever supported LuxRender is ... NVIDIA. They donated few GPUs to the project some year ago. Even if we were OpenCL-only and LuxMark wasn't exactly putting in good light NVIDIA GPUs. Indeed, they did the donation in hope to have LuxMark more optimized and better running on NVIDIA GPUs. But it still tell you when a company know what it is doing.

Dade wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:12 am

JulianoLisboa wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:22 am I think it would only be worthwhile to continue with AMD if there was a financial contribution by it to Luxcore.

Funny historical side note: the only hardware vendor to have ever supported LuxRender is ... NVIDIA. They donated few GPUs to the project some year ago. Even if we were OpenCL-only and LuxMark wasn't exactly putting in good light NVIDIA GPUs. Indeed, they did the donation in hope to have LuxMark more optimized and better running on NVIDIA GPUs. But it still tell you when a company know what it is doing.

Sharlybg wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:04 pm Strangelly since quite sometime i'm not able to render big project on Nvidia CUDA/ OPTIX. ONly OPENCL is working on the 2060super i'm working with. I was trying to compare OPTIX vs No Optix on huge assets scene. It constantly crash before starting. And this on official Blendluxcore 2.5 and blender 2.83.
Sometime textures disappear randomlly on some object during final render even if visible in viewport and material preview. Sadly as theses are most of the time big Project i can't send it to DADe to look into it as he need small size repeatable error file for investigation

JulianoLisboa wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:08 pm

Sharlybg wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 12:04 pm Strangelly since quite sometime i'm not able to render big project on Nvidia CUDA/ OPTIX. ONly OPENCL is working on the 2060super i'm working with. I was trying to compare OPTIX vs No Optix on huge assets scene. It constantly crash before starting. And this on official Blendluxcore 2.5 and blender 2.83.
Sometime textures disappear randomlly on some object during final render even if visible in viewport and material preview. Sadly as theses are most of the time big Project i can't send it to DADe to look into it as he need small size repeatable error file for investigation

I noticed this, in your video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvo9WLBqNVU, you were using OpenCL, I was wondering why, even having a 2060.