Unreal Engine is a leading software in the game development industry. If you’re planning to build a PC for Unreal Engine 5, this article will be a helpful reference.

To begin building a PC for Unreal Engine 5, it’s important to understand the requirements outlined by Epic Games. Let’s see what we have here!

Unreal Engine 5 requires Windows 10 version 1703 and the DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) to function.

However, these minimum specs won’t provide the best experience. For a smooth and efficient workflow, it’s favourable to build your PC for Unreal Engine 5 based on the recommended hardware below.

• Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit, version 1909 or later

Note: Windows 10 will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025. To ensure continued updates and support, I recommend upgrading to Windows 11.

• Processor: Intel or AMD quad-core CPU, 2.5 GHz or faster
• Memory: 32 GB RAM
• VRAM: 8 GB or more
• Graphics Card: A DirectX 11 or 12 compatible GPU with up-to-date drivers

Note: DirectX 11 is more suitable for older PCs, while DirectX 12 offers better performance through higher frame rates, improved multi-core processing, and support for parallel and asynchronous tasks.

Curious about the kind of PC for Unreal Engine 5 used by Epic Games themselves? Here’s a breakdown of their standard development workstation:

• Operating System: Windows 10 22H2
• Power Supply: 1000W PSU
• RAM: 128GB DDR4-3200
• Processor: AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3975WX — 32 cores / 64 threads, 128MB cache, 3.5 GHz base / 4.2 GHz boost, 280W TDP
• OS Drive: 1TB M.2 NVMe3 x4 PCIe SSD
• Data Drive: 4TB RAID 0 using 2x 2TB NVMe3 x4 PCIe SSDs
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 with 10GB of VRAM
• Networking: Onboard 1Gbps NIC + Intel X550-T1 10G PCIe Ethernet card

When assembling a PC for Unreal Engine 5, there are four key components you need to focus on:

• CPU – the most critical part
• GPU
• RAM
• Storage Drives

Let’s break each of them down.

The CPU plays a central role in any Unreal Engine development setup. Most tasks in the engine—like shader compilation, light baking, and code compiling—depend heavily on CPU performance.

When selecting a processor, it’s important to consider both clock speed and the number of cores. Higher clock speeds are ideal for single-threaded tasks, while more cores significantly improve performance during rendering and compiling processes.

Recommended choices:

• For most users: Intel Core™ Ultra or AMD Ryzen 9000 Series
• For highly parallel workloads: AMD Threadripper™ (offers more cores)
• For the fastest compile times: AMD Threadripper PRO (provides even more cores)

If you’re working with a limited budget, prioritize investing in a powerful CPU. For rendering tasks, services like iRender farm can support you with high-end GPUs. 

Even though our systems are equipped with AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9–4.2 GHz, which are well-suited for Unreal Engine editing, it’s still best to handle project editing on your own workstation and rely on external services like iRender for GPU-intensive rendering, as our hardware is optimized for that purpose.

In Unreal Engine, the GPU is responsible for viewport rendering, real-time lighting, and tasks that benefit from GPU acceleration. A more powerful graphics card ensures smoother performance, especially when dealing with complex environments, ray tracing, or virtual production pipelines.

Key Factors to Consider When Selecting a GPU:

• VRAM (Video Memory): If you’re working on complex scenes, especially large-scale open-world projects, having a high VRAM capacity is crucial. While 8GB is the bare minimum, 16GB or more is strongly recommended for demanding workloads.
• Clock Speed: A higher clock speed (measured in MHz) typically results in better overall GPU performance.
• Ray Tracing Support: If you plan to use ray tracing in Unreal Engine, make sure the GPU supports the latest ray tracing technology.

Recommended choices: High-end GeForce RTX or RTX professional graphics cards

• GeForce RTX 3060 or higher: Opt for ray tracing and real-time rendering
• Quadro RTX series cards: The professional choice, but at a higher price than the GeForce RTX with the same VRAM.

Why choose one powerful GPU instead of multiple mid-range GPUs?

Unreal Engine technically supports multi-GPU setups (which require NVLink or SLI) to boost ray tracing performance. Despite its potential, this feature does come with some limitations in practice. 

First, GPU compatibility is limited. While both SLI and NVLink allow multiple identical NVIDIA GPUs to work in tandem, with NVLink even enabling shared VRAM to boost total memory capacity, these technologies are only supported on select older GPU models. Unfortunately, newer cards like the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 do not support NVLink or SLI, making multi-GPU setups less viable with the latest hardware.

Second, real-world usage reveals reliability issues. Feedback from iRender users indicates that dual RTX 3090 setups using NVLink can occasionally underperform or even crash, whereas a single RTX 4090 tends to deliver more stable and consistent results. It’s recommended to use dual RTX 3090 setups using NVLink in case you need larger VRAM, trading off the performance.

Lastly, some Unreal Engine users have reported that the “Multi-GPU for Path Tracing” option is no longer consistently available, although Epic Games has yet to officially address this change.

Therefore, for building a PC for Unreal Engine 5, it’s generally better to invest in a powerful single GPU rather than using two medium-range cards.

If you’re planning a large project with ray tracing in Unreal Engine and need powerful hardware like dual RTX 3090s (48GB VRAM combined via NVLink) or a single RTX 4090 (24GB VRAM), you can sign up for a free trial with iRender’s GPU cloud rendering service.

If not all GPU cards work in Multi-GPU rendering, check this article.

The amount of RAM needed for your PC for Unreal Engine 5 depends on the scale of your project and how memory-intensive your tasks are.

Recommended choices:

• 32GB: Suitable for most developers working on typical game projects
• 64GB or more: Ideal for handling large assets, complex scenes, and running multiple demanding programs at once
• 128GB: Best for professionals involved in high-end virtual production or expansive open-world environments
• DDR5 RAM: Offers improved bandwidth and energy efficiency, which enhances overall system responsiveness and performance

At iRender, each machine is equipped with 256GB of RAM—more than enough for demanding Unreal Engine workflows.

When configuring storage for a PC for Unreal Engine 5, consider using a combination of different drive types to balance speed, capacity, and cost.

Types of Storage Drives:

• Solid-State Drive (SSD): Much faster than traditional HDDs for booting the OS and loading applications
• PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD: More expensive, but delivers significantly higher speed compared to standard SSDs
• Hard Disk Drive (HDD): Slower but cost-effective and suitable for bulk data storage

Suggested Drive Setup:

• Primary Drive (OS and software): SSD or NVMe for fast system performance
• Secondary Drive (project files): SSD or NVMe to ensure smooth loading and saving of assets
• Optional Backup Drive (archiving): HDD for long-term storage and backup of less frequently accessed data
  

iRender provides 2TB of NVMe SSD storage per machine, enough capacity and speed for even large-scale Unreal Engine projects.

iRender offers high-performance machines equipped with premium specs for Unreal Engine such as the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX (3.9–4.2GHz), along with options for 1 RTX 4090 or 2x RTX 3090 GPUs, 256GB of RAM, and 2TB NVMe SSD storage.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast Unreal Engine renders on iRender’s nodes!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Source: Epic Games, Unreal Engine forum, Puget Systems, Film Maker tools, Workstation specialist

NVIDIA Iray is a powerful, unbiased GPU-based render engine available in Daz Studio, alongside the original 3Delight renderer. In this guide, we’ll explore the best settings for iRay in Daz3D to help you achieve high-quality renders efficiently.

Before fine-tuning render settings, it’s important to configure your General settings properly. Set a clear save location and make sure your output resolution is correct.

You can choose from several built-in resolution presets like VGA or Panorama. For custom sizes, select Custom and enter your preferred pixel dimensions and aspect ratio.

Recommendation: Use double your desired resolution for rendering, then downscale in an image editor (e.g., Photoshop) for better results.

There are 3 options:

• Still Image (Current Frame) – for a single render
• Image Series – for animations, one frame at a time
• Movie – exports a full animation in one file

Recommendation: It’s safer to use Image Series for animations. That way, if rendering gets interrupted, you can resume from the last saved frame instead of starting over.

Decide whether your render opens in a new window or saves directly to the file.

Specify a file name and choose where it should be saved.

Recommendation: If you’re using iRender’s servers, save to any folder on the Desktop to avoid potential errors or crashes.

The headlamp is useful during scene setup for visibility if no lights are present. 

Recommendation: For final rendering, it’s usually best to turn it off to avoid unwanted lighting.

Here, you’ll choose between:

• Photoreal – the highest quality option, ideal for realism
• Interactive – faster previews with lower accuracy

Since Iray is known for its physically accurate results, we’ll focus on the best settings for iRay in Daz3D using the Photoreal mode.

Note: Some render settings may differ slightly depending on the mode selected.

To get the best balance between speed and quality in Iray rendering, it’s essential to understand how progressive rendering works. These settings affect how the image updates while rendering and when rendering stops.

These settings determine how frequently the image updates during the rendering process:

• Min Update Samples: Sets the minimum number of samples per pixel required before the image refreshes on screen. A higher value means less frequent updates, but potentially cleaner previews.
• Update Interval: Defines the time (in seconds) between updates, regardless of how many samples have been calculated.

Recommendation: Most Daz3D users leave Min Update Samples at 1 and keep the Update Interval at its default value for smoother visual feedback during rendering.

Min Samples and Max Samples determine the range of samples per pixel that Iray needs to calculate before finishing the render. Max Time limits how long Iray will spend rendering. All three settings can work together, which means the rendering whill stop when any one of them is reached.

Recommendations:

• Min Samples: Often left at 0
• Max Samples: Increased for higher detail — portraits may go up to 15,000–40,000
• Max Time: Can be left at 0 (no time limit), or set based on how long you’re willing to wait
• Leave Min Samples at 0 and raise the Max Samples and Max Time values to improve image quality, accepting longer render times as a trade-off.

• Rendering Quality (default = 1): Controls final image accuracy. Doubling this value roughly doubles the render time.
• Converged Ratio (default = 95%): Specifies when Iray considers the image “complete.” Raising this may improve quality, but also significantly increases render time.

Recommendation: Keep the default unless you absolutely need cleaner results. Adjust with care.

The Alpha settings affect how transparency is handled in renders. The only adjustable option here is Default Alpha LPE (Light Path Expressions).

Recommendation: Unless you’re having issues with transparency or rendering alpha maps, it’s best to leave this setting at “specular transmission objects.”

Focus on these two key options for optimization:

Caustics are the light patterns formed when light is refracted (through glass) or reflected (off shiny surfaces). These effects can add realism but significantly increase render time.

Recommendation: Enable Caustic Sampler only if you’re rendering glass, water, or reflective materials and want physically accurate lighting.

Guided Sampling helps speed up Iray rendering and reduce noise, especially when used alongside the Firefly Filter. It may increase the memory usage, but the visual payoff is worth it for complex lighting.

Recommendation: Turn on Guided Sampling if your scene includes:

• Large soft shadows (from big area lights)
• Volumetric effects (e.g., fog)
• Occluded or indirect light sources
• Moderate caustics (but not full caustic rendering)

In the latest version of Daz Studio, the Filtering tab becomes visible once you click the Render button. 

During rendering, it’s common to encounter small, overly bright white pixels scattered throughout your image, often referred to as “fireflies.” These occur in areas where lighting is difficult to calculate accurately. The Firefly Filter is designed to automatically eliminate these spots and improve image quality. 

Recommendation: It’s highly recommended to keep this filter enabled in all your renders. For better results, especially in challenging scenes, it’s also advised to use it in combination with Guided Sampling.

This filter helps reduce overall noise in your image without sacrificing too much detail. You can adjust this filter on a scale from 1 to 5. Lower values like 1 to 3 offer a more conservative approach, focusing on reducing noise in difficult parts of the scene while maintaining sharpness. 

Note: Firefly Filter and Noise Degraining Filter are not supported in Interactive rendering mode.

It is especially useful in scenes with complex lighting and shadows. This tool enhances the image after rendering has reached a certain stage, helping to clean up remaining visual imperfections. However, because it uses additional memory and can affect performance, it’s important to use it wisely. Make sure both the “Available” and “Enabled” options are active if you decide to use it. 

Post Denoiser Start Iteration determines how soon in the render process the denoiser begins its work. If it starts too early—like at the default setting of 8 iterations—it can result in longer render times and a blurrier image. A better approach is to delay the denoiser until the final few hundred iterations. For example, if you’re rendering 500 total iterations, starting the denoiser around iteration 250 to 350 will save memory and produce a sharper, cleaner result.

Post Denoiser Denoise Alpha is useful if your render includes transparent elements and you want to reduce noise in the alpha channel. Just be aware that enabling this option can potentially double denoising time. Still, it’s worth using if you notice transparency-related noise in your final image.

Spectral Rendering is a specialized feature that simulates light and color based on real-world wavelengths rather than relying solely on the RGB color model. This method provides more physically accurate color interactions, which can make a noticeable difference when rendering materials like glass, liquids, or skin. 

In most cases, especially for casual or intermediate users, it’s recommended to leave Spectral Rendering disabled unless you’re aiming for highly realistic lighting effects and are comfortable adjusting your workflow to match. While the feature can produce stunning results, it also increases render time and can complicate color management if you’re not familiar with the underlying color theory.

When White Mode is enabled, Iray Interactive applies a plain white diffuse material to all objects in the scene. This mode helps evaluate lighting and shadows without the distraction of surface textures or colors.

Section Objects allow you to visually “cut” through a 3D model or scene, exposing the interior without altering the geometry. You can add an Iray Section Plane via the Create dropdown in Daz Studio. 

Enabling Section Caps fills in the cut surfaces with a solid material or color, instead of leaving the openings hollow or transparent.

In newer versions of Daz3D, the Tone Mapping tab will appear after clicking the Render button.

This feature controls how lighting and color are balanced in the final image (similar to camera exposure settings). Adjusting tone mapping can help fine-tune brightness, contrast, and overall mood of your renders. 

Most users are fine with the default settings, but if you’re curious, I recommend a tutorial video like “Daz Studio: Using Tone Mapping – NotFromThisWorld”.

Found under the Environment tab (after hitting Render), this section lets you define the lighting and ambiance of your scene. The core setting here is the Dome, which controls lighting direction, reflections, and general atmosphere. For example, a dome with a sunny forest scene will reflect that environment’s light and mood.

You can choose from several Environment Modes:

• Dome and Scene: Combines dome lighting with your scene’s lights (e.g., spotlights) 
• Dome Only: Ignores any lights in your scene and uses only the dome.
• Sun-Sky Only: Uses only the simulated sun and sky from the dome.
• Scene Only: Uses just the lights you’ve placed in the scene, ignoring the dome.

Recommendation: Stick with “Dome and Scene” if you want flexibility and better lighting control for most renders.

Finally, when discussing the best settings for iRay in Daz3D, it’s essential to consider the Hardware section. Here, you can select whether to use one or more GPUs, the CPU, or a combination of both for rendering. GPUs offer a significant performance advantage, especially for complex scenes, and can dramatically reduce your Iray render times. While combining CPU and GPU is an option, it doesn’t always lead to better results and may actually slow things down in some cases.

For the most efficient rendering, it’s generally recommended to rely on GPU-only rendering, particularly if you have access to multiple GPUs, as this can greatly boost both speed and quality.

iRender provides private high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications that excel in rendering, like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090,  RAM 256GB, Storage NVMe SSD 2TB.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Take a look at the videos below to see how Iray renders on our nodes.

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Source: Daz3D, Render Guide

Redshift is a robust 3D rendering software that helps bring designs, models, animations, and entire scenes to life. In this article, we’ll cover everything from the minimum system requirements to detailed hardware recommendations for building the Best PCs for Redshift Rendering.

Before putting together the best PCs for Redshift rendering, it’s essential to understand the minimum system requirements. Below, you’ll find both the minimum and recommended specs as outlined by Maxon.

Redshift supports three rendering modes, including options for GPU and/or CPU rendering. However, it has been observed that CPU rendering is significantly slower than GPU rendering, even though the output quality is quite comparable. For those working within a tighter budget, it’s advisable to prioritize investing in a high-performance GPU.

While the CPU doesn’t directly influence Redshift’s GPU rendering speed, a more powerful CPU can accelerate tasks like mesh extraction, texture loading, and scene data preparation. Additionally, if your workstation will also handle modeling or animation tasks using tools like Cinema 4D, Maya, or 3ds Max, the CPU becomes an important component.

When selecting a CPU to build the Best PCs for Redshift Rendering, three main factors should be kept in mind:

• Core Count

A higher number of cores improves multitasking capabilities and enhances performance in multi-threaded software. If you opt for Redshift’s CPU rendering, having more cores will also be advantageous.

• Clock Speed

CPUs with higher clock speeds can process instructions more rapidly, leading to faster computation. This boosts responsiveness during editing tasks and speeds up real-time previews, benefiting modeling and animation workflows.

• PCIe Lanes

The total number of PCIe lanes supported by the CPU directly impacts how many GPUs can be installed in your system. This is especially crucial for Redshift GPU rendering, as adding more GPUs will noticeably reduce rendering times.

Recommended CPUs:

• AMD Ryzen™ 7 9700X – 8 cores, 3.8 to 5.5 GHz, 28 PCIe lanes
• AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX – 16 cores, 3.9 to 4.2 GHz, 128 PCIe lanes
• AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX – 32 cores, 3.6 to 4.5 GHz, 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes
• AMD Threadripper™ PRO 7965WX – 24 cores, 4.2 to 5.3 GHz, 148 PCIe lanes

Since Redshift is primarily a GPU-based renderer, the graphics card becomes the most critical component when building the Best PCs for Redshift Rendering. Two main factors of the GPU affect rendering performance in Redshift: the GPU’s raw speed and its available memory (VRAM).

• Raw Speed

The raw speed of a GPU doesn’t have a standardized measurement. Users often compare rendering times across various GPU models to assess their relative performance. Naturally, a faster GPU will deliver better rendering speeds.

• VRAM (Video Memory)

VRAM determines the size and complexity of scenes that can be handled efficiently. Although Redshift can use the system RAM when GPU memory runs out, this approach significantly slows down the rendering process. For optimal performance, it’s advisable to choose GPUs with sufficient onboard VRAM to match your project demands.

• Multi-GPU Setup

Redshift can take advantage of multiple GPUs to enhance rendering speed. It is best practice to use GPUs of the same architecture and model to minimize instability risks. Additionally, when mixing GPUs with different VRAM capacities, the system will default to the smallest available VRAM across all cards, which can lead to inefficiencies.

While Redshift is compatible with both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards, we recommend opting for NVIDIA GPUs for the best compatibility and performance. NVIDIA GeForce GPUs are popular for offering excellent raw performance and solid VRAM at an accessible price point. Moreover, NVIDIA GeForce GPUs offer advantages like CUDA cores, OptiX, and advanced ray tracing capabilities that significantly boost Redshift rendering performance. In contrast, NVIDIA Quadro cards deliver higher VRAM capacities—often double that of GeForce cards—and are engineered for demanding, continuous workloads, though they come at a higher cost relative to performance. 

Ultimately, the decision between these options depends on your specific workload and budget.

Recommended GPUs:

• GeForce RTX™ 5080 16GB
• GeForce RTX™ 5090 32GB
• GeForce RTX™ 4090 24GB
• GeForce RTX™ 3090 24GB

In Redshift rendering, RAM (Random Access Memory) is primarily used to store the scene data and prepare it for rendering on the GPU. Specifically, it holds texture data before it’s transferred to the GPU’s VRAM. 

The recommended minimum RAM for Redshift rendering and GPU-based workflows is 32GB. However, if you frequently multitask or work with multiple large applications simultaneously, upgrading to 64GB or more is recommended.

Hard drives are used as long-term storage devices for computers. They store digital data such as operating systems, programs, files, and other user data.

NVMe M.2 SSDs as your primary drive is highly recommended, especially for the operating system, Redshift installation, and other key software. These SSDs provide much faster boot and load times, lower energy consumption, increased durability, and less heat compared to traditional HDDs, yet at a higher cost.

It’s also advisable to opt for at least a 500GB SSD to avoid the hassle of early upgrades to your primary drive.

Click here to learn how to optimize Redshift render settings.

iRender offers high-performance machines equipped with premium specs such as the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX (3.9–4.2GHz), along with options for 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 RTX 4090 or RTX 3090 GPUs, 256GB of RAM, and 2TB NVMe SSD storage.

Additionally, iRender provides each user with a free Cinema 4D – Redshift license, eliminating the need to transfer your own license to our render nodes.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast Redshift renders on iRender’s nodes!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Source: Maxon, Uli-ludwig, Pugetsystems, Exxactcorp

Multiple graphics cards can help shorten rendering time, but what if multi-GPU rendering isn’t utilizing all your GPU cards? Scroll down to find out!

GPU rendering refers to the use of a graphics processing unit’s capabilities to render scenes or animations. It takes advantage of the GPU’s parallel processing power, VRAM, and limited CPU assistance to deliver much faster performance compared to CPU-only rendering. You can learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of GPU rendering in this article.

Multi-GPU rendering involves using two or more GPUs (graphics cards) at the same time for rendering tasks. This technique distributes the workload across all GPUs, greatly improving rendering speed, especially when working with complex 3D environments. Due to its performance benefits, many rendering engines are designed to support multi-GPU rendering. Well-known engines that utilize this approach include Redshift, Octane Render, Blender Cycles, and V-Ray.

One of the most common issues iRender helps users solve is when the render engine fails to utilize all available GPU cards during multi-GPU rendering. The first step in troubleshooting this problem is checking GPU usage. While Task Manager is a typical tool for monitoring hardware, in our experience, its readings can sometimes be inaccurate. Therefore, we always verify performance with additional tools. We recommend using MSI Afterburner, Nvidia-SMI, or GPU-Z as more reliable alternatives.

MSI Afterburner is a widely used tool for overclocking graphics cards, allowing users to tweak and monitor various GPU settings. Although it’s developed by MSI, the software works with most GPU brands like NVIDIA, AMD.

In addition to overclocking, it enables users to keep track of critical stats like CPU and GPU temperature, frame rate (FPS), memory usage, and fan speeds—all of which help ensure better performance and system stability. 

You can enable the on-screen display (OSD) to get live hardware performance updates while rendering, or open the app and navigate to the GPU Usage section to view how each graphics card is performing during multi-GPU rendering.

GPU-Z, developed by TechPowerUp, is a compact and powerful tool that gives in-depth information about your GPU. Its core purpose is to show details such as the graphics card’s model, brand, memory type, and much more. On top of that, it provides real-time monitoring of GPU performance metrics like temperature, usage levels, memory load, and clock speeds—helpful for assessing both efficiency and thermal output.

It’s compatible with a wide array of GPUs, including models from NVIDIA, AMD, ATI, and Intel, and works on most Windows systems. A notable perk is that GPU-Z can be run without installation, making it extremely convenient. 

For users working with multi-GPU rendering, GPU-Z is especially valuable, as it allows real-time tracking of each GPU’s performance, useful for diagnosing issues or identifying which cards are delivering the best results.

Nvidia-SMI (short for NVIDIA System Management Interface) is a command-line utility provided by NVIDIA, designed for monitoring and controlling NVIDIA GPU hardware.

It offers comprehensive system information, including GPU count, model names, memory allocations, and usage stats. One of its key strengths is the ability to observe real-time GPU data—like temperature, power draw, memory consumption, and clock speeds—which is critical for avoiding performance drops due to overheating during demanding rendering tasks.

This tool is especially helpful when diagnosing multi-GPU rendering issues. If performance isn’t as expected, you can use Nvidia-SMI to check whether GPUs are being properly utilized or if there’s a thermal or memory bottleneck affecting the system. 

Additionally, it lets users tweak settings such as power limits and fan control, giving more flexibility in optimizing the GPU environment for rendering workloads.

iRender has compiled several practical solutions that have proven effective in getting render engines to make full use of all available GPU cards. You can try each method one by one to see which one works best in your specific case:

• Switch between CUDA and OPTIX rendering modes.
• Update to the latest GPU driver—or try downgrading to a previous version.
• Enable or disable Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in your system settings.
• Disable CPU rendering. In some engines like Redshift or Blender, enabling both GPU and CPU rendering can actually slow things down, and may prevent some GPUs from operating at full capacity. Turning off CPU rendering often helps resolve this issue.

If none of these workarounds resolve the problem—either some GPUs are still inactive or their usage levels are uneven—the underlying issue may be related to the CPU or the complexity of the scene.

Even in GPU rendering workflows, the CPU plays a vital role in sending necessary data to the GPUs. If your GPUs are significantly more powerful than the CPU, a bottleneck can occur where GPUs are forced to wait for the CPU, resulting in idle time for some cards.

Additionally, if the scene you’re rendering is relatively simple, it may not be demanding enough to fully utilize all GPUs. In such cases, consider rendering on a system with fewer GPUs to ensure more efficient hardware usage.

iRender provides high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications: high-end GPUs including 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090 with strong CPUs such as AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, RAM 256GB, and Storage NVMe SSD 2TB, which can dramatically enhance the speed of GPU rendering.  Most importantly, we always update to the latest GPU technology.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast it renders on our servers!

Currently, we have a promotion for new users. You will receive a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of your registration. REGISTER NOW to get the free trial today—don’t miss out!

If you have any questions, please contact me at duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading & Happy New Year!

Source: Microsoft, MSI, NVDIA, TechPowerUp, Massedcompute, Baeldung

Even though Redshift is famous for its fast GPU rendering, we can further fine-tune the render settings for Redshift to make the rendering even faster. Let’s scroll down!

To optimize the Render Settings for Redshift, it’s important to understand how each option impacts your final render.

The Render Settings for Redshift will vary depending on the render settings mode and the rendering engine you choose.

For render settings modes, Basic mode offers a simplified list of commonly used settings, while Advanced mode gives you access to all available options for the selected engine.

Regarding the rendering engines, there are two options: Production and RT. Production is Redshift’s primary engine for high-quality final frame rendering, while RT (Real-Time) is Redshift’s fast, interactive engine designed for near-instant feedback. However, since RT is still in beta, it’s recommended to use Production for stability and reliability.

If you are new to Redshift or prefer a straightforward setup, Basic mode is an excellent way to adjust your render quality without getting overwhelmed.

Now, let’s explore how to optimize the Render Settings for Redshift using the Production engine in Basic mode.

The first setting is Bucket Quality, which you can adjust from Low to Very High. Higher quality settings automatically lower the Threshold value, directly influencing the final image’s quality and noise levels.

In general, the higher the Bucket Quality (or the lower the Threshold), the better the render quality and the less visible noise, though this will also increase render times. You also have the option to manually adjust the Threshold if needed.

Denoising helps reduce noise in rendered images while preserving key details like edges and textures. It can speed up rendering times, but sometimes at the cost of slight accuracy loss. You can toggle Denoising on or off using the checkbox.

Below the checkbox, you can choose between different Denoising engines, each with its strengths:

• OptiX – Very fast and supports interactive rendering, but may not clean up noise as effectively as Altus.
• OIDN – Also fast and usable during interactive rendering, but similar to OptiX, it may leave a bit more noise compared to Altus.
• Altus Single – Slower (rendering the frame once before applying denoising) and non-interactive, but provides good results for final renders.
• Altus Dual – The slowest option (rendering the frame twice before denoising), but delivers the highest-quality results for final renders.

Motion Blur replicates the natural blur seen when objects or cameras move rapidly during a frame.

• Motion Blur Checkbox: Enable or disable motion blur.
• Motion Blur Steps: Defines how many linear steps Redshift uses to simulate the motion of objects, lights, and cameras. More steps result in smoother motion but require more memory.
• Deformation Blur: This toggle controls whether vertex-level deformation blur is included. Since Deformation Blur can consume a lot of memory, it’s best to leave it disabled if your objects don’t have animated deformations, to optimize performance.

Global Illumination (GI) is a technique that simulates how light bounces and spreads across a 3D scene, helping achieve more realistic and natural-looking lighting.

You can enable or disable GI using the checkbox. For the most authentic lighting results, it’s best to keep GI enabled; however, this will increase your render times.

Caustics simulate the concentrated light rays that reflect off or refract through surfaces. While enabling caustics can add realism, it often introduces intense noise that’s harder to clean up.

• Combined Depth: Sets the maximum number of times any ray (including GI, reflections, refractions, and volume scattering) can interact with the scene.
• Global Illumination Depth: Controls the number of times an indirect lighting ray bounces. Raising this value is useful for scenes like interiors where multiple light bounces create more realistic effects.
• Reflection Depth: Limits the number of bounces a reflection ray can perform.
  Refraction Depth: Limits how many times a ray can pass through transparent or refractive surfaces.
• Volume: Sets the limit for how many times a ray can scatter inside a volumetric object (like fog or smoke).
• Transparency Depth: Controls how many times a ray can pass straight through transparent objects.
  

Important Note: No matter how high individual ray type limits are set, the Combined Depth is the overall maximum. For example, if Reflection Depth and Refraction Depth are both set to 4, but Combined Depth is 6, a ray can only reflect and refract a total of 6 times combined.

While increasing depth values can improve realism, it will also significantly raise render times.

Enabling Hardware Ray-Tracing allows Redshift to use hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, provided you have compatible GPUs like Nvidia RTX series cards.

The performance boost from hardware ray-tracing depends on the scene; scenes that rely heavily on ray-traced effects will benefit the most. Keep in mind that non-ray-traced techniques like irradiance caches are not accelerated by hardware RT.

• Always keep your 3D software, Redshift, and GPU drivers updated to the latest versions.
• Close any unnecessary applications to free up RAM and other system resources.
• Optimize your scene by lowering the polygon count and removing any unused objects and materials.
• Reduce Progressive Passes to 32 or 16 to help free up the GPU for other processes.
• Turn on Automatic Sampling to allow Redshift to manage sampling more efficiently.
• Minimize the use of heavy features like Motion Blur, Caustics, and unnecessary AOVs, as they can heavily impact performance.
• Enable Hardware Ray-Tracing to speed up rendering if your GPU supports it.
• Lower the Trace Depth for faster renders; just be aware this might slightly darken your scene.
• Increase the Thresholds to speed up renders—though this will add some noise, which you can counterbalance by raising sample rates or using denoising.
• Adjust the Bucket Size carefully. Avoid using very small (64) or very large (512) bucket sizes, as they can prevent the GPU from working efficiently.
• Tweak your Redshift Preferences: select only your GPU(s) for rendering. Avoid enabling CPU usage or Hybrid Rendering, as involving the CPU can slow down performance.
• Disable Material Previews during rendering to save resources.
• In addition to optimizing the render settings for Redshift, using multiple high-performance GPU cards like iRender’s nodes can greatly accelerate rendering speeds.

If you’re deciding between Octane, Corona, and Redshift, you might want to check out this article for a detailed comparison.

iRender offers high-performance machines equipped with premium specs such as the AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX (3.9–4.2GHz), along with options for 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 RTX 4090 or RTX 3090 GPUs, 256GB of RAM, and 2TB NVMe SSD storage.

Additionally, iRender provides each user with a free Cinema 4D – Redshift license, eliminating the need to transfer your own license to our render nodes.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast Redshift renders on iRender’s nodes!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Source: Maxon, cgshortcuts

Cinema 4D is a professional-grade application used for 3D animation, modeling, simulation, and rendering. While it comes with its native rendering engine, Redshift, Cinema 4D also supports a wide range of third-party render plug-ins. In this article, we’ll explore whether Vray GPU or Arnold GPU for Cinema 4D is the better option.

VRay, developed by Chaos, is a well-established rendering engine known for its high-quality, photorealistic output and real-time capabilities. Although it’s not built into Cinema 4D, it integrates smoothly and functions reliably within the environment. Let’s take a closer look at the advantages and limitations of Vray GPU for Cinema 4D.

Easy to use

VRay features a user-friendly interface and intuitive tools that cater well to artists, helping improve workflow and allowing users to complete tasks more quickly and effectively.

High-quality and fast rendering

VRay for Cinema 4D offers impressive rendering power. In addition to CPU rendering, it supports GPU rendering for faster performance. Moreover, its new hybrid rendering mode can utilize both CPU and GPU simultaneously, delivering realistic results in a shorter time. See details about Vray hybrid rendering here.

Scalable rendering

Beyond local rendering, V-Ray supports cloud-based rendering via services like Chaos Cloud or external render farms. This scalability allows users to distribute rendering tasks across multiple systems and generate high-resolution results more quickly

Comprehensive tools

With numerous features such as a broad range of lighting, rendering tools, and its ability to handle even the most complex scenes, Vray can streamline workflows and produce visually stunning outputs.

Flexibility

Vray GPU for Cinema 4D offers great flexibility, allowing users to fine-tune settings such as lighting, materials, and textures. It also supports easy switching between CPU, GPU, and hybrid modes to suit different project needs and hardware setups.

Limitation

Depending on the rendering method and hardware, Vray GPU for Cinema 4D may lack support for certain features available in its CPU counterpart, such as Coat Filter and Multi Matte. More information on these limitations is available at this link.

Arnold is a high-end Monte Carlo ray tracing renderer known for delivering realistic 3D character renders and lifelike visualizations. Widely used across the industry, it’s also a powerful third-party rendering option for Cinema 4D. Let’s take a look at what makes Arnold GPU for Cinema 4D stand out, along with its limitations.

Easy to use

Arnold is designed with usability in mind. Its features are user-friendly and well-organised, its rendering settings are simple to learn—making it easy for both beginners and professionals to get started quickly.

Realistic rendering

Arnold’s unbiased rendering engine accurately simulates light behavior, resulting in highly photorealistic images. It’s especially effective at handling subtle lighting effects and complex materials..

Feature-rich

Arnold offers deeper native integration with Cinema 4D than most other third-party engines. It supports many Cinema 4D features, such as Noises and the Floor Object. It also fully supports professional standards like OCIO, ACES, and OSL. The Interactive Preview Render (IPR) is responsive, whether using CPU or GPU mode.

Flexibility

Arnold supports both CPU and GPU rendering, offering flexibility that some engines lack. Unlike Corona (CPU only) or Redshift and Octane (GPU only), Arnold allows seamless switching between CPU and GPU modes—while delivering identical results across both.

Limitation 

Despite its strengths, Arnold GPU does have some limitations in Cinema 4D. It does not support volume rendering from Turbulence FD or X-Particles. Additionally, some older C4DtoA shaders (from versions before 2.5.0), such as normal_displacement, vector_displacement may not be compatible when imported from previous projects via ASS files.

Before we dive into the similarities and differences between the two, let’s first go over the summary table below for a quick comparison.

In terms of pricing, both Vray and Arnold are available only through subscription-based licenses, with no option for perpetual purchase. While Vray’s monthly cost is about twice that of Arnold, it’s important to consider additional factors to determine if the higher price is justified.

Vray offers three rendering modes—GPU, CPU, and hybrid—giving users more flexibility depending on their workflow. In contrast, Arnold supports two options: CPU and GPU rendering.

In terms of rendering algorithm, Vray supports both biased and unbiased rendering, allowing users to prioritize either speed or realism. Arnold, on the other hand, is strictly an unbiased renderer, designed to produce physically accurate images that mimic real-world lighting.

Both engines rely on NVIDIA’s GPU architecture. However, Vray GPU supports both CUDA and OptiX, while Arnold GPU uses OptiX only.

In terms of hardware scalability, both Vray and Arnold can leverage multiple GPUs to accelerate rendering. While Vray technically supports unlimited GPUs, it is officially optimized for up to 4. Arnold is stated to support a maximum of 8 GPUs.

As for platform compatibility, both renderers can run on Windows and Linux. Although Vray can be used on macOS, Chaos has clarified that it does not offer official support for it.

Lastly, both Vray and Arnold provide a 30-day free trial, giving users a chance to test them out before making a decision.

Ready to see how they perform in practice? Let’s scroll down to check out the render tests iRender ran using Vray GPU or Arnold GPU for Cinema 4D.

iRender provide high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090,  RAM 256GB, Storage NVMe SSD 2TB.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast Vray GPU or Arnold GPU for Cinema 4D renders on our nodes!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Source: Autodesk, Chaos, Maxon

Blender is a powerful, free, and open-source 3D creation software supported by a large and active community. Starting your journey with animation in Blender is a great choice, especially if you’re new to this field.

Before jumping into animation in Blender, it’s a good idea to get familiar with some essential tools that will make the process easier and more efficient. 

• Constraints: 

Constraints are used to control how an object moves, rotates, or scales by linking it to another object or rule. They help automate complex motion, so you don’t have to animate everything manually, saving time and increasing realism.

• Motion paths: 

Motion Paths show the route an object or bone takes during an animation. This visual guide helps you fine-tune the movement and timing by showing where things go frame by frame.

• Drivers: 

Drivers let you control one property using another. For example, if you’re animating a clock, you can set up a driver so the hour hand moves automatically based on the rotation of the minute hand—no need to animate both separately.

• Shape keys: 

Shape Keys allow you to modify the shape of a mesh and blend between those shapes. They’re commonly used for facial expressions like smiling, blinking, or frowning. Combined with keyframes, Shape Keys bring characters to life.

• Rigging: 

Rigging creates a digital skeleton for your 3D model, allowing it to move in realistic ways. For example, rigging a human model helps joints bend naturally, which is essential for character animation.

• Keyframes: 

Keyframes mark specific positions or values at certain points in time. To animate something like a bouncing ball, you would insert keyframes at different frames to show where the ball is—on the ground, in the air, and back down again.

• Grease pencil: 

Grease Pencil lets you draw directly in 2D or 3D space. It’s perfect for sketching, storyboarding, or creating full 2D animations with layers, brushes, and editable strokes.

By learning and practicing with these tools, you’ll be well-prepared to handle many creative tasks involved in animation in Blender.

Here’s a simple guide to help you start making your own 2D animation in Blender:

1. Launch the 2D Workspace

Open Blender and select “2D Animation” from the screen. This will bring you directly into Blender’s dedicated 2D animation workspace, which is quite different from the typical 3D layout.

2. Start Drawing with the Grease Pencil

First, switch to Object Mode from the menu in the top-left corner. Then, create a Grease Pencil object, which acts as your drawing surface.

Next, change the mode to Draw Mode using the same drop-down. In this mode, you can begin sketching using Blender’s drawing tools.

Use the Grease Pencil to draw your characters and backgrounds. You can customize your brushes—adjusting thickness, opacity, and style—just like in most digital drawing apps. Be sure to add colors to bring your drawings to life!

3. Add Animation Using Keyframes and Motion Paths

Once your drawing is ready, it’s time to animate!

• Select your drawing, press I to insert a keyframe for its current position.
• Move the timeline to a new frame.
• Then draw a new pose and hit I again to insert another keyframe.
  Repeat this process to build up your character’s motion across frames.

For smaller objects or repeated elements, you can animate them using motion paths and keyframes without redrawing every single frame.

To enhance your animation, consider adding some visual effects—like a blurred background for depth or camera movements to add energy and focus.

4. Preview and Final Render

Use the Play button in the timeline to preview your animation in real time.

For a quick preview, go to the View menu and choose “Viewport Render Animation”. This lets you check the animation without fully rendering it.

Once you’re satisfied, follow Blender’s rendering process to produce the final animation file.

If you want a visual guide, check out the video “Blender 2D Animation Basics for Beginners – Grease Pencil Guide” by PolyPaint for a great walkthrough of the process.

Here’s a step-by-step overview to help you get started with creating 3D animation in Blender:

1. Start a New Project

To begin, open Blender and create a new project by going to the File menu, hovering over New, and selecting General. This sets up the workspace for 3D animation in Blender, not 2D.

2. Import and Prepare Your 3D Model

Bring your 3D character or object into Blender by navigating to File > Import. Choose the correct format (e.g., .obj or .fbx), locate your model, and click Import.

Once the model is in your scene, you’ll see it placed in the 3D viewport. You can import more objects as needed to build your scene. Set up lighting using Blender’s lighting tools to enhance the look of your environment.

To animate facial expressions or mesh changes, use Shape Keys to create various versions like smiling or blinking.

3. Animate with Keyframes and Animation Tools

Use Blender’s animation features—such as Constraints, Motion Paths, Drivers, and Keyframes—to bring your models to life.

• Go into Object Mode and press I to insert a keyframe, or go to Object > Animation > Insert Keyframe.
• Place keyframes at different moments in time to define the movement or transformation of your model.
• You can set keyframes for position, rotation, and scale—and even name them if your animation gets complex, making it easier to manage.

4. Refine Your Animation

Go through your timeline and tweak your keyframes to make the motion smoother. You can adjust the interpolation type (e.g., linear, bezier) to control how movement transitions between keyframes. Don’t forget to animate smaller details to give your work a polished feel.

5. Add Sound and Camera Motion

To include sound in your animation:

• Switch to the Video Sequencer from the top-left editor menu.
• Press Shift + A, select Sound, and load your audio file.
• You can drag the sound strip along the timeline to sync it with your animation.

Adding camera movement also helps bring your scene to life. You can animate the camera just like any other object using keyframes.

6. Preview and Render

Before final rendering, use Blender’s Viewport Render Animation option to preview your scene and make any necessary tweaks. Since rendering can take time, this helps catch errors early.

When you’re happy with the result, let’s render the full animation. You may want to check some tips to optimize Blender Cycles and Eevee for fast rendering here.

Need help learning the ropes? Check out beginner-friendly tutorials like:
“How to Animate in Blender: Learning the Basics” by Alex on Story
“Animation for Beginners! Blender Tutorial” by Ryan King Art

These are great starting points to level up your skills with 3D animation in Blender.

iRender provides private high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications that excel in rendering, like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090,  RAM 256GB, Storage NVMe SSD 2TB.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast Blender renders on iRender’s machines!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Image and information source: Skillshare, Vagon, Blender, PolyPaint

Octane vs Corona vs Redshift are popular 3D render engines with strengths and weaknesses. Let’s find out which one is suitable for your project. In this article, we will discuss their highlighted features, hardware requirements and license price.

Before diving into the comparison between Octane vs Corona vs Redshift, let’s clarify four key terms.

The CPU (Central Processing Unit) acts as the computer’s “brain” — handling most core operations. In CPU rendering, image generation relies on the CPU’s processing power, typically prioritizing high-quality output, though often at slower speeds.

The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is a specialized processor built for handling complex graphical tasks. GPU rendering takes advantage of this, offering significantly faster render times compared to CPU rendering.

To learn more about CPU vs. GPU rendering, check out these resources: 1, 2. 

When it comes to rendering methods, unbiased rendering aims to simulate light with high physical accuracy. It produces highly realistic images, but at the cost of longer render times. On the other hand, biased rendering uses approximations and shortcuts to produce visually pleasing results more quickly. While not perfectly realistic, the output is often good enough for most practical needs — and much faster.

You can compare these two rendering approaches in more detail here.

OctaneRender is a GPU-accelerated, unbiased rendering engine known for its speed and ability to produce high-quality, photorealistic images.

📌 Rendering power

Harnessing the full potential of GPU acceleration, OctaneRender is capable of producing final-quality images up to 10–50 times faster than traditional CPU-based unbiased renderers. It scales efficiently across multiple GPUs — even supporting mixed NVIDIA cards in one system.

Octane excels in rendering complex atmospheric effects like fog, smoke, clouds, and fire with varying densities. It also features a proprietary system for handling detailed micro-surface displacement, enabling realistic materials such as skin, bark, or organic textures.

Its interactive viewport displays the final-quality render in real time, so any scene adjustments are instantly visible — making iterative work fast and intuitive.

📌 Software compatibility

OctaneRender offers a wide range of plugins that integrate seamlessly with major 3D applications like Blender, Maya, and Cinema 4D. It also includes a standalone version for direct rendering of scene files such as .FBX, .OBJ, or .ORBX, making it accessible even if your 3D tool doesn’t support Octane natively.

⚙️ OS: Windows® 7+ (64-bit), Linux® (64-bit), macOS® 10.13.6 High Sierra
Note: macOS versions 10.14+ don’t support CUDA, limiting GPU rendering on newer Macs.

⚙️ GPU: NVIDIA® CUDA-compatible GPU (compute capability 3.0+), latest CUDA 10 drivers

⚙️ RAM: Minimum 8 GB (16 GB or more recommended)

⚙️ CPU: A multi-core processor isn’t essential for rendering but helps with faster scene loading

A full OctaneRender license is available at $26.27/month or $263.08/year. Licenses are node-locked, meaning they can only be used on one machine at a time. You can switch devices, but only once per hour due to a cooldown restriction.

Corona Renderer, developed by Chaos, is a widely-used CPU-based render engine known for its simplicity, photorealistic results, and seamless integration with 3ds Max and Cinema 4D.

📌 Biased & Unbiased CPU-based rendering

Unlike some renderers that rely solely on biased or unbiased techniques, Corona offers both options. By default, it uses progressive path tracing, which closely mimics unbiased rendering — delivering realistic images with minimal effort. For faster workflows, Corona also includes biased tools that prioritize render speed over physical accuracy, allowing for efficient production without significantly sacrificing quality.

Corona is built to fully leverage the power of the CPU, meaning you can achieve high-quality results without needing a powerful GPU. This can save costs and simplify hardware setups — just invest in a strong processor.

📌 Compatibility

Corona works exclusively as a plugin for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D. If you’re using other 3D software, you’ll need to export your scene (e.g., via FBX or OBJ) and import it into one of the supported platforms to render with Corona. While not the most streamlined solution, it’s still doable.

📌 Autosave feature

Corona includes an Autosave function that regularly saves render progress in .exr format. This is especially helpful if a crash occurs, ensuring you don’t lose your work mid-render.

⚙️ CPU: Must support SSE 4.1 instruction set (only very old CPUs lack this)

⚙️ GPU: Not required for rendering. Corona already has a High Quality denoiser, which utilizes purely the CPU. However, optional preview denoisers for interactive previews require:

• • NVIDIA GPU AI Denoiser: Requires a Maxwell or newer NVIDIA GPU with the latest drivers
  • Intel GPU AI Denoiser: Requires a modern NVIDIA GPU (Volta, Turing, Ampere, Ada Lovelace, Hopper, or newer)

🔍 Corona Solo: $60.54/month or $395.68/year
Locked to a single machine; ideal for freelancers or fixed workstations.

🔍 Corona Premium: $71.57/month or $501.55/year
Allows flexible use across multiple machines and includes access to other Chaos tools:

• • Chaos Phoenix (simulate fire, smoke, fluids),
  • Chaos Player (high-res sequence playback),
  • Chaos Scans (ultra-real scanned materials)

Redshift is a powerful, GPU-accelerated 3D rendering engine known for its speed and ability to produce high-quality, photo-realistic images

📌 Software integration

Redshift functions as a plugin for widely-used 3D applications such as Cinema 4D, Maya, Blender, and 3ds Max. If your primary 3D software isn’t directly supported, you can still use Redshift by exporting your scene (e.g., as FBX, Alembic, or OBJ) and importing it into one of the compatible platforms such as Cinema 4D, Maya to render. However, this method offers more limited flexibility compared to native integration.

📌 Rendering Performance

Redshift is a GPU-accelerated renderer, designed to deliver much faster render times than traditional CPU-based engines. This speed makes it ideal for quick iterations and streamlined workflows.

As a biased renderer, Redshift uses smart approximations to reduce render time while still achieving high-quality visuals — making it efficient for both look development and final output.

It also supports multi-GPU rendering, meaning performance scales with the number of GPUs in your system. With Redshift RT (Real Time), artists can benefit from near-instant feedback right inside the viewport — enabling a faster creative process with real-time adjustments.

Minimum Hardware (by Operating Systems)

⚙️ Windows:

• • Windows: 64-bit Windows 10 or 11
  • 16 GB RAM (more recommended)
  • 64-bit CPU with AVX2 support
  • NVIDIA GPU with CUDA 5.0+ and at least 8 GB VRAM
  • or AMD RDNA 2 or newer with 8 GB+ VRAM

⚙️ macOS (Apple Silicon):

• • macOS: Version 13.3+ (Ventura), 14.1+ (Sonoma), 15.0+ (Sequoia)
  • 16 GB unified memory
  • Apple M-series chip (M1, M2, M3, M4)

⚙️macOS (Intel):

• • macOS: Version 13.3+ (Ventura), 14.1+ (Sonoma), 15.0+ (Sequoia)
  • 16 GB RAM
  • 64-bit processor with SSE4.2
  • AMD Navi or Vega GPU with 8 GB+ VRAM

⚙️Linux:

• • Linux: 64-bit with glibc 2.28 or newer
  • 16 GB RAM
  • 64-bit CPU with AVX2
  • NVIDIA GPU with CUDA 5.0+ and 8 GB+ VRAM

A Redshift floating license costs $46/month or $264/year. This license can be used across multiple machines, but only one at a time.

If you’re rendering with iRender, you’ll benefit from a free Redshift and Cinema 4D license included with each high-performance node — potentially saving $46/month. This gives you both powerful hardware and software at no extra cost.

When deciding which renderer suits your needs best, consider the following points:

• For photorealism, Corona stands out with its high-quality, physically accurate results — ideal for projects where realism is the top priority.
• If you need faster render times with results that are visually impressive and “good enough” for production, both Octane and Redshift are strong candidates thanks to their GPU-accelerated speed.
• In terms of software compatibility, Octane offers the most flexibility. While Corona and Redshift are limited to specific 3D applications, Octane supports a wide range of integrations and also includes a standalone version for importing and rendering scenes independently.
• Looking at hardware requirements, Corona is the least demanding. It relies solely on CPU performance, allowing you to invest in a powerful processor without needing an expensive GPU. In contrast, Octane and Redshift require high-performance GPUs and benefit from a strong CPU to prevent system bottlenecks.
• From a cost perspective, Octane currently offers the most affordable license. However, all three renderers provide trial versions, allowing you to test them before committing:
  • Corona – 30-day full-featured trial
  • Redshift – 14-day free trial
  • Octane – Free demo version available

iRender provide high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090,  RAM 256GB, Storage NVMe SSD 2TB.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast iRender’s nodes work!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

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Information and image sources: triplet3d, otoy, chaos, maxon

In this article, we will discuss various strategies to enhance viewport and rendering performance for Rasterization and Pathtracing (Blender Cycles and Eevee). Our goal is to lower the computational and memory demands on the GPU, CPU, VRAM, RAM, and even the hard drive

The first step to boosting the performance of Blender Cycles and Eevee is to optimize shader. Let’s explore ways to reduce memory usage and improve computation efficiency.

• Minimize Textures: Since memory reads are slow, reducing the number of textures used will significantly help. Aim to have each material reference as few textures as possible, and use the smallest necessary resolution and channel count.
  
• Use Alternatives to Color Maps: To optimize texture reads and make better use of computational resources, consider using a single grayscale mask and procedural texturing instead of color maps.
  
• Avoid Redundant Textures: By cropping your patterns or seamless textures, you can prevent storing unnecessary repetitive textures that don’t contribute to the final scene.
  
• Limit Photo Textures: Instead of using photo textures, which can be difficult to compress and are often too high in resolution, try using normal maps. For example, you can create a similar effect using a tiled rotated gradient in 3D instead of a 2D photo texture.
  
• Use Square Textures: Using square textures like 128×128 or 256×256 can help reduce the workload for VRAM.
  
• Resize Textures: If high-resolution textures don’t provide a noticeable visual difference, consider resizing them to reduce render times.

• Avoid Procedural Noise: Procedural noise is resource-heavy, so it’s better to use noise textures across multiple shaders and store various noise textures in different RGB channels to improve performance.
• Avoid Complex Procedural Masks: Ray-traced Ambient Occlusion (AO) or ray-traced beveling are computationally demanding. To minimize this load, consider using color attributes to store AO and edges in the RG channels instead of relying on heavy procedural masking.
• Simplify Complex Nodes: Nodes like HSL or Principled BSDF require significant processing power (CPU/GPU), memory (RAM), and time to calculate. Reducing the use of complex nodes can help lighten the computational load.
• Limit the Use of Volume Scattering: Volume scattering is very costly in terms of computation. To improve performance, it’s better to use a compositing pass with a depth pass or an emissive volume instead, as these are much less resource-intensive.
• Use Uber Materials: Having too many individual materials can reduce rendering performance, as each one needs to be compiled and is harder to manage. For faster rendering, use Uber materials that incorporate multiple attributes.
• Stop Using Alpha Blending: Alpha blending can slow down rendering. Switching the blend mode to Opaque, Alpha Clip, or Alpha Hashed can speed up the process.

Additionally, utilizing texture atlases or UDIMs to combine materials and choosing lower-quality filtering when possible can optimize both memory usage and computational performance.

The next step to improve the performance of Blender Cycles and Eevee is Geometry optimization.

• Remove Redundant Attributes: Attributes take up memory and need to be loaded into VRAM. By removing or merging unnecessary attributes and optimizing shaders, you can significantly reduce memory usage.
• Disable “Custom Split Normal Data” Option: The “custom split normal data” option in the Geometry data section consumes memory and doesn’t always provide noticeable visual improvements. Unchecking this option can help reduce memory usage.

• Avoid Overdrawing: Overdrawing is a big task when working with transparent objects. Drawing multiple triangles on top of each other leads to unnecessary processing. This is especially important when you need to trace rays through transparent objects. To reduce computational load, try manually cutting the mesh to minimize empty space while keeping the polycount low.
  
• Reduce Draw Calls: Every time an object or material is rendered, it generates a draw call. The more draw calls, the more work the CPU and GPU need to do. To minimize draw calls, try batching or merging multiple materials and meshes into a single one, especially when the complexity of the meshes or materials is low.
  
• Use LOD for Rasterization: When triangles are as small as or smaller than 1 pixel, the GPU still processes a 2×2 pixel block during rasterization, which wastes computational resources. To save resources and improve performance, it’s recommended to use LOD (Level of Detail), particularly for distant geometry.

• Avoid Overlapping Vertices: When importing or editing meshes, you may end up with vertices or entire faces at the same location, consuming unnecessary memory and computation power without improving the visual quality. To remove duplicates, use Edit Mode > Select All > Mesh > Merge > By Distance.
  
• Use Instances for Symmetry: Duplicating a mesh to create symmetry doubles the number of triangles the computer needs to process. This means the GPU/CPU still has to handle both sides, even if they are identical. It’s better to split your mesh and use instances instead of duplicates to save on memory and processing power

• Use rasterization when full path tracing isn’t necessary.
  
• Lower the number of samples to speed up rendering time.
  
• Turn off features that don’t significantly affect the final visual quality.
  
• Use the minimum number of lights and shadows to maintain performance.
  
• Transparent bounces can cause a significant drop in performance.

• Clamping: Controls the maximum brightness of individual light samples. Lowering this can reduce noise and fireflies.
  
• Direct Lighting: Set to 0 for unbiased results. You can increase it to 1 to reduce noise in complex light setups.
  
• Indirect Lighting: Set to 0.1 for animations to reduce noise while maintaining a path-traced look.
  
• Disable Reflective and Refractive Caustics: This helps speed up renders and reduces noise.
  
• Min Light Bounces and Min Transparent Bounces: Set to total bounces to reduce noise.
  
• Light Tree: Useful for scenes with many lights, but avoid it for scenes with fewer lights due to extra computation.
  
• Optix vs Open Image Denoise (OID): Optix is faster, but OID (GPU) is recommended for better results with RTX cards.
  
• Threads Mode: Set to fixed and use CPU threads -1 for better CPU/GPU balance.
  
• Tiling: Disable it for faster rendering unless working with high-resolution images or low VRAM.
  
• Persistent Data: Keep BVH and other data cached to speed up repeated renders.
  
• Viewport Pixel Size: Set to 2x or auto to reduce pixel count during ray tracing for heavy scenes.

iRender provides private high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications that excel in rendering, like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090,  RAM 256GB, Storage NVMe SSD 2TB.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast Blender renders on iRender’s machines!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

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If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Source of images and information: cgverse, Blender

Are you wondering why your render engine isn’t utilizing your hardware to its full potential? Thinkbox Deadline might be the solution you need. Let’s explore how to use it.

Thinkbox Deadline is a powerful administration and compute management toolkit designed for render farms running on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It enables studios to distribute rendering tasks efficiently across multiple machines, whether locally or in the cloud. With Deadline, you can maximize the performance of your hardware and even leverage additional machines to accelerate rendering.

Compatible with nearly all 3D software and render engines, Thinkbox Deadline optimally distributes workloads across CPUs and GPUs, ensuring efficient resource utilization. Additionally, users can monitor and manage the rendering process through the Deadline Monitor.

Three main components of the Thinkbox Deadline System:

• Deadline Database – Stores jobs, settings, and worker configurations.
• Deadline Repository – Contains plugins, scripts, logs, and auxiliary files (such as scene files) submitted with jobs.
• Deadline Clients – Responsible for submitting, rendering, and monitoring jobs.

Key Terms to Know for Using Thinkbox Deadline

1. Worker (Previously Known as Slave Node)

A Worker Node is a computer assigned to process render jobs sent from Deadline Monitor. It handles rendering frames, simulations, or other computational tasks assigned by the render manager.

2. Job

A Job refers to a 3D project—such as a scene or video—that is submitted to Thinkbox Deadline for rendering. Deadline manages and controls the entire rendering process.

3. Task

A Job is divided into multiple Tasks, each of which is assigned to a specific Worker application for rendering. A Task can consist of a single frame or a sequence of frames. For example, when rendering an animation in 3ds Max where each frame requires hours to complete, each frame can be processed as an individual Task to speed up the workflow.

4. Job Scheduling

This is the process of distributing and managing render jobs across available Worker Nodes based on priority, resources, and specific rules. Once a job is submitted, the Job Scheduler determines:

• Which Worker Nodes will handle the job
• The number of frames or tasks assigned to each node
• The processing order of multiple jobs
• How CPU and GPU resources are allocated for optimal performance

To install Thinkbox Deadline, first log into your AWS account, navigate to the Thinkbox Deadline section, and select the desired version and operating system. Download the installation file onto your centralized server and render nodes, then extract the ZIP file to prepare for installation.

The Deadline Repository only needs to be installed on a single machine (ideally a server) to store job-related data. If the repository machine and render nodes are on different networks, you must use a VPN or Port Forwarding to allow access. Alternatively, you can host the Repository on a cloud server accessible to all client nodes.

To install the Repository, run the Deadline Repository installer and follow the setup wizard. Below are the steps for version 10.1.23.0:

1. Review and accept the End User License Agreement.
2. Choose the default repository folder or specify a custom location, ensuring full read and write access.
3. Select one of the following:
   • If Deadline is being installed for the first time, choose to install a new MongoDB database.
   • If MongoDB is already installed, connect to the existing database.
4. If installing MongoDB:
   • Opt to download MongoDB and accept the license agreement.
   • Proceed with the default installation settings.
   • The required MongoDB version will be downloaded and installed automatically.
5. Set a password for certificates (optional—you can leave it blank).
6. Secrets Management Setup: Create an admin user for the Secrets Manager.
7. The Repository files will be unpacked, installed, and configured.

Note: If updating an existing Repository, previous files and folders will be backed up automatically.

The Deadline Client will be installed on Workstations or Render Nodes. Double-click the installer and follow the setup wizard. Below are the steps for version 10.1.23.0:

1. Select Installation Type → Choose “Remote Connection Server” (This is required for using the Deadline AWS Portal).
2. Specify the Repository Directory → Enter the path where the Repository was installed (e.g., C:\DeadlineRepository10).
3. Configure Database TLS Certificates:
   • Click the icon next to Database TLS Certificates.
   • Navigate to Local Disk (C:) → DeadlineDatabase10 → certs.
   • Select Deadline10Client.pfx, then Right-click → Properties → Security.
   • Ensure the Deadline user has read and write permissions.
   • Open Deadline10Client.pfx.
4. Enter the Certificate Password (set in Step 1) → Click Next.
5. Assign Server Role → Click Next.
6. Create a Deadline Admin User → Save the username and password for future use → Click Next.
7. If using a service account, enable Launcher as a Service; otherwise, click Next.
8. Configure HTTPS Server Settings → Create a password (needed for connecting to the Remote Connection Server) → Click Next.

The installation files will be prepared, extracted, and installed.

The Deadline Monitor serves as the primary interface for overseeing render jobs, managing machines, and configuring settings. Follow these steps to connect:

1. Open Deadline Launcher on the render node.
2. Click Launch Worker to activate the Deadline Worker.
3. On any machine, open Deadline Monitor.
4. Enable Super User Mode (located in the bottom-right corner).
5. Go to the Workers panel and verify the status of the client node:
   • Idle – The node is ready to receive jobs.
   • Rendering – The node is actively processing a job.
   • Stalled – There is a connection issue (check network settings).

To submit render jobs from 3D software like Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, or Blender to Thinkbox Deadline, you need to install the Submission Plugin.

• In some Deadline versions, the submission script is automatically installed during the Deadline Client setup.
• In other versions, manual installation is required. You can install it on any machine, such as an artist’s workstation.

How to Install the Submission Plugin Manually:

1. Access the Repository folder (e.g., DeadlineRepository10).
2. Navigate to the Submission directory and find the folder for your 3D software.
3. Double-click the Installer to begin installation.

1. Open your 3D software on your workstation.
2. Load your scene and select your render engine (e.g., Arnold, V-Ray, Redshift).
3. Configure the render settings, including frame range, resolution, and output path.
4. Go to the Deadline tab and click Submit Job to Deadline.
5. Monitor the render progress using the Deadline Monitor.

If you’re looking to render your Houdini project using Thinkbox Deadline, refer to this article for installation instructions and this one for optimization tips.

iRender provide high-configuration machines with upmarket specifications like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz or AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz, 1/2/4/6/8 x RTX4090 or RTX3090,  RAM 256GB, Storage NVMe SSD 2TB.

Why can iRender be a great render farm for you?

In addition to high-configuration servers, iRender provides many other utilities to provide the best user experience.

• Dedicated server for individuals: You have full control and access to the server you rent. The working environment (installed apps, files) will be stored for the next use.
• Easy and free file transfer between your computer and iRender’s server: The transferring task can be done via iRender GPU application for Windows and the iRender Drive application for MacOS.
• 24/7 assistance: iRender’s attentive agents are always ready to support all your queries.
• All software compatibility: iRender’s PCs are built to meet the configuration needs of all 3D software and rendering tools at a variety of cost levels for users to choose from.

Let’s see how fast iRender’s nodes work!

New users will get a 100% bonus for the first transaction within 24 hours of their registration. No minimum amount!! If you top up 50$, you will get 100 points in total to hire our machines.

REGISTER NOW

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me through email duongdt@irender.vn or our 24/7 support team for a quick response.

Thank you for reading

Image and information source: AWS Thinkbox, thinkboxsoftware