using Maxwell Render with Solidworks on laptop

Hi,

I've just bought Maxwell Render to use with Solidworks. I'm thinking of
buying a laptop as I spend more than 5 hours a day on the train. I'm
really just wondering what defines rendering time and whether a laptop
such as a Dell M20 could compete in rendering time with your average
Dell Dimension desktop. I would love to here any feedback from anyone
who has used both for rendering.

Thanks.

 

Rendering is always CPU intensive, so I would get the fastest machine
possible and load up on RAM, and since I keep machines for 2-3 years
before upgrading, I would get the highest end laptop I could. The Dell
M60 and M70 have always performed pretty well next to higher end
desktops.

I spoke with the Dell guys at SolidWorks world, and they noted that the
next generation of machines is due out in March.

I currently use the M60, and since it is now well over 2 years old, I
expect I will upgrade, and I'm thinking of getting Maxwell Render, too.
I didn't have enough time at the show floor to spend any amount of
time going into Maxwell, but I'll bet someone at the company would
respond with examples from experience. They seemed fairly responsive
to the question or two I had.

Bo

 

Well I use Maxwell with an M20 and it works fine.

As Bo mentioned it all in the processor speed. However if you are
planning to render while on the train, then the computer is very slow
at doing anything else - or if you set maxwell to low priority then
the rendering is slow . ;-)

TTFN

Jonathan

 

If you're looking at the M20, cost is probably an issue. If speed is
more of an issue, you may consider a laptop with dual core, since
Photoworks will make good use of the second process.

There are several AMD offerings which have the 64 X2. Someone recently
said he bought a Hypersonic with the X2 4800+, which would make a great
rendering machine, but he probably paid over $3k for it. M20 would be
about $2k or less.

Hypersonic, Alienware and Xtremenotebooks.com are the 3 AMD laptop
providers I would take a look at.

matt

 

Matt - sychronocity at work - my copy of Personal Computer dropped
through the post and it has on the cover

"ACER Travelmate 8204WLMi - fastest laptop ever !" and a short review
inside.

- Spec - intel 2ghz Duo Core T2500 processor
2gb Ram
ATI Radeon X1600
160gb disc
+ the usual mobile wireless stuff

£1,760

I don't know my computer specs but it looks nice !

TTFN

Jonathan

 

Ok, the Radeon is not a card you want to use with SolidWorks. There's
another outlandish thread right now where some guy is melting down over
this. I looked at a few Acers, and the ones I saw all had Radeons or
SiS mobo integrated video, which is even worse. You could live with
FireGL, or better yet nVidia Quadro FX Go 1400. Anything nVidia except
the NVS is ok. A Quadro 500 used to come in old Dell laptops (M50)
which I have been using for 3-4 years, and the video has worked fine, if
somewhat slow.

matt

 

Definately stick with the highest end laptop video card which
SolidWorks recommends.

Virtually ALL Laptop mfgrs have or shortly will release their newest
versions with the latest CPUs, so there is some strategy to use here
based on your circumstances, since "last years models" will be
discounted shortly or are already are, depending on what you want to
pay for a great machine.

Dell sells refurb returns & demos of M20 and M70 ocassionally at good
prices.

Bo

 

What i found, is that the number of floating point calculations of a
procesor is what really makes the differance in rendering time.
Of course all the other components have to keep up with the procesor.

 

Seems to me most of the Maxwell renders take many hours to produce a fairly
noiseless image - longer than the battery charge of a laptop anyway.
I would be inclined to have Maxwell on a retired pc and just have it
churning away in the background or overnight as a dedicated render machine.

 

BTW as general news for SW people - there is a script to allow a render
engine similar to Maxwell which is under development to be used with Blender
.. Go here to look at some trial renders.
http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61041&start=60
Hopefully this will yield a free soln of similar capability in the near
future.
In other Blender development news there is a lot happening to the rendering
system which will allow rendering in passes, OpenEXR images, material nodes
etc and ultimately micropolygons.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Is it possible to continue modelling on Solidworks while Maxwell is
producing a render? Would a dual core be beneficial for this? I'm
assuming you can but Solidworks would be pretty slow.

 

Don't know about the dual core - You can set the number of threads
used by Maxwell so I suppose you could set it to 0ne ( you get up to 4
with one license) and then hopefully use SW on the other but it is
best to ask Next Limit direct.

On my single cpu machine - if Maxwell is rendering - you might as well
have a coffee and read the paper ;-)

TTFN

Jonathan

 

Jonathan, part size, background and complexity affect render times, so
I'ld like to ask a quick question on render times.

If one were to model a typical computer mouse with one or two light
sources, and then render with no background & no reflections, can you
estimate what the likely time to render in Maxwelll might be?

I know the answer will be an estimate, but I'm just trying to get my
hands around the ballpark of such objects for rendering.

Thanks - Bo

 

I am no expert Bo - I just press the render button

However in maxwell I think the the render times are greatly effected
by

1 - the type of materials you decide to attach. Glossy and dielectric
materials really take time (days even!!). Diffuse ( ie without complex
highlight colours ) are the fastest.
2- Type of light - Using the built in Skydome and Sun light is much
faster than using Emitters ( your own lights which you can control the
Watts and Light colour etc)
3 - number of triangles in the scene ( this includes background if you
are using a stage).

4 - Resolution of the image.


So to take your example of a mouse - Couple of lights and a simple
plastic material should give a good result in a couple of hours. Add
in any transparent materials and you double this .

However it has to be said that Maxwell renders in a progressive manner
so it is very quick to give you an image with all the shadows and
light distribution ( 1 minute ) - then all that happens is this rough
image gets sharper and sharper and after about 10 minutes the overall
brightness settles down to the final 'look' and the noise in the
dielectrics and any reflective surfaces is reduced and reduced and
reduced as the hours pass. You can pause at any time you like and
use the image and restart at your conveniance.


I have adapted my presentation work since getting Maxwell

I use PW for quick and dirty 'cartoon' renderings with the 'Outline'
turned on to show assembly sequances features. This way I don't have
to spend time dually with the sliders in PW - and then have one or
two photorealistic images done in Maxwell to show off the final look
of the design. I set these up with 30 minute trial renders to check
the lighting etc and then render over night to get rid of the noise.

However be aware that Maxwell does not do Decals and Textures yet
through the SW plugin, as these are not properly supported by SW. So
if you want to render with decals and complex textures its best to use
Max or Maya or such like to render in Maxwell. I believe this will
improve in SW2007 but nothing is ever firm with Maxwell - it is still
in developement and so you are buying into a unknown.

I'll make the same offer I made to Markus - email me a parasolid
assembly of the file and I'll render it for you! Nothing booked for
tonights render

- remove SPAM

TTFN

Jonathan