KS render vs. Games

[PhilippeV8]

Quick question ... how can I explain to the IT-guy, why it takes me 1h or more to render 1 image with KS, while his son plays UT where shadow & light and FullHD effects are rendered at 25 FPS ... 

[rfollett]

Flash graphics card and decals instead of geometry 

[DriesV]

Quick question ... how can I explain to the IT-guy, why it takes me 1h or more to render 1 image with KS, while his son plays UT where shadow & light and FullHD effects are rendered at 25 FPS ... 

Wait, does your IT guy questions the benefit of having a powerful CPU for rendering?
Do you want to push (or pursuade to put it slightly more subtle) IT to buy a more powerful workstation?

If so, this is what worked for me:
1 ) Take your 600 euros anno 2012 personal notebook with you to office.
2 ) Install & run KeyShot trial on it
3 ) Run camera benchmark
4 ) Repeat step 3 on your WS
5 ) Show your IT guy that -based on fps- your cheapo NB is outperforming your -supposed to be high-end- WS by a factor of 6
6 ) Show that f.i. drafting in SolidWorks is very unresponsive during KeyShot rendering, making YOU quite unproductive while KeyShot is working out your system (assuming you are involved in design&engineering)
7 ) Make a simple calculation of how much time you loose on a monthly basis
8 ) If your IT dept. is not completely mental, this should suffice to get an upgrade...

Dries

[PhilippeV8]

LoL..

Ok they already helped me out on your point 6)
I have 2 workstations.  One I had already and a "new" one.  But I think I heard somewhere that these are 2nd hand.

Then for your point 1) .. I have a 300

[DriesV]

...
Then for your point 1) .. I have a 300

Makes for an even stronger argument  !

But honestly, I do recognize your agony with IT...
I remember having a lot of trouble explaining to IT that KeyShot DOES NOT require a powerful graphics card to enhance performance. You'd think they'd take advice from the people who use the software everyday and who are savvy enough on the tech side of things... I think I finally managed to push my recommendation for our newest workstation.

greetings,
Dries

[PhilippeV8]

Arg .. darn forum :p  My text was cut short.

Ok so what I was trying to say was:

for your point 1) .. I have a 300 euro acer .. which specs were in my original post cuz I was at home and could see them there .. :/
Either way, I doubt that I'd get better fps on that one than my workstation with 2 quad cpu's from work.

In any case, I will keep getting the IT-guy at my desk, and I can't make him understand why KS takes 1h for just 1 frame, while his son gets 25 of them per second, with fullHD resolution and stunning lighting/shadow/smoke/etc etc.

[DriesV]

Ah, I see now  !

Slightly offtopic, but out of curiosity:
What specs do your workstations have?

Dries

[PhilippeV8]

System1:
Dual Core AMD Opteron 280 (= 4 threads) @ 2.39 GHz, 3.25 GB - Windows XP Pro v2002 sp3

System2: (=render WS)
(dual) Intel Xeon X5450 (= 8 threads) @ 3.00 GHz, 3.25 GB - Windows XP Pro v2002 sp3

[m2tts]

Tell him game geometry is much simpler than the real product geometry you are simulating, and that the game is faking the photorealism any chance it gets.

Show him SW with realview turned on and how it simulates the kind of realtime rendering that your game sees; then show him a keyshot session of the same model and how much more "real" it is in realtime keyshot than in the realview version. Keyshot is a computer model of real light as opposed to optimized fakery for entertainment.

Keyshot is selling the "Real Products" your company creates, not fantasy.

[PhilippeV8]

His answer will be "yeah but fake does look pretty good nowadays"

[PhilippeV8]

The question probably is how much time it takes the game-creator to build in all the fakery ... no ?

[PhilippeV8]

btw: Acer Aspire 5733Z with pentium P6200 (2 threads) @2.13 GHz 4GB with Windows 7 home 64bit and a not mentionable on board graphics card.