Is there a way to utilize an online renderfarm without the use of a graphics card?
I’m working with a Lenovo ThinkCentre with a preset Intel Q45/Q43 chipset, 8GB RAM and 500GB HD. And it’s hard to find a good graphics card with my kind of computer (this is the general shape/design). Which is why I’m bringing up the question in the first place, as final render times on it are quite long when using cycles (almost 7 or so hours for one frame, in a recent project, it’s almost 3).
What do you mean by “without the use of a graphics card”? Anyone can upload projects to a render farm.
Hi,
Assuming you want CUDA on board for at least some previews to be generated locally I can recommend Quadro K1200, for the rendering I can suggest trying our remote connection to 8 GPU server, you pay per hour and first hour (to test our service) is free.
Great article about the server itself and benchmark (video is at the bottom of the page).
No, I mean I can’t find the proper chipset on any of the renderfarms I’ve seen. Which makes me think I need a Graphics card in order to get these things to work.
Sorry, but you’re speaking in riddles. What is a “proper chipset”? And where do you expect to find it?
Using a render farm usually means uploading a file to the render service, deciding on what package you want to use/money you want to spend and then waiting for the email signaling that the render job is done.
What IkariShinji said. A renderfarm runs Blender completely independent from your machine. Your .blend file contains no information about the kind of machine where it was made, nor will the renderfarm care.
The only issue could be if an old machine forces you to use very old versions of Blender that are not supported by the renderfarm.
No, what I’m saying is that every site I’ve been on, including the one that’s been linked in this thread, asks the same few questions- “Choose processor” and “choose Graphics card”. The first of which I have no idea of, and the latter of which I don’t have.
To wit:
Unless I’m missing something here, this is the sort of thing I keep getting when I want to use one of these online renderfarms.
This is supposed to give you an approximation of the render cost…
You enter the hardware configuration you have (or similar) and the render times you see. From that information the service provider can estimate the load your scene will produce on the render farm. This will then allow an assessment on how much you likely have to pay.
Says “cost calculator” quite clearly. Don’t overthink things. Still, I’m a bit surprised that you don’t seem to know your CPU… Are you on Windows? If so, what does the system properties window say about your CPU?
It it Windows, I just can’t seem to find my CPU type on the cost calculator anywhere.
This is what I can find about my display:
Chipset ≠ CPU.
BTW, is that Windows XP?! You really shouldn’t use that anymore. IIRC, to get processor info on Windows XP, right-click on “My Computer”, click properties and find your processor type in the “General” tab. Or select the “Hardware” tab, then click on Device Manager and double-click on processors.
Or you can get CPUID app to get a more detailed info about your CPU as well as Graphics Card.
Btw, it seems like you have an integrated Intel graphics card?
No, it’s Windows 7.
I have no idea how you got the idea of me using a super outdated OS from.
I would say forget your chipset, etc… and just try a render farm. I tried a bunch and liked render.st the best. Back when I did it they had a $25 free trial without giving any cc info, don’t know if that’s still around. Their interface for uploading , starting/stopping renders was just the easiest for me.
Thanks for the recommendation Photox!
We still do have the $25 free trial for new users, and anyone can use our service regardless of what hardware they use to create the project (laptop/desktop/CPU or GPU)
Philmister978, you can go ahead and create an account on our farm, and we’ll help get you started should you need any assistance.
I’ll consider it. Just how long is the free trial?
For the on-demand service (paid hourly), you get $25 if you are a new user, and there is no time limit. Once you have the bonus, you can use it in one day or in one year if you wish.
We also have a separate plan with a $50 flat fee per month for all you can render, RenderStreet One. For this one, there is a 1-day trial for $1 (actually, we take the $1 in order to validate the credit card, but $1 for 1 day is an easier way to describe it)
Sheepitis free and there are plenty of users who use graphics cards to boost render times. It may take a bit longer that the paid farms, but then you get what you pay for 
Hey what’s your GPU cards guys?
We use Nvidia K520 GPUs, and there are 4 GPUs per server. One server is roughly equivalent with two Titan boards, you can see some performance numbers on our blog if you’re interested.
Alright, thanks! Great benchmark by the way.
It shows that the CPU tends to outperform the GPU. What’s your CPU specs in that case?
