advice for a green, please [to eevee or not to eevee]

(I’m a noob making first post- so i apologize if this is wrong place!!)

Howdy folks-
I’m interested in Blender, but even more interested in the health of the world [yeah, i’m one of those greens].
I always loved cg but was, and am, not about to buy and run global-warming computer systems to satisfy my lust. Now i hear great things about Eevee’s speed that give me hope.
I realize that running Blender, even with Eevee on a fairly minimal system (ryzen 1500X, GTX 1050) wouldn’t exactly be optimal, but would it be realistic? What kind of experience do you think i’d have? (Example: 5 second, 5 minute, or 50 minute viewport refreshes; 5 minute final renders per complex scene image, or 50 minute…???)
Thanking you for your help in advance…
Suniram

What did the sadist do to the masochist? Nothing.

Just buy any used computer. If energy consumption is your concern, manufacturing a new computer is taking up more energy than using it will: https://www.networkworld.com/article/2229029/data-center/computer-factories-eat-way-more-energy-than-running-the-devices-they-build.html

the goal of eevee is realtime rendering, so i would say anywhere from 24-60 fps would be the target.

but its still early in development so its hard to really know. i would recommend giving it a few more months and see what kind of hardware its running on.

as for realism, dont expect raytracer quality. maybe closer to unity, so think video game quality.

gtx 1000 series is not a requirement, just opengl 3.3(i think). im betting my gtx 970 should be able to render realtime.

Stop eating meat and fish, if you are concerned about the well-being of our planet and its ecosystem. Very simple.

A person who eats meat every day and rides a bicycle to work every day is far less sustainable compared to a vegetarian driving to work in a Hummer.

100 billion dead animals per year to feed the human race. The suffering & damage induced on so many levels (not only animals) = Pure insanity.

It’s obvious advice, but worth repeating. My computer, or craputer as i refer to it is about 7 years old and on last legs tell (hard to tell what’s down to hardware and what to amazingly flaky Windoze), but i’ll certainly try to buy used.

“maybe closer to Unity”? That’s disappointing, and a bit surprising- the videos and stills i’ve seen look as good as Cycles. I’ll hope you’re wrong. Funny you should say GTX970- it’s what i planning on getting. Why did you say OpenGL 3.3?

I’ve never had a car, and have been a ‘vegan’ for decades. Your advice is obvious but it’s probably worth repeating, particularly in a computer forum.
Actually, the only piece of technology i have is my craputer, and i only have it because they no longer make typewriters.

PS: Why are computers like hemorrhoids? When you sit down the pain returns!

"A person who eats meat every day and rides a bicycle to work every day is far less sustainable compared to a vegetarian driving to work in a Hummer. "
as my maths teacher used to say, show your workijng out for this.

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with the right tricks, i dont doubt you can get it to look like a raytracer. but the point is, its not, so it shouldnt be compared.

i thought i saw somewhere on blender.org mentioning 3.3 to be a requirement.

Ah, actually, i must disagree with, “but the point is, its not, so it shouldn’t be compared”. If it looks like a duck i don’t really care if it’s a dog in a great costume. If it renders about as well, without time-wasting tweaking (!), technical precision means nothing to me, and, i suspect, to many users. Speaking of “the right tricks”, would you happen to know of a good source/URL for same? Thanks!

I haven’t tested 2.80 yet, but Eevee plans to handle multiple reflection probes and particle hair shaders in realtime. Based on current Blender 2.79 viewport performance, my (downclocked) kabylake laptop GTX1080, which is effectively a i7 skylake GTX1070, should easily score 30-60fps on an average medium size scene. GTX1050 should get you near real time, if not real real time!

It also depends on how hungry are your scene objects. It’s hard to get a scientific gauge at this point. Just download a recent build and play around. That is the beauty of Blender ecology. It’s open.

Thanx for your response! I think i’ll get a 1060, just for a safety margin/headroom. Your info gives me a concrete starting point, and, with my present dying craputer, i have to start somewhere.

I thought the target of Eevee was to get close to Unreal’s graphical prowess, not Unity’s?

Even then, one of the ideas is that using F12 rendering for Eevee scenes would use techniques that are otherwise too expensive to display in realtime (so you have things like good quality soft shadows and maybe a higher resolution for things like GI).

Also to Suniram; You are aware that powerful machines today use less energy than the weaker machines of yesterday due to tremendous advances in efficiency, right? The vast majority of your carbon footprint will likely be from areas such as air conditioning, heating, and appliances and not your PC. I say though if you really want to minimize it, then move to the woods and live like Tarzan (no technology, no modern life, and no use of anything not made using what is readily found, that means making clothes with leaves and grass).

Actually, I will have to retract that statement. A friend of mine mentioned this last year, and I failed to cross-check this with actual facts - seems the journalist in question had to retract his numbers at the time (Oct 2009).

Although this is interesting:

But how does the meat-eater match up against the more modest Prius driver? The answer, in short: not so well. Using the University of Chicago study’s calculations with the current EPA mileage statistics, a 2010 Prius getting 50 miles per gallon has a footprint of roughly around 1.4 tons annually. That means the Prius-driving vegan beats the meat-eating bicyclist by about half a ton in annual carbon impact. **

But a Prius takes much more maintenance to keep it driving around. Plus all the extra pollution on top of it all (rubber tire erosion, fine dust generated by today’s open breaks, …)

Best to be vegan/vegetarian riding a bicycle, then :stuck_out_tongue:
For your health and the world.

References:
**https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/blogs/the-prius-driving-vegan-vs-the-meat-eating-bicyclist-who-is-the-better
https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/michael-pollan-admits-he-was-wrong.html

When graphene transistors will come then everything will change. Do not forget ITER too when power are needed in future.

1060 is nice. In terms of value per CUDA for desktop GTX, methinks 1070 is the sweetest spot f0r performance + energy efficiency.

Heat issue is a big deal. It’s really nice how low-powered GPU is becoming, 1060/ 1070 mobile version run on some 60w battery laptop, 99w could run 1080. Laptop GTX especially the most recent overpriced Max-Q is of course even more low powered, but not so value for money. I think the same ratio of energy efficiency is true for desktop 1050/60/70 vs 1080.

Based on the continuing progress, latest CPU-GPU hybrid option for example, even top 9-series should see amazing fps in 2.8… I reckon…

Prior to joining Blender, I upgraded from a 4-5 years old win7 desktop with 600w power to a 99w power energy efficient “small form factor” desktop called a gaming laptop (lol). I spent 30% more to get 70% lower heat output. A bit like solar panel investment I guess. No regrets.

Win 7 to Win 10 transition is relatively smooth too.

If you want to eat anything, something is going to have to die. Whether it be plant or animal, unless of course you’ve figured out how to eat rocks.

The chicago “study” you quoted is just plain wrong.

First of all, carbon, and carbon dioxide are not now or ever been pollutants. Carbon is an essential element in the building blocks of life, unless you hail from some other planet than the rest of us ‘carbon-based lifeforms’.

If you really cared about the environment as you claim, then killing plants for food is, bay far, the worse thing you can do to the Earth. The Earth requires all the extra plantlife it can muster to counteract the carbon dioxide you claim is destroying it, by that theory killing more animals would be the BEST thing for the planet as they would expel less CO2 - would they not?

As for the Prius, not only are they no better than a standard car, they’re actually far, FAR worse. Just the mining of the nickel and other minerals needed for the batteries alone, not to mention the chemicals needed to produce and use in these batteries are caustic and deadly!

Do you actually know the process to make just one Prius? the 1.4 tons figure that was quoted went out the window just on the 4 steel-belted all weather radials these things are driving on, and let’s not forget the spare.

What about the oil and grease used to lubricate the engine, transmission, bearings, tie-rod ends, etc.? What about all the petroleum that went into the manufacturing of all the high-impact plastic for things like the dashboard, door handles, and all the pretty knobs like the knob to really crank up the AC? Speaking of AC, in a Prius, I can’t believe people as “enviromentally conscious” would need one of the worst things for the planet like air conditioning, have they forgotten about chloro-flourocarbons or whatever they called them.

Clearly, it really is up to the person to drive whatever they choose, and if that’s a Prius I’m all for driving a clean, efficient car as riding a bicycle, for most people, is NOT a reality due to weather or the distance they need to travel - but to make the statement that a Prius is better than a standard car is just factually wrong.

-fitz

Folks… let’s not get off-track here.