Is it possible to get OSX builds?
If there is enough demand, yes. If at least 5 people want to take the year option, I would invest in a small mac to do the builds. So if you find 4 other people, you get it.
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The linux build with an option to deactivate auto tile size is already up, the win version comes tomorrow.
The windows build is uploaded. I recommend to check if it’s really faster with CPU. I’ll be happy to see your comparison with and without CPU at the tile size you prefer.
I have render bmw27_gpu
Blender 2.79.6
GPU+CPU /tiles 16/16 - the fastest setup
time 2:20
E-cycles
GPU+CPU/tiles 16/16
time 1:28
So it looks like a nice speedup , I will chck it with other files
I have i7-3930K, GTX 1060, win10
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I have tested render speed in BMW scene. With vanilla Blender it was 209 seconds, with E-Cycles it is down to 119 seconds (1.75x faster).
Classroom - 627 seconds with vanilla Blender and 446 seconds with E-Cycles (1.4x faster).
Impressive speed-ups. For rendering I have used CPU and overclocked GTX 680 (1200 MHz GPU and 7100 MHz memory).
Also, support is good, all issues (specific to E-Cycles build) I have found and reported were quickly fixed.
Good to see it also gives good speedup using CPU. Just to know, could you render the same scene but with only the GPU?
You’re welcome 
Hi, I tried it today
I have GTX 1080 TI and Treadripper 1950 pro (16/32)
Your version is faster for GPU, but CPU+GPU is slower
I think because of tile size,
i cannot make it smaller,
maybe 16x16 would be good,
but in all downloaded verions they are big,
input number tiles are ignored
You must take the new version. I let the old one, because it is faster for some older architectures.
Edit: Updated the month abo page, somehow Gumroad separate them… Fixed.
I’ll plan to buy cryptomining equipment and build home renderfarm out of this for my own usage. It’s used AMD Radeon 480RX 8Gb cards. Will I get benefits with these cards by using your e-cycles build? Do you plan to patch source code and build upcoming version of blender 2.8?
AMD cards get about 15% on top. So if you buy 1000€ of hardware, using this build will be like buying 150€ more of hardware and you will need a smaller power supply and you will pay less electricity. So this build at full price will cost 99€ (beginning on Monday). So with 1000€ of hardware (example), you spare 50€ directly and a bit more through electricity when your bills arrive.
You can also take one month first and see if it really benefits you on your hardware and with your scenes. If enough customers have AMD cards, I’ll more seriously look into it.
NVidia has given me free hardware, so it motivates me to look more for CUDA of course. But I’m free.
Thank you for quick reply. The costs of electricity isn’t a critical factor for me. I pay 2.85 Euro for first 100 KWt and 5.32 Euro for each another 100 KWt. (there are 7 nuclear power station in my country, and electricity is cheap). I already bought one card about a month ago to try. It’s AMD rx 480 8 Gb Sapphire nitro+. There a lot of proposals on local market similar cards, about 110 Euro per piece. Also there a lot of Nvidia cards like 1070 GTX but they are costs 2 times more at least. So AMD cards have better ratio performance per Euro than Nvidia equivalent. But this is true for Blender master build. Yesterday I found this thread and I’m not sure I’ll buy AMD cards. It’s need to calculate which one cards is best. I’ll do it after I will sleep… It’s almost 5 a.m. and I go bed.
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That’s indeed very cheap. Here it’s over 25 € for 100kWh, so it becomes a factor very fast.
Hi!
I’m very interested in purchase this because the improvements in OSL speedup. You have some numbers/ benchmarks of it to share?
Send you a PM.
Edit: just did some test on a ryzen 2400g and the bmw scene with OSL just turned on, nothing else changed. 12min07 on master vs 7min18 on the optimized build (both test done on Linux). So that’s about 1.65x faster in this case.
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Just been trying this, w/ mixed results. did a test animation on one of my files, came out pretty good and fast, was a trial so i didn’t time anything exactly. however, one of my other files is crashing. i moved all my files onto my Win 10 machine and initially though that was the issue, but restesting on my Win7 machine seems to confirm it’s file-related but i don’t know why:
- i’m using several different files, one per shot, all have the same assets and characters etc
- when i initially look in the LookDev, some materials are pink, which used to mean a missing texture, though in Rendered view they’re fine - i’ve not used 2.8 before so i don’t know if this is normal - the materials are just procedural noise etc.
- the file that crashes; it renders about 4 tiles then just closes Blender. I’ve managed to open Blender via the command prompt to keep some crash info alive and it’s saying
"Generating new 3d noise done
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Mix Shader.Clo
sure to Mix.Color2).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Diffuse BSDF.0
01.BSDF to Mix.003.Color1).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Mix Shader.Clo
sure to Anisotropic BSDF.Color).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Diffuse BSDF.0
01.BSDF to Mix.003.Color1).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Mix Shader.Clo
sure to Mix.Color2).
RenderEngine.end_result: dimensions do not match any OpenEXR tile.
Error : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Address : 0x00000001413BB1DE
Module : E:\Release\blender.exe"
does that mean anything to you? it’s on the character that renders fine in the other file, same materials etc.
EDIT
Happening w/ another file too, another shot from the animation; i get a lot of stuff about various addons like Sapling not upgraded for 2.8 so ignored, then
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'io_scene_gltf2’
and
Generating new 3d noise tile size=128^3
saveTile: Noise tile file 'C:\Users\KILLER~1\AppData\Local\Temp\blender_a03980\n
oise.wavelets’ saved.
Generating new 3d noise done
write exr tmp file, 640x360, C:\Users\KILLER~1\AppData\Local\Temp\blender_a03980
\shot 10 - final paws B.blend_Scene_RenderLayer.exr
Noise tile file 'C:\Users\KILLER~1\AppData\Local\Temp\blender_a03980\noise.wavel
ets’ loaded.
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Diffuse BSDF.0
01.BSDF to Mix.003.Color1).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Mix Shader.Clo
sure to Anisotropic BSDF.Color).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Diffuse BSDF.0
01.BSDF to Mix.003.Color1).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Mix Shader.Clo
sure to Mix.Color2).
Cycles shader graph connect: can only connect closure to closure (Mix Shader.Clo
sure to Mix.Color2).
RenderEngine.end_result: dimensions do not match any OpenEXR tile.
RenderEngine.end_result: dimensions do not match any OpenEXR tile.
OpenEXR-writeTile: ERROR: Failed to write pixel data to image file "C:\Users\KIL
LER~1\AppData\Local\Temp\blender_a03980\shot 10 - final paws B.blend_Scene_Rende
rLayer.exr". Attempt to write tile (0, 0, 0, 0) more than once.
RenderEngine.end_result: dimensions do not match any OpenEXR tile.
don’t know the significance of OpenEXR, i’m asking to render as PNG
this crash happens again after 2 tiles (of 60), and Blender just locks up - i can click around various tabs but it hangs when i try to close and had to use Task Manager.
TIA
You can test on the official buildbots first to see if it comes from this build or not. I know the programmer of this build. He says he will have a look to it if it’s only happening with this build.
got better things to do, to be honest, i don’t have the time to bug hunt something i know nothing about and i wouldn’t know where to start sensibly - i’ve already looked over some of the material nodes to see if i messed something up, and removed a couple of them to see if i could narrow down if one in particular was causing the problem, but i’m getting nowhere.
Hi Wolfie,
send me your file per Email if you want and I’ll have a look to it.