What is the real difference between these? Does one cause more noise? Is the other more performance?
What are the big differences between these?
Lamps have better performance, especially under branched path tracing mode. You can get first bounce lighting fully developed with 1 sample when it is configured correctly.
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Lamps have better performance - produce less noise, but can’t be made camera visible, and several analytical lights are missing (i.e. tube lights). IES textures can be used. Emission shader based geometry can be made camera visible, and also have more options in Cycles due to more nodes working.
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Ah, thanks for the clarification.