- Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:29 pm
#196353
i gave up selling my PURE cards already some time ago. but it's funny how art vps thinks that customers are stupid. well at least those who buy their equipment.
http://www.artvps.com/page/102/renderserver.htm
http://www.artvps.com/page/117/benchmarks.htm
* * *
what do You guys think of the new hardware they offer?
* * *
i just heard from one guy that he sold his last piece of art vps hardware. well done! congrats You got away with just a blue eye.
* * *
i sent them a mail some time ago and got the answer today. here it is.
* * *
* * *
* * *
mail to them:
hello ART VPS !
* * *
i am student of architecture and i may have been in contact with one of You guys already, about a year ago.
* * *
i am owner of two PURE P1800 cards (i sold the third one some time ago), but i have doubts i will ever be able to use them again. i know, there are the problems with that toxic substance on the boards which led to the fact that these cards cannot be longer sold in europe. but also the fact that the PURE pci-x card has left the product line-up makes me guess that drivers will not be supported for much longer time. by the time i bought my first card there were benchmarks on Your homepage that showed that one single card would out-perform a dual xeon 3 GHz by a factor of at least 15 in render time. not much time went on since then, meaning that computers haven't gotten these 15 times faster by now...
what do i want to ask for:
i think many of You guys at art vps surf sometimes on http://www.render-art.com since it's the only (well, inofficial) forum concerning art vps hardware. there are some users that think it would be sad to abandon plans to support the PURE cards or not to make the new drivers back-compatible. of course, there are many many more users around that use these cards !! we can not just throw them into the garbage...
i would like to hear a few «official» words (maybe directly from Brian Tyler) about these questions (may this be in a reply to this mail or something on the mentioned forum.):
(as said before: i am writing in the name of those who can not buy multiple RDs or several RenderServers, i am a «low-end» user, BUT: one of the large mass.)
1) is it planned to support the PURE cards longer and if yes: how long
2) is it possible to give back the old cards to get decent discounts for RenderBoxes (this would be a cool idea !)
3) will bi-directional-path-tracing and true, fast, GlobalIllumination be implemented into the RenderPipe so true HDR/GI renderings with DOF, BumpMapping and all other features combined can be rendered in reasonable time?
4) is there a chance that other renderers (for example maxwell render) will be ported to render on AR500 hardware? (not the RenderServer since it works with normal cpus)
5) would it TECHNICALLY be possible to develop a «native software» that lets render (for example) maxwell scenes on a RenderBox ? (i mean, it's just «raytracing»!)
i mentioned this so many times on the above forum, even a long time before MentalImages became ART VPS partners. i use maxwell myself happily (this explains all the examples with it) - this renderer has just all for complete photorealism. the know-how is there! why not just stir it, shake it and add some «speed» to it with the most advanced rendering hardware there is available ? --> NO faking. NO losing time in endless tweaking of photon settings. JUST working on...
i have never gotten this answer.
* * *
don't get me wrong, i LOVE the idea of hardware accellerated rendering, i just want to know in which direction the future will be guided.
* * *
i have two more questions...
1) how many AR500s are in one RenderBox?
2) could You send me a complete price list in euros ?
* * *
thanks for taking Your time. it would be very appreciated to get an honest answer !
* * *
* * *
* * *
answer:
Hi [myName]
Thanks for your email and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
I do understand your concerns about future support for pure following the announcement of our new products however we are aware of our loyal customer base for the product so therefore have no current plans to stop supporting them.
To ensure users like you are aware of this, I would be happy to post something official on our website and render-art.
I do appreciate your feedback and so with technical input from our software team, I've tried to give you full answers to your questions.
1) is it planned to support the PURE cards longer and if yes: how long
PURE cards run the same renderer as other ARTVPS hardware, furthermore
PURE P1800 cards use exactly the same driver as PURE PCI-X cards, so P1800
will be supported for as long as PURE PCI-X. At the moment there are no
plans to stop supporting either of them.
2) is it possible to give back the old cards to get decent discounts for RenderBoxes (this would be a cool idea !)
I'm afraid we won't be offering a return scheme for old pure cards.
3) will bi-directional-path-tracing and true, fast, GlobalIllumination be implemented into the RenderPipe so true HDR/GI renderings with DOF, BumpMapping and all other features combined can be rendered in reasonable time?
Yes. Rendering with full GI will take longer than rendering without it, however.
4) is there a chance that other renderers (for example maxwell render) will be ported to render on AR500 hardware? (not the RenderServer since it works with normal cpus)
This is possible from a technical point of view, but at this time we're concentrating on our own rendering software.
5) would it TECHNICALLY be possible to develop a «native software» that lets render (for example) maxwell scenes on a RenderBox ? (i mean, it's just «raytracing»!)
By this do you mean to take Maxwell scenes and render them on our
hardware, using all the features and shaders in the scene? At this time
we're concentrating on developing our Max and Maya plugins, and providing
RenderPipe interfaces to our advanced rendering features.
Although it would be technically possible to try to provide a drop-in accelerated replacement for another renderer, it's better for our customers that we work with our own interface, otherwise we'd always be chasing someone else's feature list and have no way to develop our own features.
Using RenderPipe RIB, customers can program our renderer more directly, through the standard RenderMan Interface developed by Pixar. RIB scenes that render with PRMan or other RenderMan renderers are easy to port to RenderPipe, and customers can write their own shaders using RenderMan Shading Language.
1) how many AR500s are in one RenderBox?
14
2) could You send me a complete price list in euros ?
A 14-chip RayBox which can be connected directly to your workstation via either a PCI or PCI express card is €6100
Alternatively the new RenderDrive solution consists of a RenderServer and between 1 and 4 RayBoxes. Prices start at €13750 for this solution.
I hope this has been of some help to you, if you need anything further, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
Kate Marshall
Head of Marketing
ARTVPS
* * *
deadalvs
http://www.artvps.com/page/102/renderserver.htm
http://www.artvps.com/page/117/benchmarks.htm
* * *
what do You guys think of the new hardware they offer?
* * *
i just heard from one guy that he sold his last piece of art vps hardware. well done! congrats You got away with just a blue eye.
* * *
i sent them a mail some time ago and got the answer today. here it is.
* * *
* * *
* * *
mail to them:
hello ART VPS !
* * *
i am student of architecture and i may have been in contact with one of You guys already, about a year ago.
* * *
i am owner of two PURE P1800 cards (i sold the third one some time ago), but i have doubts i will ever be able to use them again. i know, there are the problems with that toxic substance on the boards which led to the fact that these cards cannot be longer sold in europe. but also the fact that the PURE pci-x card has left the product line-up makes me guess that drivers will not be supported for much longer time. by the time i bought my first card there were benchmarks on Your homepage that showed that one single card would out-perform a dual xeon 3 GHz by a factor of at least 15 in render time. not much time went on since then, meaning that computers haven't gotten these 15 times faster by now...
what do i want to ask for:
i think many of You guys at art vps surf sometimes on http://www.render-art.com since it's the only (well, inofficial) forum concerning art vps hardware. there are some users that think it would be sad to abandon plans to support the PURE cards or not to make the new drivers back-compatible. of course, there are many many more users around that use these cards !! we can not just throw them into the garbage...
i would like to hear a few «official» words (maybe directly from Brian Tyler) about these questions (may this be in a reply to this mail or something on the mentioned forum.):
(as said before: i am writing in the name of those who can not buy multiple RDs or several RenderServers, i am a «low-end» user, BUT: one of the large mass.)
1) is it planned to support the PURE cards longer and if yes: how long
2) is it possible to give back the old cards to get decent discounts for RenderBoxes (this would be a cool idea !)
3) will bi-directional-path-tracing and true, fast, GlobalIllumination be implemented into the RenderPipe so true HDR/GI renderings with DOF, BumpMapping and all other features combined can be rendered in reasonable time?
4) is there a chance that other renderers (for example maxwell render) will be ported to render on AR500 hardware? (not the RenderServer since it works with normal cpus)
5) would it TECHNICALLY be possible to develop a «native software» that lets render (for example) maxwell scenes on a RenderBox ? (i mean, it's just «raytracing»!)
i mentioned this so many times on the above forum, even a long time before MentalImages became ART VPS partners. i use maxwell myself happily (this explains all the examples with it) - this renderer has just all for complete photorealism. the know-how is there! why not just stir it, shake it and add some «speed» to it with the most advanced rendering hardware there is available ? --> NO faking. NO losing time in endless tweaking of photon settings. JUST working on...
i have never gotten this answer.
* * *
don't get me wrong, i LOVE the idea of hardware accellerated rendering, i just want to know in which direction the future will be guided.
* * *
i have two more questions...
1) how many AR500s are in one RenderBox?
2) could You send me a complete price list in euros ?
* * *
thanks for taking Your time. it would be very appreciated to get an honest answer !
* * *
* * *
* * *
answer:
Hi [myName]
Thanks for your email and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
I do understand your concerns about future support for pure following the announcement of our new products however we are aware of our loyal customer base for the product so therefore have no current plans to stop supporting them.
To ensure users like you are aware of this, I would be happy to post something official on our website and render-art.
I do appreciate your feedback and so with technical input from our software team, I've tried to give you full answers to your questions.
1) is it planned to support the PURE cards longer and if yes: how long
PURE cards run the same renderer as other ARTVPS hardware, furthermore
PURE P1800 cards use exactly the same driver as PURE PCI-X cards, so P1800
will be supported for as long as PURE PCI-X. At the moment there are no
plans to stop supporting either of them.
2) is it possible to give back the old cards to get decent discounts for RenderBoxes (this would be a cool idea !)
I'm afraid we won't be offering a return scheme for old pure cards.
3) will bi-directional-path-tracing and true, fast, GlobalIllumination be implemented into the RenderPipe so true HDR/GI renderings with DOF, BumpMapping and all other features combined can be rendered in reasonable time?
Yes. Rendering with full GI will take longer than rendering without it, however.
4) is there a chance that other renderers (for example maxwell render) will be ported to render on AR500 hardware? (not the RenderServer since it works with normal cpus)
This is possible from a technical point of view, but at this time we're concentrating on our own rendering software.
5) would it TECHNICALLY be possible to develop a «native software» that lets render (for example) maxwell scenes on a RenderBox ? (i mean, it's just «raytracing»!)
By this do you mean to take Maxwell scenes and render them on our
hardware, using all the features and shaders in the scene? At this time
we're concentrating on developing our Max and Maya plugins, and providing
RenderPipe interfaces to our advanced rendering features.
Although it would be technically possible to try to provide a drop-in accelerated replacement for another renderer, it's better for our customers that we work with our own interface, otherwise we'd always be chasing someone else's feature list and have no way to develop our own features.
Using RenderPipe RIB, customers can program our renderer more directly, through the standard RenderMan Interface developed by Pixar. RIB scenes that render with PRMan or other RenderMan renderers are easy to port to RenderPipe, and customers can write their own shaders using RenderMan Shading Language.
1) how many AR500s are in one RenderBox?
14
2) could You send me a complete price list in euros ?
A 14-chip RayBox which can be connected directly to your workstation via either a PCI or PCI express card is €6100
Alternatively the new RenderDrive solution consists of a RenderServer and between 1 and 4 RayBoxes. Prices start at €13750 for this solution.
I hope this has been of some help to you, if you need anything further, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
Kate Marshall
Head of Marketing
ARTVPS
* * *
deadalvs
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