GPU based render

Absolutly not.
If you look in the forums you will see that FF inc. has officaily declared no GPU acceleration is planned. Ever.

I think it was Vladimir who said the reason there won't be GPU acceleration in FF is because they are using double precision calculations. I have no clue what that means, what it does, what's it's advantages and if it's a real problem to get it to work on GPUs, but isn't there a way to make at keast SOME of the calculations GPU based?
I mean, everybody can do GPU based realtime blur (See it in games for example). Can't FF use that to make the blur component go faster on high res images?
And what about noise components, high pass and other things that are available elsewhere with GPU acceleration?
Again, I don't know, maybe all I said right now was totaly idiotic, but please, can Vladimir or anyone from FF inc. explain a bit about it? And please, try to dumb it up as much as you can, so even I can understand

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Morgantao wrote: Again, I don't know, maybe all I said right now was totaly idiotic, but please, can Vladimir or anyone from FF inc. explain a bit about it? And please, try to dumb it up as much as you can, so even I can understand

I think that if FF Inc. has confirmed that FF 4.0 will not have GPU support, there is no point in asking WHY this will not happen.

What would change ?
Would be useful and helpful in any way to know why not for making a faster FF? No.

So I am sorry but wil not continue on the requests to FF to make a faster FF.

I think that the only way is to have a faster CPU instead of GPU, as it seems that is the only important thing and useful for a faster FF render and preview time.

See this thread for more information

Some related discussion starts here......

GPU is so awesome. Though most of it is kinda muddled in "industry buzzwords", I quite feel as though just CPU alone can get you pretty good render speeds, sometimes faster than the GPU!! IT's actually interesting to note about that, I've been reading several papers my friends have been writing for a while regarding implementations of different render techniques. Most of the papers they write are on biased render engines, so utilizing AO and GI and so on to speed renders significantly. But I feel what's pretty impressive about both these worlds is that CPU and GPU are merging. Right?

I mean, here's the thing, there are some pieces of code that are just inconvenient on the GPU. For example, MLT (Metropolis Light Transport) which is just a method of utilizing the Metropolis-Hastings method into a render. The idea here deals with random sampling and technical math but the idea's that MLT gives us a sort of nice "edge" into simulating light (bidirectional path tracing.) The problem I believe was that up until recently MLT was described as "impossible" to do on the GPU reason being that the methods described were inconvenient for the GPU calculation. It took a little time before somebody at Luxrender figured a method back in probably 2010 or 2011. My friends were pretty excited about the news.

So I mean, I can see where GPU's going really. There are tons of things to overcome code-wise and my friends and everybody else in the world who programs, thinks about this stuff, continue to impress us artists with new tools, methods, and technology. I've been reading through some of the published SIGGRAPH papers fr om last year and you know... we're really reaching this point wh ere we're about to break a totally different ground on speed and flexibility. So whether or not FilterForge becomes GPU based or CPU based or both, I see it going faster in the end anyway.

But remember, my teacher always tells me don't just wallow in buzzwords and new features. All programs do that anyway. What you probably should know is what's happening behind those buttons and the nice interface. And not all of us are going to do that, and that's ok. It's just that when you know a little, even a hint, about how some of the things work, you can really start to understand the software better than the rest of the group. So you can do more in the end. But sometimes its nice to just listen to all the new stuff and wonder what features will be in Photoshop CS6. And well all love seeing new things happen. We love seeing life get easier hehehe right?

So yup. There's my little tech talk of the day. So keep it going people.

I think at this point we have firmly established FilterForge can use a speed increase, and whether that comes in a form of GPU or CPU increase it doesn't matter. I'm sure the voices on these forums are heard by now.

And look, let me be honest, these posts get pointless and useless after a while. Should mention a couple reasons: 1. They're obvious requests. Everybody would be happier if the software they love runs faster. 2. It's repetitive: doesn't get anywhere, doesn't go anywhere. Same things over and over. 3. It doesn't inspire anything because it's both an obvious and repetitive request. 4. It's collective whining and 5. It's just all buzzwords being spoken with no substance at all. And lastly 6. I see stuff like this on every other software related forum. Nobody's ever happy!!

So just be patient, don't worry, it'll have to happen one way or another.

In the mean time, learn the basics of how to make renders go faster. Learn the technical stuff that you can do to optimize a filter. Talk on the forums about what can be done to improve a filter. Not all questions can be answered but I'd say it'll be more helpful than this.

Ok? And I mean I don't wanna be irritated reading stuff like this. I love you guys, but I hate reading stuff that's pointless.

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I think at this point we have firmly established FilterForge can use a speed increase, and whether that comes in a form of GPU or CPU increase it doesn't matter. I'm sure the voices on these forums are heard by now.

Yes FF would be really the best thing on earth if the speed would be increased, and is true that is clear that everyone wants it in whatever way it is done either with GPU, any other possible graphic acceleration or optimization of the core engine or whatever, what is important is that the render result time is lowered.

The voices fr om the forum are heard by now, AND ARE ALSO IGNORED and does not taken into account and as GMM has confirmed there will be no GPU acceleration, and although has not confirmed if there will be another way to speed FF, I think and believe that FF 4.0 will have the SAME slow render engine of FF 3.0, so the many voices fr om the forum will not be really heard.

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Skybase wrote: So just be patient, don't worry, it'll have to happen one way or another.

OH, Yes, it will happen, of course, the problem is WHEN!! Perhaps on FF 7.0 we will have it


How much patient must I be ? There has been already 4 years since requested and there is no news that shows when this is going to be heard and do something about it

AND ALSO KNOWING THAT MOST OF THE SOFTWARE COMPANIES HAVE ALREADY DONE THE SPEED UPGRADE

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Skybase wrote: And look, let me be honest, these posts get pointless and useless after a while. Should mention a couple reasons: (couple = 6 ? ) 1. They're obvious requests. Everybody would be happier if the software they love runs faster. 2. It's repetitive: doesn't get anywhere, doesn't go anywhere. Same things over and over. 3. It doesn't inspire anything because it's both an obvious and repetitive request. 4. It's collective whining and 5. It's just all buzzwords being spoken with no substance at all. And lastly 6. I see stuff like this on every other software related forum. Nobody's ever happy!!

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And look, let me be honest, these posts get pointless and useless after a while.

Yes is true and you are right, and I agree with you. I have decided not to keep going on with them because I agree that they are pointless because FF Inc. will not care about this as they said that would be too much work to optimize the code or add GPU support and they will not do it, so is really useless to keep asking for something that they will not agree to do.

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1. They're obvious requests. Everybody would be happier if the software they love runs faster.

YES, is an obvious request, but seems that is not obvious for FF Inc. and they have kept nearly the same speed and render engine since the beginning, as far as I know, they optimized something from FF 1.0 to FF 2.0.

Also others companies are already DOING SOMETHING for this and have plans for making the software faster, but it seems that FF Inc. does NOT have any near future plan for this.

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2. It's repetitive: doesn't get anywhere, doesn't go anywhere. Same things over and over.

OH yes, is true, I agree that is boring and tiresome to KEEP requesting year after year to the company always the same and that FF Inc. does not care about this VERY IMPORTANT AND NEEDED request and that would CHANGE MUCH the way FF works and would be really much more usable and efficient.

Yes, I think that even if we requested this every single day of this year, FF Inc. will not listen and care about it, so I agree that this will not go anywhere and get nothing with this.TRUE.

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3. It doesn't inspire anything because it's both an obvious and repetitive request.

Well, it inspires that we can´t depend on any kind of request to FF Inc. and that we must make what we can and get the inspiration within the lim its of the lim itation of FF 3.0

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4. It's collective whining and

YES, this is bad this and keeping whining does not get anywhere, we canñt change things this way. I like this I have seen some time ago

SHUT UP, STOP WHINING AND GET A LIFE



So I agree that there is no point in keeping with and wil not continue with this

I will keep on my idea of buying a new faster dual CPU computer when I can, BUT I regret that all the many users that would not be able to afford to buy a new faster computer and must keep with the slow FF for what they do.

GMM, I totaly agree with some of what that "joke" is saying, because it's human nature to find things to pick at, and to complain

I wasn't implying I want a release date and a new feature count.
I was just saying that it would be awsome to have some interaction with the FF team, to be able to talk to them, hear what they're working on... How was their day
Again, not saying each and every FF inc. employee has to have a blog, just say hi on the forums, and maybe answer a friendly question here and there.