dev blog #25 - new GTX1070

the latest render problems forced me to find a short term solution.
As already explained my GTX970s 3.5GB VRAM was not enough anymore to support the high-quality renders for the game.

To sort out this problem I just installed a brand new GTX1070 from ASUS that has 8GB of VRAM.

That sounded easier than it actually was...

due to the bulky flexible tubing layout of my already installed watercooled GTX970s it was nearly impossible to fit in the 3rd GPU...

since my motherboard (ASUS Maximus VI Hero) has 3 PCI-E slots it should be possible to run all 3 cards...
BUT: only the top slot is PCI-E 3.0 x16 and the other two are 2.0 with x8 and x4
so the plan was to put the better card (GTX1070) in that x16 slot...

well... that plan didn't work out that well because the watercooling parts were in the way of the bulky shroud of the 1070 :/

so I tried to place it in the middle slot...same problem and the backplate of the lower 970 would obstruct the fans of the 1070...damn

the bottom slot was no option either for the same reasons....

so...how to mount a card if it fits nowhere? ZIP-TIES!
I KNOW! that's not the proper way to mount a GTX1070 but what should I do?
it's not stupid if it works...right?!

next problem after mounting it was that my PC somehow wouldn't start anymore with all 3 cards installed... so... I had to take one of the 970s out :(

not the easiest when it's hooked to a full watercooling circuit... what a mess!

so...did it pay off at all? YES!
until now every render that required more than 3.4GB of VRAM was handled by my poor little CPU alone without the support of any of the two GTX970.
So all my combined 3k+ CUDA cores where no use to me as the cards refused to work....

But with the larger 8GB VRAM of the GTX1070 now even my GTX970 joins in with its CUDA cores even tho it technically has not enough VRAM ... the two sided medal of GPU VRAM.... they don't add up if you have two cards with 3.5GB (nope, not 7GB) but they start to share their bigger VRAM with lesser equipped cards in the render process :)

so the same render that took my CPU alone 7 minutes to get 12% done took my GPUs and CPU combined extremely less time for the same progress (as it should be!)

well...after struggling with the new card for the last 3h I can finally continue work on the scenes for the next update... yay!