This page will help you to estimate the cost of a Cooperative Project. First, let's calculate the number of Passes (PSS) gain you can expect from the RANCH, compared to your system.

Download the FryGold scene and run it on your system with the default parameters (10 minutes time limit, 1024 x 1024). When this is done, enter the PSS reached in the 'Your PSS' field, then click on 'Compute'. The PSS difference factor between your system and the RANCH - let's call it DELTA - will be displayed. You can apply this DELTA factor to all your projects. For instance, if your system takes one hour to reach a given PSS, you know that in the same amount of time, the RANCH will reach this PSS * DELTA. The RANCH reaches PSS = 2120 in 10 minutes on the FryGold scene (Fryrender One SP2 x64). A concrete example: Your PSS on the FryGold test is 16.9, and you want to reach a final PSS of 500 on your project: how much RANCH time do you need? Simple: in your case, DELTA ~= 125. The only thing you have to do is render your project on your system with a number of Passes limit of 4 (500/125), and note the time needed to reach it. That's all you need to know, as the RANCH will need the same amount of time to reach a PSS of 500. If it sounds good to you, you can then enter this time in the cost estimator at the bottom of this page. Your PSS (FryGold, 10 mn) :  DELTA = :  (+- 5%)

How to use the cost estimator below:

In the first field, enter an estimation of the preparation time of your project (building meshes, validating materials, warming up etc.). This is the time needed for various calculations before the rendering itself begins, and it can take a while with highly complex materials. Note that two minutes are automatically added to account for the distribution time of the scene across the whole network. In the second field, enter the render time limit you will specify when you submit your project on the RANCH. In the third field, enter the size of the DSI file generated by your project, in megabytes (MB). To do this, simply launch a render at full resolution on your computer for a minute, stop it and check the size of the DSI file. Then enter this size in the 'DSI size' field. On a large renderfarm, gathering and merging big DSIs from a lot of nodes can take a while. For instance, gathering and merging DSIs on the entire RANCH takes around 5 minutes with 512 MB DSIs and around 20 minutes with 2 GB DSIs. The individual DSI size limit that can be processed with our parallel multi-merging technique is around 2.5 GB. If the render time of your cooperative project is >= 60 mn, the DSI gathering+merging phase is FREE!     Preparation time (mn):  (> 0 and <= 180) Render time (mn):  (> 0 and <= 720) DSI size (MB):  (> 0 and <= 3000)