I've been watching it closely develop for a while and think it looks extremely promising but if you're going to be using it for your primary renderer, you would be much better off building a separate desktop system with a graphics card much better than the GT330. You want maximum cores and the GT 330 only has 48 compared to a GTX460's 336.

with Octane, cpu is "nearly" irrelevant so any computer with a single (or multiple depending on how much you want to scale up) PCI-E slot will suffice for the graphics card. You could build such a computer for way less than $1k.

... my $.02.

Octane renderer works good with GTX480 graphic card which has 1.5GB memory, and it still manages to heat up a lot. But there is none for laptop.

I think with your laptop graphic card, you might have some serious overheating issues when running octane, it really creates a lot of stress on graphic card.

Before you run Octane on your laptop, I suggest you get a speedfan software or something like that to monitor your GPU temperature.

I will still be getting an i7 840 processor and 6 gigs of ram, so I wont be limiting myself to the mid range card. I just figured I would have a CUDA based card so I could try these GPU based renderers. The only laptops that are reputable and have better Nvidia graphics cards with CUDA are mobile workstations, and those start getting expensive.

Anyone have issues with overheating your GPU while using GPU based renderers?

I'd personally go with a Xeon W3520 Bloomfield as they overclock like monsters, and 12gb's of ram.

CUDA is available on nearly any Nvidia graphics card, it doesn't have to be a high-end workstation (http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_gpus.html) ...but generally the "workstation" class systems come with higher quality control before the machine leaves the factory and usually comes with better warranties built-into the price which obviously have their benefits.

you should have a massive amount of air moving towards the graphics card when rendering. As already mentioned, I'd be cautious of using octane on a laptop for fear of the heat generated.

...also, try the octane forums for more specific information.

I went with the Lenovo W510, which has the Nvidia Quadro FX 880m

Very interesting renderer. Assigning render materials was the most challenging aspect for me. Here is a scene that started in Revit, done in less than 2 minutes with two materials:

or http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/plG2l-lU1JvQbuOOCze26Q?feat=directlink

My graphics card is a $60 NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 an old AMD 5400+ computer with 2Gb RAM.

My previously posted image was a longer render -- see this one for the 3-minute version:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/tXS29ewJPDyGy0GMu1oLPA?feat=directlink

(Hmm, is there any way to edit one's posts, here?)

Well, my experience with Octane Render was good with some limitations regarding the export/import process every frame that wasted the render speed of the renderer. That said, I had to develop some kind of add on which I names Octane Power Tools http://www.OctanePowerTools.com that overcome this limitation and allowed me to render my archviz animation without wasting time, in addition to animate light and add several animated cameras to the scene and some other things. So in conclusion, Octane Render is good if used with the right set of tools and work around it's limitations.

Also if you are going to use a laptop for Octane Render, I recommend getting some external cubix extension for your rendering cards. Dont use the same card for display and render.

Hi, Youre infringing on our trademark with google adwords. I am getting customers emailing me to license octane power tools, and others who are posting on the forum complaining. Octanerender is a registered trademark and you are not in your rights to advertise on it. Its causing a lot of problems for us. I will have my lawyer send you a cease and decist letter on monday and if no remedy is taken, we will start legal procedings from stopping you. Also, we will refund your licenses, deactivate them, and remove community access, as everyone is extremely annoyed with your constant spamming of the forums, if you do not halt your adwords campaign based on any of our trademarks, being octane render and refractive software, and change the name of your product to not include terms of it, as its deceptive and misleading towards possible customers. We are losing business because of you. We have worked very hard to make  octanerender a successfull product and we will not tolerate  your abuse of our brand and work. Yours, Terrence Vergauwen Founder & CEO / Refractive Software(R) LTD --------------------------------------------------------------- That was the email I got from Radiance of Refractive Software http://www.refractivesoftware.com , to me HMK the developer of Octane Power Tools http://www.OctanePowerTools.com . I can't see how a software provider is very annoyed and aggressively trying to stop another software that is marketed as a tool or add on or plugin to the main software, and it fills a gap and solves a problem that all the users are suffering from. My software is called "Octane Power Tools", and in it's ad on google it says "render faster animation with octane render", and on our website we stated clearly that we are not a part of refractive, and that octane render (with a link to refractive site) is one of the best GPU renders out there. Can any one tell me what might make refractive loose clients and sales in that?! Nothing, it actualy should increase sales. The other thing, what spamming he is talking about? He means my signature, he is very very annoyed that ppl are knowing my website thru my signature! He says he got complains, show them please, and I guarantee he won't, or he will show us some msgs from some of the related ppl to refractive in a way or another. 3 weeks ago or something I got an email from radiance saying that he stopped my pm access because ppl complained that am msging them about power tools, I asked him to show the complains and he ignored me. Now he is threatening me with a lawyer and saying that he will deactivate my 2 licenses that I bought more than a year ago. What kind of company is this?! I chose to make this public because the guy has a real problem with any one doing a business about octane render that is not under his control. Software developers and companies encourage ppl to create tools and plugins around their products, simply because this make the software richer and help the users to solve the projects needs. 2-3 days ago I saw someone's post on a forum saying "did Terrance ban half of his clients and prevented them from accessing the forum yet?" strange post, but it says a lot. Do you guys remember cubix expander? He stopped supporting them out if the blue saying ppl are complaining, there was a long thread from the users on Refractive's saying that this makes no sense and that no one ever complained! a year ago I talked with Terrance about Octane Power Tools, his answer was no we don't need it because we will support animation in 2 months, and only a handful will buy the tool. I released OPT 2 months ago, and animation in octane is not supported yet, and more than 400 octane render clients bought it. More than a month ago Terrance contacted me about their SDK, and I said why not, he sent me some papers about it that the least I would say it gives nothing to the developer. This is not the right way to grow business. Also octane render users must know that their licenses and investment are in danger if they allowed this kind of attitude without taking a stand. It's not about Octane Power Tools or Octane Render, it's about ethics, rights and business/client relation. Finally I believe that for all of us to have a better life in all of it aspects, we should all stop and try to correct anything that we see wrong or injustice. So stand out and say and do what you think is right and don't allow anyone to abuse or take your rights. Even if the issue doesn't concern you now maybe because you are not an Octane Render user, by being passive about it, you allow others to do the same later, and someday you will be affected by such policies and attitudes, don't allow that! Finally Octane Power Tools does and did not need Refractive's support. It's a complete independent software that will work no matter what version and no matter what changes refractive does to Octane Render. Take a stand, spread the word, be active about fighting injustice.

I would like to inform Octane Render users about Octane Power Tools http://www.OctanePowerTools.com and facebook page at http://www.Facebook.com/OctanePowerTools . Octane Power Tools let you use the power of Octane Render in your animation projects, without loosing time in the transfer process. This means that animation render that takes days, takes hours and minutes with Octane Power Tools. Max, Maya, Lightwave and Blender are supported . Also we have a limited time 25% off offer until the next release ;) Using both Octane Render and Octane Power Tools together, gives the power needed to achieve demanding animation projects in short time and easily.