5 Redshift render farms in 2023 you should know

In this article, iRender talks about Redshift and Render Farm. What are 5 Redshift render farms in 2023 you should know?

Redshift, which is developed by Redshift Rendering Technologies Inc, is a robust and GPU-accelerated 3D render engine. It was initially released in 2014 and became the first 3D renderer with full GPU acceleration on the market. In 2019, the German 3D software company Maxon acquired Redshift Rendering Technologies and all of its staff. Since then, Maxon continues to develop Redshift as a standalone renderer for a range of industry-standard 3D software, including Maxon’s flagship Cinema 4D.

It is said on the Maxon website that “Redshift is the world’s first, fully GPU-accelerated, biased renderer”. What does it mean?

First of all, Redshift is a powerful render engine that is GPU-accelerated. It runs on the GPU and uses GPU technology to speed up the renders. Redshift was originally designed to run on the GPU only. However, in 2022, Redshift 3.5 enables the formerly GPU-only renderer to run on the CPU. It updates new modes for rendering fully on the CPU, or on both CPU and GPU simultaneously. Having said that, rendering on the GPU is always the best way to get the best performance in Redshift. The fact that CPU mode is new and still needs a lot of improvement. While the XPU mode (hybrid rendering on CPU and GPU) is slower than the GPU-only mode.

Second, Redshift is a biased render engine. “Biased” means that Redshift does not always behave as it would in nature, but it would fake some things in order to optimize them for rendering. In other words, it enables the artist to tweak the quality of particular techniques to achieve the optimal performance/quality balance for their project.

Thanks to its biased techniques and production-ready GPU rendering, by using Redshift, 3D professionals will gain the following.

Speed

Redshift is blazing fast. Speed is what it is best known for, and is one of the biggest reasons many 3D professionals prefer Redshift over other rendering software. Moreover, Redshift can run on multiple graphics cards and scale pretty well with an additional GPU. Maxon document shows that we can use up to 8 GPUs for Redshift rendering in a session.

See how Redshift performs on multiple GPUs below:

Redshift benchmark scene “Age of Vultures”. The test was done on iRender’s GPU servers and by the iRender team.

Redshift GPU performance on multiple GPUs (1/2/4/6/8 x RTX 3090).

The video was made on iRender’s GPU servers and by the iRender team.

Flexibility

Whenever working with a sample-based renderer such as Redshift, it is important to have complete control over all of the samples that are going to be shot into the scene. You do not, on the other hand, have to use them if you want to make a quick render or you do not want to play around with all of these settings. You can enable the automatic mode and Redshift will handle everything for you.

Photorealistic results

Redshift is not only fast, but it also has helpful features for incredibly photorealistic images. The results are comparable to those produced by unbiased-based render engines.

Interactivity

The RenderView Interactive Preview Region (IPR) in Redshift allows you to make changes to the settings while working on the scenes with little or no downtime. RenderView displays changes to a scene in almost real time.

From the above, we know that Redshift brings to artists the features and quality of a CPU render engine, but at the speed of a GPU renderer. In return, we need to meet the requirements and compatibility to run it. 

Requirements

Redshift should run on a computer with the 64-bit operating system of Windows, Linux, or macOS. At a minimum, that computer should have 8 GB of RAM, a processor with SSE4.2 support, and a GPU. Redshift was once an NVIDIA-only GPU render engine, but now it supports AMD gaming and workstation GPUs on Windows as well as macOS. Therefore, its users have a wider range of choices when buying a new GPU or a new PC. The more powerful GPU is, the better performance it will deliver your results. (RTX 4090 is a high-end GPU from the NVIDIA Geforce series, and is currently the best GPU for rendering).

Redshift Render Farm

But are one or a few good GPUs enough for your production workflow? It can be said that rendering is the most time-consuming and challenging part of creating 3D stuff. As creating content is getting more and more complex, so does the need for efficient and scalable rendering solutions. Although technology and several solutions (including Redshift renderer) have evolved to deal with the demand, it can still be challenging to meet strict deadlines and high-end production.

Render farms are often the best way to access the power that Redshift needs. They offer huge computing power from hundreds or thousands of machines in their render farms. So they can process and render the largest and the most complex 3D scenes in Redshift (and other 3D applications). Many GPU-based renderers do not provide render farm support. Luckily, Redshift is one of the few render engines supported by most cloud rendering services.

The new CPU support opens up doors for Redshift to work on CPU render farms, including cloud rendering services. However, we think CPU render farms for Redshift still lie in the future as Redshift CPU still needs a lot of development. The expanded support for AMD cards also opens up doors for Redshift to be supported in AMD GPU render farms.

Choose the best Redshift Render Farm 2023

Among literally thousands of render farms out there, what should you choose to render your Redshift projects? To help you make your decision easier, iRender would like to give you some recommendations for the best Redshift render farms we know. We can not possibly know all render farms all over the world. But overall, these are the most powerful and leading render farms in the market. Each render farm has its pros and cons. Therefore, this is not a rating, but rather a resource for individuals or companies who need to render Redshift projects online. We will go through the render farms alphabetically.

Fox Renderfarm is a market-leading cloud rendering service provider. It allows users to upload projects using its web-based application or a desktop client. The render farm will analyze and render your project automatically. The rendered frames can then be downloaded to your computer after a few clicks.

Fox Renderfarm supports GPU rendering in Redshift for these 3D software: Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, and Cinema 4D. It offers GTX 1080Ti, RTX 2080Ti, and RTX 3090 for GPU, together with Intel Xeon E5-2660, Intel Xeon E5-2678 V3, and Intel Xeon 8179M for CPU.

Visit Fox Renderfarm for details and support.

GarageFarm is an easy-to-use and affordable cloud render farm for 3D rendering. It provides its users with a renderBeamer plugin that integrates with their 3D software and completely automates the rendering process. You can send your scene directly from your application’s UI, eliminating the need for complicated and time-consuming settings.

GarageFarm supports GPU rendering in Redshift for these 3D applications: Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, and Blender. It also supports rendering on Redshift CPU upon request, from version 3.5.x. GarageFarm offers RTX A5000 and P100 for GPU, together with Intel Xeon v4 and AMD Epyc 3rd gen for CPU.

Visit GarageFarm for details and support.

Ranch Computing is a powerful cloud render farm service based in French. It gives free tools to make it easy to use its service. The RANCHecker plugin prepares your scene on your PC before uploading it to the render farm through the RANCHSync.

Ranch Computing supports GPU rendering in Redshift for these 3D software: Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, and Houdini. It offers RTX 2080Ti and RTX 3090 for GPU, together with Dual Xeon E5-2697A v4 and Dual Xeon E5-2690 v2 for CPU.

Visit Ranch Computing for details and support.

RebusFarm is a quick and dependable cloud rendering service with over 16 years of experience. It provides an all-in-one RebusFarm Software that lets you send projects straight from your 3D program and have them downloaded automatically when the frames are finished.

RebusFarm supports GPU rendering in Redshift for these 3D applications: Maya, 3ds Max, and Cinema 4D. It offers Quadro RTX 6000 for GPU, together with AMD Threadripper 3970X for CPU.

Visit RebusFarm for details and support.

Same as the four big players introduced above, iRender is also a render farm. We provide powerful and dedicated cloud rendering services for both CPU- and GPU-based applications. However, being born later, we still have a lot to learn from our “seniors” and strive to be better every day. 

We learn from them, yet, choose to go on a different path. iRender is an IaaS-based render farm, a new model from the traditional SaaS render farms. What does IaaS mean? It means we allow our users to connect to the machine(s) of the render farm and work straight on it as if it was their personal computer. To put it in another way, iRender users have full control over their projects and workflow, making us ideal for rendering large projects or projects with a unique pipeline.

So, what do Redshift users benefit from using iRender? Find out the details below.

• Support GPU, CPU, and hybrid rendering in Redshift.
• Compatible with all versions and plugins for Redshift (standalone and all its integrations for 3D applications).
• Best of the best hardware.

GPU: RTX 4090 and RTX 3090.

CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3955WX and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX.

• Various GPU setups (1/2/4/6/8 x RTX 4090/RTX3090).
• Complete control over the rendering process (users are able to make changes at any moment, see the rendered frames in real-time, and so on).

Visit iRender for details and support.

To sum up, in this article, iRender introduces to you the 5 Redshift render farms in 2023 that you should know: Fox Renderfarm, GarageFarm, Ranch Computing, RebusFarm, and iRender. Each one of them has its plus points and minus points. However, render farms are all excellent, they are doing a great job every day.

So, this article is not a render farm ranking. We think that there is no such thing as the best render farm for Redshift in general. Only you know what is best for your needs, and it is your best render farm.

iRender is a solid choice for both GPU-based and CPU-based rendering. Moreover, thanks to the IaaS model, not only do we support all steps in CG production (not limited to rendering) but also give complete control to large and customized projects. Try iRender Farm today and explore the possibilities.