20 Replies Latest reply on Jul 26, 2018 11:35 AM by Michael Moffatt

    Denoiser - Am I missing something?

    Michael Moffatt
    Michael Moffatt May 22, 2018 8:28 AM

      So I've been playing around with the denoiser this morning and either I'm not using it correctly, my machine isn't powerful enough to notice a difference or it doesn't do what it's supposed to be doing for me. I have a Dell Precision 7710, 16GB RAM w/ Nvidia Quadro M3000M (4gb DDR5 VRAM).

       

      I've tested with the denoiser on and off both in the viewport and with producing renders and I'm not seeing the 10x faster speed. Attached a couple examples below. Render settings were as follows:

       

      2700x2160

      200 resolution

      100 passes

       

      No Denoiser (3 mins 18 seconds)

      Kitchen - No Denoiser.png

      With Denoiser (3 mins 6 seconds) -12 secs!!

      Kitchen - Denoiser.png

      It seems the images are identical or at least I can't spot the difference and there are still artifacts in the image, particularly around the glass doors. Am I doing something wrong or misunderstanding what the tool is supposed to do?

       

      Mike

        • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
          Ron Bates
          Ron Bates May 22, 2018 8:58 AM (in response to Michael Moffatt)

          Mike,

           

          With the Denoiser enabled, reduce your render pass count to just 15 passes.

           

          To be clear, the denoiser doesn't make X number of passes render faster...  It gives the same quality result in roughly 0.1 * X passes.  You have to make the render pass/time-limit adjustment.

           

          You should see this improvement (ie how well the denoiser works at lower pass counts) directly in the Viewport if you enable the denoiser in the main viewport.  Refer to the Release Notes (SOLIDWORKS 2018 SP3 Release Notes ) for a brief description on how to use the denoiser in the viewport.  This will help you understand what kind of pass count you ought to use for a good result on a given scene.

           

          Ron

            • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
              Michael Moffatt
              Michael Moffatt May 22, 2018 10:18 AM (in response to Ron Bates)

              Hi Ron,

               

              Thanks for the reply. That was my initial understanding of how the tool worked but check out the below render with denoiser ON. Same settings but a pass count of 20 to 'factor of safety'. 20 passes with the denoiser is not as good as 100 without it but what we're saying is that 10-15 passes with the tool on should be equal to 100 without it?

               

              Kitchen 2.png

              The reason I tested in the manner that I did was to see what difference the tool made in removing the noise that was present when rendering without the denoiser. In the hope that rendering 100 passes with the denoiser on would give me an image resembling 500-1000 passes. In reality the noise/artifacts remain and I have two identical images.

               

              Mike

                • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                  Ron Bates
                  Ron Bates May 22, 2018 9:27 AM (in response to Michael Moffatt)

                  Ah sorry.  I misread your first post...  And based on your last image, it would definitely seem the denoiser is not doing it's thing.  The question is, why?  Could be running out of memory and silently falling back to CPU only (which won't denoise) or something else...  Hard to know.

                   

                  And based on what you're saying, you're not even seeing the denoiser have an affect in the viewport...

                   

                  Here is what your scene should look like in the viewport after 20 passes:

                   

                  After launching a new session of Visualize and letting the viewport res up to about 20 passes with the denoiser enabled and toggled ON, can you then exit and send me the logs at:


                  %PROGRAMDATA%\SOLIDWORKS\SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2018\Log

                   

                  Ron

                    • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                      Michael Moffatt
                      Michael Moffatt May 22, 2018 9:41 AM (in response to Ron Bates)

                      Interesting. I restarted Visualize and this time I can see a clear and obvious difference. The tool was obviously not working previously, as you suggested. Before I knew it, I was at 50 passes and the quality was much better:

                      Kitchen - Working.png

                      I will keep an eye on resources if I notice the denoiser not kicking in again.

                       

                      Mike

                        • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                          Ron Bates
                          Ron Bates May 22, 2018 9:42 AM (in response to Michael Moffatt)

                          Ah..  So my last post may not be relevant as it seems to be working now.  (Although the information may still be useful to others so I guess I'll leave it  in place)

                            • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                              Michael Moffatt
                              Michael Moffatt May 22, 2018 9:46 AM (in response to Ron Bates)

                              I've attached my logs. Maybe there's a clue to explain why it wasn't working earlier?

                               

                              Mike

                              • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                Michael Moffatt
                                Michael Moffatt May 22, 2018 10:04 AM (in response to Ron Bates)

                                I've just done some more testing and it looks to be CPU related. Even when running in GPU only mode Visualize is using 97% of my CPU, however this only happens when the denoiser doesn't kick in.

                                In Hybrid or GPU Only, the CPU usage lies around 70-80% when the tool is working. Not been able to pinpoint scenarios for it either running or not.

                                 

                                Mike

                                  • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                    Ron Bates
                                    Ron Bates May 22, 2018 11:23 AM (in response to Michael Moffatt)

                                    Yeah it looks like there are some memory issues and it's falling back to CPU.  We're aware of these types of issues and have some plans on how to better address them in the future.

                                      • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                        Alan Sweetenham
                                        Alan Sweetenham May 23, 2018 1:09 PM (in response to Ron Bates)

                                        Ron i'm seeing significantly higher memory usage reported by GPUZ in  accurate mode with No Denoiser Visualize 2018 SP3 vs 2017 Sp5 both with our training course files and inbuilt samples like the camaro. This is with intialise denoiser completely turned off in options and visualize having been restarted. if  reported memory usage is true then it might explain some of the issue as even the camaro is getting towards 4GB in 2018.

                                         

                                        2017 Sp5

                                         

                                        2017 SP5.jpg

                                         

                                        2018 SP3

                                         

                                        2018 SP3.jpg

                                         

                                        i'll do some more testing with different modes/ offline renders and in 2018 SP2 when i can and raise an SR but if there is a better way to monitor/tell from the logs i have attached those also. adding the denoiser on top of this in the viewport preview doesn't make as much difference but in some cases i guess just tips it over the edge of the memory limit, not had enough time to test offline.

                                          • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                            Ron Bates
                                            Ron Bates May 24, 2018 11:12 AM (in response to Alan Sweetenham)

                                            Hi Alan...

                                             

                                            Well I'm breathing a sigh of relief as I haven't yet reproduced what you have shown.  That memory difference is quite significant!

                                             

                                            I'm comparing 2017 sp05 and 2018 sp03 EV (...installing FULL now and will check one more time after complete...)

                                             

                                            Using both OpenHardwareMonitor and GPUZ, I see nearly the same GPU memory (+/- 10-15 MB) usage with the camaro loaded...at about 10 passes, accurate mode, 950x540, Win7. 

                                             

                                            Hmm...  wonder what's going on in your case.  I'll give a try on a Win10 machine when I get a chance.

                                              • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                                Alan Sweetenham
                                                Alan Sweetenham May 24, 2018 11:16 AM (in response to Ron Bates)

                                                i'm hoping it's just me too! should say i'm on the certified driver for my Precision 7720 and i'm seeing the same across multiple files.

                                                 

                                                i've borrowed another system (7710 with windows 10 to test with but it might have to be tomorow now.... i'd have to dig out a trusty old M6800 to find one with windows 7 on it when i'm back in the office on Friday.

                                                 

                                                Alan

                                                  • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                                    Ron Bates
                                                    Ron Bates May 25, 2018 9:35 AM (in response to Alan Sweetenham)

                                                    I tried again on a Win10 box and still couldn't reproduce.  Alan feel free to PM me to discuss details of your follow up tests when you get the chance to do so.

                                                      • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                                        Ron Bates
                                                        Ron Bates Jul 10, 2018 1:01 PM (in response to Ron Bates)

                                                        For those following this thread, Alan and I worked offline and he reported the memory usage issue to internal tech support.  We reproduced and followed it up with NVIDIA.  It turns out it is expected behavior in SOME cases (newer hardware with certain scenes; scene size being the factor)

                                                         

                                                        The following text was used to close the reported issue as "Not A Bug".

                                                         

                                                        Newer generation graphics cards employ a dynamic memory allocation technique, referred to as "wavefront scheduling". Wavefront scheduling will reserve more graphics memory at scene load time, based on scene size and available graphics card memory at the time of load, in order to achieve better overall ray tracing performance. Smaller scenes may allocate a larger chunk of graphics memory to take advantage of the performance gains, while larger scenes may allocate less memory, or even skip the use of "wavefront scheduling" altogether, in order to handle the memory requirements of the scene.

                                                • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                                  Kevin Schlaepfer
                                                  Kevin Schlaepfer May 25, 2018 3:48 AM (in response to Ron Bates)

                                                  Hi Ron

                                                   

                                                  Good to hear that you have plans to correct this issue. Will this be done by a driver update or do we have to wait for SP4?

                                                   

                                                  I have the same issue like Michael, but with a strong workstation (Dual CPU, Dual Quadro P4000 and a lot of memory) in the following situation. These pictures had to be done with 2000 passes. With 200 passes the Denoiser is not doing its work... as soon as I remove a chair (or something else) the Denoiser shows its speed and quality.

                                                   

                                                  I'm just looking forward for product animations in this room...

                                                   

                                                  Klink2 - Kopie.jpg

                                                    • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                                      Ron Bates
                                                      Ron Bates May 25, 2018 9:44 AM (in response to Kevin Schlaepfer)

                                                      It will be in the form of a product update (not a driver) but as for when I really can't say with much certainty I'm afraid.

                                                       

                                                      I can only assume that as you add more geometry to your scene (which looks reasonably complex/heavy) you possibly run out of GPU memory and the viewport gracefully falls back to CPU only (even if it still says Hybrid or GPU in the heads up display)...and in CPU only the denoiser isn't supported.  But this is all just a guess at this point.  We'll do some work and see if we can find a reproducer.

                                                       

                                                      One helpful tip for all...

                                                      Memory requirement of the denoiser is very much resolution dependent.  I know everyone likes to run with the viewport at the largest size possible...but if your seeing hiccups, try reducing the the viewport resolution as much as possible.

                                          • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                            Ron Bates
                                            Ron Bates May 22, 2018 9:41 AM (in response to Michael Moffatt)

                                            Also, just to be sure you have it enabled and turned on correctly for both viewport and/or offline render???

                                             

                                            In Tools, Options, 3D Viewport there is an option to ensure the Denoiser is Initialized...  this just makes the denoiser available but will not actually do any denoising.

                                             

                                            [ ] Initialize Denoiser reserves GPU memory to allow denoising to be toggled on (and off)

                                            [ ] Show Button in Main Toolbar is a convenient way to turnging on the Denoiser ON/OFF switch in the main HUD toolbar

                                             

                                            This denoiser toggle needs to be selected in order to see the result of denoising in the main viewport

                                             

                                            For offline renders, you must also choose to Enable the denoiser...it's On/Off state is independent/separate between the viewport state and offline renders.

                                             

                                            Ron

                                        • Re: Denoiser - Am I missing something?
                                          Jason Rupert
                                          Jason Rupert May 22, 2018 9:58 AM (in response to Michael Moffatt)

                                          where do i download it?