Best Computer Workstation for iRay

NVIDIA^® Iray^® is an intuitive physically based rendering technology that generates photorealistic imagery for interactive and batch rendering workflows. Leveraging AI denoising, CUDA^®, NVIDIA OptiX^™, and Material Definition Language (MDL), Iray delivers world-class performance and impeccable visuals—in record time—when paired with the newest NVIDIA RTX^™-based hardware.

The primary feature of iRay is the achievement of high performance through parallelism on both multiprocessor machines and across render farms. The software uses acceleration techniques such as scanline for primary visible surface determination and binary space partitioning for secondary rays. It also supports caustics and physically correct simulation of global illumination employing photon maps. Any combination of diffuse, glossy (soft or scattered), and specular reflection and transmission can be simulated.

iRay was designed to be integrated into a third-party application using an API or be used as a standalone program using the .mi scene file format for batch-mode rendering. Currently there are many programs integrating it such as Autodesk Maya, 3D Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Revit, Softimage|XSI, Side Effects Software's Houdini, SolidWorks and Dassault Systèmes' CATIA. Most of these software front-ends provide their own library of custom shaders (described below). However, assuming these shaders are available to mental ray, any .mi file can be rendered regardless of the software that generated it.

The computers listed below are best for iRay because they all meet or exceed these system requirements…

System Requirements:

• Operating System: 64 bit Windows 10, Windows 11, DirectX 11 required
• Processor: Intel i5-13400f or AMD Ryzen 5 7600x or higher
• RAM: 16GB minimum
• Disk Space: SSD, 10 GB free 
• Graphics Card: 2x nVidia GeForce RTX 3050/with one card dedicated exclusively to iRay
• Memory: 8GB video memory

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