Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions about Redshift that aren't answered here, we encourage you to visit our forums and ask!

• Why Redshift?

  Redshift is not only the world's fastest renderer but also offers the most features and flexibility among all GPU renderers. The majority of our customers are 3d professionals and ex-users of high-end CPU renderers. These users need the highest possible rendering performance as well as a same-or-better feature set, stability, visual quality, flexibility, level of 3d app integration and customer support as their previous CPU rendering solutions. We believe that Redshift, satisfies all of these goals. But don't take our word for it: ask any of our (many) satisfied customers!

• How much does Redshift cost?

  Pricing details are available in this page

• Does Redshift have a subscription option?

  Licenses purchased from www.redshift3d.com are permanent which means they are not a subscription. Furthermore, these licenses work on all supported 3d apps. Since Redshift was acquired by Maxon in 2019, Maxon introduced a Cinema4D+Redshift subscription bundle option specifically for Cinema4D users. These subscription licenses can be purchased from Maxon's website: https://www.maxon.net/en-us/buy/. Please note that these subscription licenses work only for Cinema4D.

• How does the upgrade system work?

  Redshift uses a "maintenance" system where there is a fixed yearly cost for access to support and the latest versions. More details can be found in this page (please expand the topic near the bottom of the page)

• I heard there's a new Redshift version coming soon. Should I wait before I purchase?

  Redshift is on a continuous release cycle. When you purchase a new license, you get access to all the versions released in the next 12 months. This means that if you were to buy a license today, you'd be able to download and use the next major version of Redshift irrespective of whether it's released tomorrow, next month or 6 months from now!

• Can I buy a single floating license?

  The minimum purchase requirement for floating licenses is 5 licenses. Beyond the initial floating license sale, floating licenses can be purchased in any quantity.
  If the reason for requiring a floating license is to be able to transfer it between computers, please be aware that this is also possible with node-locked licenses! Please read the relevant FAQ entry below!

• Can I transfer my node-locked license to another computer? How many times can I do that and how long does it take?

  Using the Redshift Licensing Tool, you can deactivate your Redshift license on a computer and activate it on another. The license deactivation/reactivation is instant but requires an internet connection. Once the license is activated, no internet connection is needed. You may deactivate/reactivate your Redshift license as many times as you want! Deactivating/reactivating the license allows users to share their Redshift licenses between their work and home computers.

• I'm having licensing issues! What should I do?

  We recommend reading this licensing troubleshooting page.
  If the instructions on that page don't help, then you can either make a post about your issue in the Redshift forums or you can email us directly at [email protected]

• Do I have to purchase a plugin for each 3D app separately?

  No! A Redshift license gives you access to all available plugins, free of charge!

• Do I need an internet connection in order to use Redshift?

  The Redshift Licensing Tool requires an internet connection in order to activate node-locked licenses. In addition to this, the first time you render with Redshift both node-locked and floating licenses have to verified with our online server. No further internet connectivity is required beyond that point, as long as both the hardware and operating system configurations are not modified. Please note that, with floating licenses, we offer the option for offline licenses, where no internet connectivity is required.

• What are the hardware or software requirements for Redshift?

  For an up-to-date list of requirements, please visit this page. We encourage prospective users to register and download the free trial of Redshift to ensure system compatibility and get a feel for the features and performance of Redshift prior to making a purchase.

• Which GPU should I buy for Redshift?

  To find out how the various GPUs compare against each other, please check out our "Benchmark Results" thread here: https://www.redshift3d.com/forums/viewthread/12843
  
  We also recommend reading the "Hardware Considerations for Redshift" document here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rP5nKyPQbPm-5tLvdeLgCt93rJGh4VeXyhzsqHR1xrI/edit?usp=sharing

• How do I run the Redshift Benchmark?

  The first (top) post of the "Benchmark Results" thread contains instructions for how to run Redshift's benchmarking tool. This can be found here

• Does Redshift depend on CPU performance?

  Since Redshift is a GPU renderer, it mostly depends on GPU performance. There are, however, certain processing stages that happen during rendering which are dependent on the performance of the CPU, disk or network. These include extracting mesh data from your 3d app, loading textures from disk and preparing the scene data for use by the GPU. Depending on scene complexity, these processing stages can take a considerable amount of time and, therefore, a lower-end CPU can 'bottleneck' the overall rendering performance.
  
  While Redshift doesn't need the latest and greatest CPU, we recommend using at least a mid-range quad-core CPU such as the Intel Core i5.
  
  If the CPU will be driving four or more GPUs or batch-rendering multiple frames at once, a higher-performance CPU such as the Intel Core i7 is recommended.
  
  For more information on hardware considerations for Redshift, please read this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rP5nKyPQbPm-5tLvdeLgCt93rJGh4VeXyhzsqHR1xrI/edit?usp=sharing

• Does Redshift support multiple GPUs on one machine?

  Yes! Redshift can be configured to use all compatible GPUs on your machine (the default) or any subset of those GPUs. You can even mix and match GPUs of different generations and memory configurations (e.g. 1 GTX TITAN + 1 GTX 1070). Redshift supports a maximum of 8 GPUs per session.
  
  Using a render manager (like Deadline) or using your 3d app's command-line rendering, you can render multiple frames at once on systems with multiple GPUs. This can help ensure that the GPU resources are used as efficiently as possible.
  
  For more information on hardware considerations for Redshift, please read this document.

• When Redshift uses multiple GPUs, is their memory combined?

  Unfortunately, no. Say you have an 8GB GPU and a 12GB GPU installed on your computer. The total available memory will not be 20GB, i.e. the 8GB GPU will not be able to use the 12GB GPU's memory. This is a limitation of current GPU technology and not related to Redshift in particular. We, therefore, recommend users combine videocards that are fairly "equal" in terms of memory capacity.
  
  Having said that, Redshift supports "out of core" rendering which helps with the memory usage of videocards that don't have enough VRAM (see below). This means that, in contrast with other GPU renderers, the largest possible scene you'll be able to render in the above scenario won't be limited by the system's weakest GPU.

• What is "out of core" rendering?

  Redshift has the capability of "out of core" rendering which means that if a GPU runs out of memory (because of too many polygons or textures in the scene), it will use the system's memory instead. In some situations this can come at a performance cost so we typically recommend using GPUs with as much VRAM as you can afford in order to minimize the performance impact. Certain types of data (like textures) actually work very well with out-of-core rendering. This means that even if your scene uses tens of 4K or 8K textures (i.e. several GB worth of data), you can still expect great rendering performance!

• Which render managers support Redshift?

  Deadline, Royal Render, Qube! and RenderPal all have native Redshift support. Apart from the default Redshift behavior which is to use all GPUs to render a single frame, some of these render managers also offer the capability of rendering multiple frames at once (on the same computer), with each frame using a different combination of GPUs.

• Which commercial renderfarms support Redshift?

  For an up-to-date list, please see this post

• Does Redshift run on mac?

  While Redshift does run on macOS, there are a couple of very important requirements. First, Redshift requires an NVidia GPU. All the recent macs contain AMD GPUs so, by default, they won't run Redshift. You'll need to use an eGPU solution to connect an NVidia GPU to your mac. The second requirement is that macOS must be High Sierra or earlier. Mohave, Catalina and later versions of macOS do not work with NVidia drivers, unfortunately. Please ensure that you try the freely available demo version with your mac to determine compatibility and stability before making a purchase!
  The Redshift team is currently working to implement a "Metal" version of Redshift. That version of Redshift will be able to support both AMD GPUs as well as later versions of macOS. We do not have a precise ETA for this but we're currently aiming for Q3 2020.

• Does Redshift support AMD GPUs on Windows or Linux?

  Redshift currently only supports CUDA-compatible NVidia GPUs. Support for AMD GPUs is currently in development, though!

• Does Redshift support OpenCL?

  No, Redshift currently only supports CUDA-compatible cards with compute capability 3.0 or higher.