Render Credits and PPI

What is a render credit and are they worth something?”

A render credit is a form of valuation of processing power per hour. Yes. They are worth something. At this time, and this is subject to change based on a number of factors, a render credit is worth approximately $1.50 USD on the LightForge Render Network. Please note in the examples below for simplicity, any numbers stated are not indicative of current Render Credit pricing.

In order to properly evaluate the performance of a render node we had to come up with a better way of doing so, fairly. This lead to the creation of what we call PPI or Processor Performance Index.

Processor Performance Index (PPI)

Because Ghz/hrs and Core/hrs don’t effectively provide a true measurement of rendering performance, we came up with an alternative and more direct approach — the Processor Performance Index (PPI) benchmark.

Similar to Maxon Cinebench™ CPU rendering performance score, the PPI score (or index) provides a relative index of the rendering performance of a computer system. Each PPI score is unique to the specific computer that generated the score. Smaller PPI scores are produced for low-performing computers (singled-core, dual-core, etc…) and higher scores for more powerful computers (multi-cpu, multi-cores, etc…). PPI scores scale proportionally to individual Maxon Cinebench™ benchmark scores.

Since render farm services use different types of computer systems, the PPI index from each computer can be used to easily differentiate slow and high performance render nodes. Likewise, the accumulation of individual PPI scores can demonstrate the true rendering horsepower of an entire render farm.

Render Credits and how they relate to PPI

Using the PPI by itself doesn’t accurately provide a true measure of rendering performance. For that, render credits are used to indicate the amount of rendering horsepower used during a specific render job.
LightForge Render Network customers will be provided on purchase, render credits (or tokens) that will be consumed with each rendered job. Render credit will be sold at a fixed price (Example: $.20 per render credit).

User render credit consumption is calculated as follows:

  1. The render farm service will select a render node to use as a reference node. This node will be used as the baseline for all farm renders.
  2. For the reference node, the render farm service will determine how many render credits will be consumed for every hour of rendering time on that computer. For example, 10 render credits per hour at $.20 per render credit. This amounts to a $2.00 charge for every hour of rendering on that node.
  3. The PPI index of the reference node will be used to determine the rate of render credit consumption for all render nodes. The equation for the render credit consumption (per hour) is: (RENDER-NODE-PPI/REFERENCE-NODE-PPI) x REFERENCE-CREDITS-PER-HOUR)
  4. If another render node is twice as powerful as the reference node then render credits will be consumed at twice the rate. If a render node is half as powerful as the reference node, render credits will be consumed at half the rate of the reference node.
    Example: Let’s assume that a small render farm has the following render nodes and that the customer has purchased 1000 render credits:
     RENDERNODE_01: PPI index of 18
     RENDERNODE_02: PPI index of 36 (reference node @ 10 credits per hour)
     RENDERNODE_03: PPI index of 72
     RENDERNODE_04: PPI index of 125

    If RENDERNODE_02 (the reference node) was the only render node used, the customer’s render credits will be completed used up after 100 hour or rendering (1000 render credits % 10 credits/hour = 100 hours). Since this scenario only uses a single render node, the PPI index is not needed and is therefore, not used.

    When using the entire farm for rendering, the PPI index will be used to determine render credit consumption. For this example, if all nodes were used for rendering, after an hour they would have consumed the following number of render credits:
    Render credit consumption equation: ((node-ppi/ref-ppi) x ref_credits_per_hour).
     RENDERNODE_01: ((18/36) x 10) = 5;
     RENDERNODE_02: ((36/36) x 10) = 10;
     RENDERNODE_03: ((72/36) x 10) = 20;
     RENDERNODE_04: ((125/36) x 10) = 34;

    So after one hour of rendering the consumer would have used up 69 render credits.

    Render credit specifics:
     Long render jobs will consume more credits than slower ones.
     More powerful render nodes will consume render credits faster than less powerful nodes.

    Here are some of the advantages of using render credits or ghz/hrs or core/hrs:
     You get charged for only the rendering power you use, accurately.
     In our Cloud User Interface, all PPI benchmarks per render node are displayed when you render so you know the performance you are getting.



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