I suppose my point is that everyone has a video card (Perhaps not. Mine is still integrated with the motherboard but it's still a GPU so I think it should count) so does that mean Octane 4 is free for me? I like Superfly but it's rather slow like a DS render. I wouldn't mind a speed boost on my quite middle of the road computer.
Hmm, It seems at the very least I need a NVIDIA GPU....I have a Raedon 7....
I first got started with Octane 1.0 with an old GTX 580 3GB VRAM, and rendering speeds were *crazy* comparing to what we had at that time. Octane was (at the time) the only engine that was rendering entirely in VRAM, which is many times faster than regular system RAM. That meant we were limited by amount of VRAM to decide what kinds of scenes we could render. There was also a nVidia CUDA limitation where we could only use up to 16 greyscale maps (can't remember the exact number) in the entire scene.
Nowadays Octane 3 has dropped all of these limitations, so we can load unlimited number of maps, and we can share VRAM and RAM in any amounts, BUT that came at the price of performance drops. With Octane 4, those drops are claimed to have been eliminated, which is nothing short of amazing, since all the competing alternatives still bottleneck at these things. Add to this the new "instant" scene refresh, and we can reach close to 1 FPS animation render speeds. In Octane 4, if you switch API to Brigade, you can go full real-time PBR rendering. OTOY claims they have mapped the Brigade API to the regular one, so converting the scene to real-time should be simple, but that is yet to be seen.
When it comes to performance, the bottom line is that it can be as fast as your GPU will physically allow. This includes video cards with proven cooling solutions, for I have fried two of them (GTX 275 and GTX 480) trying to render with stock cooling solutions - not a good idea. There is a reason nVidia charges more for the "Classified" editions that ship with stronger cooler systems that can withstand extended GPU rendering. In theory, a "good" GPU should have sufficient coolers so it doesn't fry itself when stressed, and sufficient number of streaming processors (SPs) to distribute the rendering processes. More built-in VRAM also means faster rendering. The more, the better.
Coming from that, decent GPU rendering doesn't come cheap. If you are serious about GPU rendering, you should consider forking out $600 to $700 on a flagship video card with decent cooling. I am not sure about ATI cards, but the nVidia "Classified" line out is the most recommended, though mine is one step below that, but it still includes special ATX 2.0+ (dual fan) cooling system, which includes a metal back plating to keep the card from warping, and also to double as a heat radiator.
Other factors include your motherboard and PSU (power source unit). These flagship video cards require a dedicated PCIEx 16X slot, and a PSU with stable 40A+ on a 12V rail. If your mobo PCIEx slot shares resources with other components, your expensive video card will be downgraded to slower performance. If your PSU cannot handle the power, it give you BSOD (unstable system), blow up the PSU capacitors, or in some cases, fry your entire system. Like I said, fast GPU rendering speed doesn't come cheap. At least Octane 4 is claimed to be free for up to 2 GPUs, where most of us only have a single one.
