I’m not sure if these options were available in previous SRs of Rhino 8 but I’m not seeing Cycles under Rhino Options. In particular, I’m looking to make changes to the number of bounces for my renders. I found the options in Advanced. Not sure if they’re available anywhere else.
The global options are also under Rhino Options > Rhino Render now.
Cycles has disappeared from my ‘Current renderer Options’:
GPU drivers are up to date.
Sysinfo below:
Rhino 8 SR24 2025-10-8 (Rhino 8, 8.24.25281.15001, Git hash:master @ ba28668a8431990c700173e46ef2dbcb873cf092)
License type: Commercial, build 2025-10-08
License details: Cloud Zoo
Windows 11 (10.0.26100 SR0.0) or greater (Physical RAM: 32GB)
.NET 8.0.14
Computer platform: LAPTOP - Plugged in [80% battery remaining]
Hybrid graphics configuration.
Primary display: Intel(R) UHD Graphics (Intel) Memory: 1GB, Driver date: 6-15-2023 (M-D-Y).
Integrated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
- Windows Main Display is laptop’s integrated screen or built-in port
Primary OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU (NVidia) Memory: 12GB, Driver date: 6-16-2024 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 556.08
Integrated accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
- Secondary monitor is laptop’s integrated screen or built-in port
OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
GPU Tessellation is: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
Graphics level being used: OpenGL 4.6 (primary GPU’s maximum)
Anti-alias mode: 4x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High
Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 6-16-2024
Driver Version: 32.0.15.5608
Maximum Texture size: 32768 x 32768
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 32768 x 32768
Total Video Memory: 12282 MB
Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino
C:\ProgramData\McNeel\Rhinoceros\8.0\Plug-ins\Datasmith Rhino Exporter (d1fdc795-b334-4933-b680-088119cdc6bb)\DatasmithRhino8.rhp “Datasmith Exporter” 5.5.4.0
Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\AnimationTools.rhp “AnimationTools”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoRenderCycles.rhp “Rhino Render” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoRender.rhp “Legacy Rhino Render”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\MeshCommands.rhp “MeshCommands” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 8.24.25281.15001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Calc.rhp “Calc”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\SectionTools.rhp “SectionTools”
That Rhino Render entry is what Cycles is called in Rhino 8.24.
Regards
Jeremy
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Gotcha thank you… but that means that the mystery of why my Rhino is only rendering with the CPU and not the GPU remains.
I realize that this might need to go into a separate thread, but when switching to ‘Raytraced’ it just puts all of the load onto my CPU and of course gives a slow result.
Your drivers are over a year old.
Try updating, then allowing the recompile process to take place.
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The Task Manager performance graphs aren’t great tools.
And even when you are using CUDA you can expect high CPU utilization.
And what you think is slow might seem quick to someone else!
Try running a render of a test scene with the CUDA option set in Rhino, then change the setting to CPU and render the same scene. That way you will see the difference in performance your system gives you.
Try this one:
Cycles render test image.3dm (2.6 MB)
With the image in a maximised perspective viewport and these settings:
Under CUDA it should take about a minute and a quarter. Under CPU it should be a lot longer.
Let us know what times you achieve.
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This was the solution, thank you.
I recently migrated to Windows from Mac - is updating Nvidia drivers something that can be set to happen automatically or is it just something that you have to keep an eye on from time to time?
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Thanks for this, now that I’ve downloaded the latest drivers and recompiled the kernels I was able to get a CUDA rendering for this scene in about 1m30s, and about 7m with the CPU only. I’ll come back to this test scene in future if I need to tinker.
Thanks for the the help.
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The task manager is not the correct tool to check GPU utilization. Instead use something like MSI Afterburner or any of the other tools that show also compute utilization. Since Cycles on the GPU uses CUDA compute - something that isn’t shown in task manager.
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I don’t think there is a way to auto download drivers.
Also, this would not be a great idea. Nvidia have recently been known to release drivers that cause device bricking and other random failures. I would want to see what happens for a good two weeks after release of WHQL drivers.
Glad to help!
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