VFX Render Time Calculator

Estimate wall-clock render time across a farm, with optional resolution scaling, machine efficiency, overhead, and cost.

Inputs

Quick farm presets. Does not change your shot settings (frames, time, resolution).

Shot Specs

Number of frames

frm

FPS

fps

Used to show sequence duration.

Render time per frame

min

sec

Slider controls minutes only for quick estimates. You can type more than 60.

Farm Infrastructure

Number of machines

Frames at once per machine

slots

Useful if each node can run multiple renders concurrently.

Advanced: Resolution, Overhead & Efficiency

Benchmark resolution

The resolution where your per-frame render time was measured.

Render scale

1.0 = full res, 0.5 = half dimensions, 2.0 = double dimensions. Applied to benchmark resolution.

Output resolution

3840 × 2160

Pixel ratio: 1.000× benchmark

Farm efficiency

Accounts for queue gaps, I/O waits, failed frames, retries, licenses, etc.

Per-frame overhead

sec

Load time, scene init, cache prep, upload, denoise, teardown. Overhead is added after resolution scaling.

Resolution scale exponent

exp

1.0 = linear by pixel count. Lower = softer scaling, higher = harsher scaling.

Cost Estimation

Cost estimation mode

$ /hr

Enter your fully-loaded internal rate per machine per hour.

Farm preset

cores

GHz

$ /GHz·hr

Cores × GHz × $/GHz·hour = effective machine rate.

Effective rate: $0.00 / machine hour

GPU preset

GPUs

$ /GPU·hr

GPUs per machine × $/GPU·hour = effective machine rate.

Effective rate: $0.00 / machine hour

Region / preset

$ /kWh

Watts × $/kWh ÷ 1000 = electricity cost per machine hour (no hardware depreciation).

Electricity cost: $0.00 / machine hour

Results

Estimated completion

—

Total wall-clock time

—

Effective parallel slots: —

Adjusted time per frame

—

Output resolution

—

Total compute hours

0.00 h

Total compute cost

$0.00

Calculating...

Planning details

Local power: $0.00

Cloud CPU: $0.00

Cloud GPU: $0.00

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