RTX A4000 to RTX 6000 Ada from $1.49/hourFirst top-up $20 = 8 h on RTX 5080 or about 18 h on RTX A4000No paperwork just your email and mobile numberInternational cards acceptedBilled by the minute for the minutes you useGet started →
COREFRAME
A hover-speeder tearing through a red desert canyon, kicking up dust

Houdini Cloud Workstation — Houdini and Karma on a rented RTX GPU

From $1.49an hour, no GST, billed per minute

First top-up $20 = 8 hours on the RTX 5080.

Recommended for Houdini: RTX A5000, 24 GB VRAM

No account until you press Start. Other GPUs

Houdini on a rented Windows desktop with a workstation-class GPU and workstation RAM. You bring your SideFX licence, open your .hip files from persistent storage and pay by the minute, so a heavy shot does not need a machine you own all year.

By the Coreframe Cloud team · Updated

Why rent a GPU for this.

Karma XPU and Redshift render on the GPU, with workstation-class VRAM.
Workstation RAM for simulations and caches, listed with each card.
Your own computer stays free while the shot runs on the rented one.
Rent it for the shots that need it and stop paying when they are done.

Your laptop, our workstation

Your laptop streams a workstation in India: the picture comes to you, your mouse and keys go to itYour laptop4K at 60 fpsyour mouse and keysGPUIndia

Files wait on your drive

Your files go up to your project drive once and wait there between sessionsProject drivescene.blendtextures/client-v3.d5a

What our customers say

As a freelancer I can't justify a workstation that sits idle between projects. When a Twinmotion job comes in, I open an RTX 5080 on Coreframe and stop paying the moment I close it. My files wait on my Coreframe drive, so I pick up right where I left off.

Dinesh

Freelance visualiser · Twinmotion

Blender and After Effects all day, often for two clients at once. On Coreframe, 64 GB of RAM keeps long After Effects comps smooth, and Blender renders finish far sooner than on my laptop. It costs more than a basic cloud VM, but a basic VM can't run this.

Sai

Motion designer · Blender & After Effects

I test heavy Unreal levels and walk scenes in Twinmotion. The 16 GB card on Coreframe loads what my own machine couldn't, and it streams to my laptop in 4K.

Avi

Game tester · Unreal Engine & Twinmotion

Before Coreframe I did all of this on an RTX 3060 at home, cutting textures down just to make big projects fit. Now I open an RTX 5080 when a test pass needs it, and per-minute billing means short sessions cost what they should.

Srini

Game developer & tester

I'm based in Singapore and paid with my international card: no paperwork, just an email and a mobile number. On Coreframe I build comps in After Effects and run my FFmpeg batch encodes on the same machine, then pull the finished files down. One proper Windows workstation for the whole job.

Jin

Video editor · After Effects & FFmpeg, Singapore

Houdini: what’s installed, what you bring.

Already installed

  • Blender

Bring your own licence

  • SideFX Houdini
  • Karma (included with Houdini)
  • Redshift, if you use it

Houdini signs in with your SideFX licence; Karma ships with Houdini. Each session starts from a clean machine, so software you install is removed when it ends, unless you choose a persistent workstation (available on selected GPUs), which keeps your own Windows disk between sessions. Everything on the machine.

The GPU we recommend for Houdini

RTX A5000, 24 GB VRAM

Karma XPU and GPU renderers keep the scene in VRAM; most simulation runs on the CPU and system RAM, listed with each card.

What Houdini costs per hour here.

One price per GPU-hour, in US dollars. The recommended card is picked; tap another to change it.

RTX A5000 chosen. You sign up when you press Start: your email and a WhatsApp code. You pay before any GPU time, then download Connect.

Blender, Unreal Engine, Twinmotion and D5 Render are preinstalled. Commercial software runs on your own licence.

How to sign out of common apps

You sign in to Houdini with your own licence; the price is for the machine. Billed per minute from when you connect, not per whole hour. Preparing the workstation and uploads are free. If you don't connect within 10 minutes of your workstation being ready, it shuts down and those 10 minutes are charged. If a connection fails on our side, nothing is charged. Full pricing.

How Houdini runs here: measured, not quoted.

We publish only figures we have measured on our own workstation, and we have not published Houdini timings yet. Each row says so. Ask and we will run your scene, or a reference one, and send the numbers.

Houdini on a Coreframe workstation: measured figures and what has not been measured yet
What was measuredResult
Karma XPU 4K still, our reference sceneMeasured on request
Peak VRAM used by that reference sceneMeasured on request
Workstation ready after Launch (sign-in to desktop)Measured on request

Want a number before you top up? Ask for a measured run. We will tell you the GPU, the scene and the settings with every figure.

The details.

Where Houdini uses the GPU, and where it doesn't.

Most of Houdini's simulation work (FLIP, pyro, Vellum and RBD) runs on the CPU and needs system RAM for its caches. The GPU draws the viewport and runs Karma XPU, Redshift and the OpenCL parts of some solvers.

So pick the card for your renderer's VRAM and check the workstation's vCPU and RAM, listed with each card, for your simulations. Write caches to your project drive so they are there next session.

Licensing. You install it and sign in with your own licence, exactly as you would on a new PC. We don't supply licences for commercial software, because the licence belongs to you and not to the machine. Houdini signs in with your SideFX account or your own licence server; Karma ships with Houdini.

See what is preinstalled →

Questions.

Can I run Houdini on a cloud workstation?

Yes. A Coreframe workstation is a full Windows desktop (Windows 11 or Windows Server) with a dedicated NVIDIA RTX GPU, and Houdini runs on it with your own SideFX licence. You reach it through the Coreframe Connect app and pay per minute.

Does Karma XPU work on a Coreframe workstation?

Yes. Karma XPU uses the NVIDIA RTX GPU and the CPU together, and Karma comes with Houdini, so there is nothing extra to license.

Will my Houdini simulations run faster?

Only if your own machine is short of CPU cores or RAM. Most Houdini simulation runs on the CPU, so compare the vCPU and RAM listed with each card against what you have. We don't quote simulation times because they depend on the setup.

Does Coreframe provide a Houdini licence?

No. You sign in with your own SideFX account or point Houdini at your own licence server. Coreframe supplies the machine.

What GPU do I need for Houdini?

For Houdini we recommend the RTX A5000 with 24 GB of VRAM. Karma XPU and GPU renderers keep the scene in VRAM; most simulation runs on the CPU and system RAM, listed with each card. Every card on the price list runs it; you pick the card when you start.

How much does a Coreframe workstation cost?

Ad-hoc sessions are $1.49 per GPU-hour, billed per minute from when you connect, not per whole hour. Preparing the workstation and uploads are free. If you don't connect within 10 minutes of your workstation being ready, it shuts down and those 10 minutes are charged. If a connection fails on our side, nothing is charged. Committed monthly plans start at $70.99/month and bill extra hours below the ad-hoc rate at every tier: $1.99/hr on Small Team, $0.99/hr on Medium Team. Prices in US dollars carry no GST (export of services), and the invoice is in US dollars.

Are prices the same worldwide?

Each billing country has one price list. Accounts billed outside India pay in US dollars, from $1.49 an hour with no GST (export of services), billed per minute. Accounts billed in India pay a rupee price list with GST included. The workstations are the same everywhere, hosted in a Tier III data centre in India.

Is there an offer for new customers?

Yes. Your first top-up of $20 (no GST) buys 8 hours on an RTX 5080 (or about 18 hours on the RTX A4000, 12 on the RTX A5000), to use within 30 days, one per customer. You sign up with an email and a WhatsApp code to your mobile, with no ID documents, and international cards work. We won't say what you can finish in that time, because it depends entirely on your scene.

No account until you press Start. New to it? How a session works.

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