The command line renderer can be used to render an image or series of images using any of the integrated Maya renderers. The command line renderer works as a background task and has no graphical user interface. It is an optimized rendering utility, and it therefore uses less resources than Maya.
The command line renderer can be launched on a workstation while a standard Maya session is running, however, be aware that both applications will require separate resources. Make sure that sufficient memory and disk space are available for both applications to run properly.
You can specify many aspects of a render from the command line, including which integrated renderer to use, the image size and file name to use.
The command line renderer provides a unified approach to all the integrated Maya renderers. Some flags are common to all renderers, and some flags are unique to a renderer.