It is not mandatory to have OctaneRender™ Standalone Edition installed. However you must own a license for Standalone Edition in order to use the plugin as your Standalone credentials will be requested when you activate the plugin. If you do install Standalone Edition, it does not need to be the same Octane version as the plugin since they operate separately. It is however recommended that you install OctaneRender™ Standalone Edition (via the installer .exe) in order to set the Windows Nvidia driver time-outs correctly.
The plugin requires Rhinoceros 6 or higher to be installed. It runs currently on Windows 32- and 64-bit.
It is also highly recommended that you use your onboard graphics or a second graphics card for the Windows display adapter. If you do not have an onboard or second graphics card, use the Low Priority Render Priority (see GPU Settings). If you are running a GTX 690, or multiple graphics cards, it is important to disable SLI in the Nvidia control panel.