Ei Camera, Renderfarms and Hyper threading

[meester smeeth]

Hello there

Is anybody using a machine with Hyper threading (i7 or New Xeons) and therefore using twice as many render slaves? I'm sure on the OLD website forum that somebody mentioned they were working with this set up. But I have also heard that this will be something that will be ready for version 9.

Thanks a lot

[Tomas Egger]

Ola,

Im not running the new machines, but I will want to test for sure..

EIAS 9 is totally ready for Multi-processors :) so, Camera 9 can see 24 processors for example.

Thanks

Tom

[gyroo]

Yup, i've got a new 6-core and I usually run 11 slaves when rendering. It could be 12, but i like leaving a little slack to leave the computer useable for other stuff too. I did some tests when i first tried this and the "extra" hyperthreaded cameras work at about 70%'ish of the speed of "proper" ones. Still worthwhile though.

DaveW

[meester smeeth]

Nice one Dave

So you basically just added the 11 slaves folders and they pick up just as it would normally? Or do you have to turn Hyper threading on? Also, is there a way of finding out which slaves are picked up by the Hyper? Or you just know by the 70% speed?

[Reuben.F]

Nice one Dave

So you basically just added the 11 slaves folders and they pick up just as it would normally? Or do you have to turn Hyper threading on? Also, is there a way of finding out which slaves are picked up by the Hyper? Or you just know by the 70% speed?

I would guess you would see visually the HT cameras rendering slightly slower, when multi-threaded camera 9 is released i doubt anyone will bother with that setup anymore :)

Reuben

[meester smeeth]

So Reuben, Would it be right that Camera 9 will only need one Camera running per computer? So instead of say a quad core doing four simultaneous frames, it would render 1 frame, 4 times as fast? Or for a still image, it would not render in strips, but a single image.

If this were so, hopefully there would be a way of holding back some power for other apps. at the same time. Anyway, it would be good to know a bit about this as we are looking at upgrading our render capacity, so looking for the best set up possible.

Thanks

[RichardJoly]

Yes to your questions. It has all the flexibility you want. You will love it! :D

[gyroo]

Nice one Dave

So you basically just added the 11 slaves folders and they pick up just as it would normally? Or do you have to turn Hyper threading on? Also, is there a way of finding out which slaves are picked up by the Hyper? Or you just know by the 70% speed?

Nothing to turn on - my 6-core just works like a 12-core. The slow down was tested by timing a test animations total time to complete vs number of cores.

Looking forward to the MP camera.... When can I have one :)

Cheers

Dave

[Reuben.F]

Nothing to turn on - my 6-core just works like a 12-core. The slow down was tested by timing a test animations total time to complete vs number of cores.

Looking forward to the MP camera.... When can I have one :)

Cheers

Dave

Its amazing :P

[meester smeeth]

So fellas, With the new Camera 9, it will be one Camera per machine. With the old method, my rule of thumb was to have 2Gb of RAM for each processor thread. Basically 2Gb/ camera, a quad core would need 8Gb for it's 4 cameras.

If one machine only needs to run 1 camera, the RAM issue would seem to be a bit different. Maybe it would need a lot less? Or would it still need the 2Gb/thread to run at full speed?

For eg. A 12 core running with HT, would give 24 threads, which would mean 48 Gb RAM for 1 camera!

[Reuben.F]

So fellas, With the new Camera 9, it will be one Camera per machine. With the old method, my rule of thumb was to have 2Gb of RAM for each processor thread. Basically 2Gb/ camera, a quad core would need 8Gb for it's 4 cameras.

If one machine only needs to run 1 camera, the RAM issue would seem to be a bit different. Maybe it would need a lot less? Or would it still need the 2Gb/thread to run at full speed?

For eg. A 12 core running with HT, would give 24 threads, which would mean 48 Gb RAM for 1 camera!

i would aim for 1gb per thread but it works just fine on less, it also will depend on the size and complexity of your scenes as to what is needed, and remember you need to allow for animator and your OS

BTW Are there even any dual CPU hex core systems around ?

[Tomas Egger]

Ola,

The amount of Ram is related with the complexity of scene only :)

Camera 9 memory management is totally new, need less Ram.

So, a scene with 15 million polys and GI + Photons (1920x1080) will need more or less 6GB RAM.

Thanks

Tom

[meester smeeth]

This is all sounding really good. One thing to think about though, is that lets just say that 6Gb RAM can carry a good sized project, but you were rendering 3 different projects at the same time, you would need 18 Gb. So I think the 1Gb/thread on a 24 thread might just be a good marker? Yes Reuben, there's some nice dual 6 core xeon blade servers going around at half the price of the comparable Mac Pro.

Nice one

[Tomas Egger]

Ola,

Do you mean using 3 Cameras 9 with 8 cores each in a 24 cores total?

But since you will have one Rama in the command, is it not better have each of your projects using all 24 cores? using only more or less the 6GB of ram?

Please, explain me better what you would like to do.

Thanks

Tom

[meester smeeth]

Basically, can more than 1 Renderama be accessing the same computer to render on? If 3 people were accessing a render machine, would you need 6Gb x 3? Such as with Renderama 8, you would share the separate slaves between the 3 users.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola,

Sure, if you have 3 Ramas running in different Machines and the 24 cores slave Machine have 3 Slave folders each one which a different IP end address (e.g. :1616, :1617, :1618), each Rama will pick one of them which is enabled in the RAMA UI. (each Camera will be enabled to run only 8 cores)

Thanks

Tom

[Juanxer]

So you basically just added the 11 slaves folders and they pick up just as it would normally?

Actually, you can have more Slaves than available cores in older non-hyperthreading Macs and gain this extra bit of speed in some cases, too, as if the Cameras weren't able to fully saturate the cores while in a 1:1 relationship.