Rendering out high res and 12000 frames
 

Hi All

I am doing a project which is very detailed and 4 minutes long, I need to render out high res images (1440X1152) @ 25 fps from two camera views. So I need to end up with 12000 high res images.

I use to have a PC with 1gb of ram and a 3 GB hyper-threading chip then in August last year I bought a new Dell with two duel processors and 2 GB of DDR2 ram two get quicker renders and guess what! The renders take almost twice as long.

After weeks of going between Dell and Alias they have put it down to a confliction between Maya 7 and duel core chips called Data contention and basically, tuff your stuck with it.

The guy from Dell did show me a way of telling Maya to render say frames 1 to 10 and tell that to use two of the cores and then reopen Maya and tell it to do frames 11-20 and to use a different two cores and you can do this up to four times so you have four different renders going all together and this does work out to be a bit quicker but not quick enough to render out 12000 high res frames.

I believe there is possibly about three options, someone did say I might be able to get a render card but he didn't have any more information, someone else talked about a render computer but again had no more information and I have heard about render houses where you send your project to them and they render it out for you but again I don’t know any more about this.

I would rather spend some money buying some sort of hardware then pay a render house every time I need some rendering done but I would be grateful for any ideas.
Thankss

Trikeman

a few recommendations...

first: increase your virtual memory. when rendering larger files (in succession) i usually set my page file to about 1.5 times the amount of ram i have.

second: make sure you've got 'use all available processors' checked. not sure if there's a different method for enabling that for mental ray, i've never bothered cause i don't have a multiprocessor computer anymore.

third: maya usually renders faster when you don't have maya open. render from the command line, using the Render command (i do believe the capital R is necessary), but you have to make sure the file you're rendering is all one word - no spaces. set up all your render options, save your file, and close maya. besides, it'll free up some ram.

Hi Trikeman

Seems a bit strange that your getting longer rendertimes for a multi processor machine, the only thing that I could think of is to do as neostrider suggested and have use all available processors checked.

If your rendering with mental ray in the render->batch render option box theres an option to use multiple threads set this to 4 (as I think thats how many threads a dual core dual processor machine has) and give this a go.

Incedentaly on my dual core PC its a lot quicker than my old single core PC (althought the clock speeds of my old PC is slower)

You can varify if maya's using all the cores by opening the task manager (if your using windows) and then seeing if all the processors go to 100%

Hi

Yes thank you both for the above, where can I find out more info about using the command line,as a couple of times now people have said to try renering from the command line but I am not really sure what they mean?

I am using XP pro I did not know you could ajust yu virtual memory.

Trikeman

This is the way I go about it, its not truely from the command line but it makes it so you dont have any programs open when your rendering (just the rendering engine that your using at the time)

http://www.jawa9000.com/technical/ba...-rendering.htm

if you look in the help files for render flags it has a list of all the commands you put in to render etc.

I think that the help files also have some info on rendering from the command line.

Hi

Thanks for this one good clear instructions, I would still be interestd to hear if anybody knows of any hardwear that would help. Price in hundreds not thousends.

Thanks
Trikeman

When you are talking about 'dual processors' are you talking about dual core or a 2-Way SMP system? If your using a computer with more than processors, not cores, you have to make sure your using an OS that supports more than one processor such as XP Pro.

Hi

I am running two duel cores each core has hyper-threading so when I go "Ctr+Alt+Delete" and click on Performance I get eight cores up.

As I understand it and I may be wrong, each processor has two cores and each core has hyper-threading making four cors and I have two of those processors make eight cores but if someone reads this and says no that wrong I would love to be put right.

However under Task Manager/Performance there are eights cores. Yes I am running XP Pro,

As I said above Dell and Alias say its a thing called Data contention has anybody else heard of this or and this problem. Is there anybody out there with an eight core machine? if so can you let me know how you are getting on.

Also if there is anybody using this setup would you be willing to try and render the file for me and le me know how you get on.

Thanks
Trikeman

Whats the Processors youve got, the Xenons?

Hi

Under Device Manager/Processors it says

Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.00GHz, there are eight rows under each other.

Since my last post I did two render tests the first one was one processor took 7minutes and 16 seconds and once it got going was usinng between 12 and 14 percent of the total CPU, the PF usage starts about 846mb and drops down to 835mb. and the second test was all processors tic and it ficked up to 48% once or twice but mainly hangs around 20 to 24 percent
and took 13 minutes and 4 seconds
I have 2G of ram and my page file is 3500mb, my Display card is a ATI FireGL V&200

Thanks guys for your on going help with this one.

Trikeman

thatys really really strange, ity should be blasting through the renders, incedentaly whats the scene file your using to test, one form zoo render?

now I dont know if this is the problem but I think that the processors are 64 bit, so your OS must be 64 bit too, is the version of may your running 64 bit also (I dont know if a 32 bit programm would run on a 64 bit machine though)

Hi

It is one of my own files, I have never hear of Zoo, would it have a test file I could try?

I am not sure about 64 or 32 but when I bought it I was told it was compatable with Vista, if that helps. I am running Maya 7 does anybody Know if the newer versions of Maya are any better with newer Machines

Any more iides would be welcome.

Thanks
Bill

Hello

Can you be more specific about exactly what model your Xeons are? I'm assuming that they are the 32 bit Pentium 4 D variety, not the 64 bit Core 2 variety, becuase they are running at 3 GHz . Am I correct?

Anyways, I would recommened disabling Hyper Threading and see wether doing that helps as Hyper Threading its known to slow down certain types of tasks sometimes (despite the ads on TV).

To disable Hyperthreading, there should an option in your BIOS somewhere and the manual you got with your system should mention the specifics.

Also, you said your system is Vista compatible... There are two versions of Vista, one is 32 bit and the other is 64 bit...

Hi

How do I go about finding out what type of Xeons I have I said what it says in the device manager where would I get more info?

Thanks
Bill

trikeman > 'How do I go about finding out what type of Xeons I have I said what it says in the device manager where would I get more info?'

You could get the model number of the system and see what processor it uses on the website of the company you got it from. Most companies keep a product listing in the products section or in the support section if its old.