my CPU is killing me, or am i killing it?
 

I'm wondering, when I render on my PC the CPU is doing 100% all the time. when I render on my laptop it is doing 50%. when I render on my PC I'm lucky ti get 20 frames sometimes (other times it will do the render but mostly I have to wake at some silly time and reset the globals and start a new batch render.)
but when I render on my laptop (dual core CPU) it never ever stops in the middle of ANY render.

what is happening? Is there a way I can turn the CPU for the render to 80%?? or something like that so the thing doesn't time out or whatever it does. As it stands I have to render on the laptop which seems a bit silly.

Quadro 4 750XGL (PC)

recently the error messages from MS have changed from the usual boring 'driver problem' to 'you need to buy a new CPU OR a new POWER SUPPLY or a new MOTHERBOARD..? MS have left it rather broad, they may as well said, 'we don't know, buy a new computer.'

Your laptop is dual core so when it says 50% it is using 100% of one processor. Which is what your PC has, one processor.

As far as on your PC you could use ctrl-alt-del to open the process viewer and set the priority of the task lower. However this will impact performance resulting in an even slower render.

It doesn't appear that batch rendering would resolve this issue.

I believe that it is normal for the CPU to operate at 100% when rendering. But don't take my word for it. As far as your other issues with the render crashing it could be a memory issue, not related to the CPU.

Its just the load on the processor, as long as its got decent cooling then I shouldent see a problem, I've left my desktop rendering for about a week running at 100% once with no probs, and I pretty much just use it as a rendering PC now as I've got my laptop.

As for your laptop you could get it to render using both cores (so it will be faster) but I cant remember how to change the settings!

Was the Quadro 4 750XGL (PC) quote your graphics card? If so the graphics card dosent do anything with rendering (unless your hardware rendering of course) its only the processor, RAM etc if your using the Maya Software and Mental Ray rendering engines.

the processor option is found when batch rendering, it pops up a window with number of processors to use, but you can check the 'use all available processors' box... it was nice to have when i had my dual pIII up and running.

as far as rendering goes, it's not really a good idea to do much of anything else while it's batch rendering (or just plain old rendering) just because of the fact that maya's utilizing most of the processor. i usually just walk away or start my batch renders right before i go to bed. i also don't leave maya open while i'm batch rendering. i use the command line option after setting my render globals, saving the file, and closing maya.

Eye, but with the dual core processors I think its in the BIOS to set up how windows looks at the processor, i.e as 2 processors or as one processor.

this is all mighty good stuff and makes me think there is something wrong with the power supply or the CPU or the cooling system. If you guys are rendering all night with no false stops then I or my computer is doing something wrong, and if the laptop is rendering for 20 hours no problem then I would say it is the PC and not me. (it could be though).

how do you turn off Maya and batch render at the same time (this could be an answer but if it stopped how would i know, i mean a false stop) , I'll lend you an ear, what's the secret there?

Hows the laptop Gster, what did you finally get.

yea, it was my graphics card and it does ardware render with a breeze and no false stops.

I don't think that the BIOS has anything to do with how Windows looks at a dual core processor. It's still one processor technically, but with two cores as each of these so called 'processors' still rely on a shared control unit to feed it with data.

But when you actually have two or more processors, like in a SMP system, you need an OS that can send data to the number of processors you have.

The whole thing with the renders stopping sounds more like software than hardware, CPUs don't timeout like internet does, though they do freeze.

Here you go Mirekm, a bit of a tutorial on it.

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

I ended up getting a Dell XPS M1710 with the NVidia Gforce 7900 GTX 512Mb RAM, 2 gig ram, 120 gig HDD, Intel Dual core etc etc, Its really nice and fast.

Architect - Just checked in my BIOS set up and I can switch multi core support on or off which according to the BIOS is for "this field specifiec whether or not the CPU will appear as two logical CPUs. THe performance of some applications will improve with two logical CPUs"

Which I think I read that Maya works better (cant remember where otherwise I would post the link) with the system thinking its one logical CPU.

Cheers

thanks for that, i'll dig deeper

that's one hell of a laptop you got going there, very cool.

excellant tut Eric.

One thing that I'm sure about is that the more cores or processors you have, the faster Maya will run. And thats true for many professional apps as well. Does anyone use a SMP system here?

Anyways about the stuff with the BIOS, I wouldn't know as I don't use a dual core computer. I have to say though, it is a bit strange that such a feature is present considering how dual core processors are implemented. What kind of a situation would require one core to be turned off? Power saving? Really, the more it burns the better.

And dual core processor is still one processor anyway, no matter how you look at it.

Yep I agree with you, seems a bit strange that why would you not want a dual core processor to be dual core?? Maybe for pure number crunching, instead of sharing the load and application it runs both cores for a single app??? Dunno to be honest.

The other thing is that the intel core duo 2 thats in my PC switches off a core to powersave and lowers the clock frequency, if its isnt needed. BUT its there in the BIOS as an option.

Like I said I read somewhere that apparantly, Maya, in a test that this author did ran quicker when it thought the Processor was a single logic, and like I said if I could find the author I would post it.

Also I dont think that anyone was questioning that dual core is dual processor

gster123, regarding the article where the author did a benchmark on Maya thinking that its running on a single logic, I would like to take a look at it if you find the link.

Sounds very unlikely to me that a dual core processor would slow things down since Maya has been heavily optimised for systems with multiple cores and processors.

gster123 - 'Also I dont think that anyone was questioning that dual core is dual processor'

I can't remember why I wrote that...

'The whole thing with the renders stopping sounds more like software than hardware, CPUs don't timeout like internet does, though they do freeze'
(architect)


so you mean it is likely a software conflict??

why does it render the frame it stopped at easily (when I wake up and set the globals again) and move on until it decides to stop agian, it seems random.??

Can one of you guys explain what you mean by the dual core options and where are they (please!) :) what IS the best method to use on a dual core system or a single CPU system. ??

what would cause the CPU to freeeeeezzzzz-A? (my visual expression for the sudden stopping of process :) )

Mirek03, I do think that your rendering problem it is more of software conflict than a hardware fault, maybe caused by incompatible drivers or something. It would also help to further elaborate on your problem.

My interpretation is that when you render an animation, it would happily do so, then stop, requiring you to manually enter all the settings again and resume rendering. Am I right? I am however a bit confused by what you mean by ‘wake up’. Are you referring to the screensaver or something like that?

Also, are you sure that your computer is not overheating? Overheating usually causes crashes and many other numerous forms instability, although your rendering problem doesn’t sound like it.

As for the stuff about the dual core options, you asked why your computer was having a 100% workload while your notebook is having only 50%. I think the other guys were trying to explain why your notebook only had a 50% workload while your computer was at 100%. I don’t know where those options are myself, but the other guys said they are in your BIOS somewhere…

“What IS the best method to use on a dual core system or a single CPU system. ??” – mirek03

What do you mean by that? Which method of rendering is best? Well there isn’t one as one method of rendering should be good on both.

About the CPU freezing, well I was thinking of something else that is completely different from your problem. As for my timeout comment, I can’t remember where I saw it in the thread, but I think that someone mentioned the CPU timing out or something which it will never do. A CPU would keep on doing a task until it finishes.

This might help out in the explanation of Dual cores, enabling and disabling etc , it even says that using one logical processor in some applications will speed up processing in some applications...

Also heres a link to a thread in CG talk Called " How fast is your PC with Maya 7.0" that the guys in here appear to disable hyperthreading for a faster render time...

But I just use the "use all available processors" and increase the number of threads for mental ray to use to 2, this gets my dual core PC laptop, going at 100%

Horses for courses me thinks.

So the people on that forum said that if you disable hyperthreading Maya renders faster?

Well that is not unexpected. Hyperthreading is just tricking the system into believing that it has two cores, the CPU doesn't actually have two cores, so its behaviour is not like a mutlicore or multiprocessor at all.

I remember when hyperthreading came out a few years ago, there were all these article in magazines saying they slowed down certain types of apps.

As for the link, well I think you forgot or am I supposed to search the forum myself?

Nah man, I forgot the links! Doh, yeah even in dual core systems hyperthreading slows down rendering of cirtian appliactions

This link shows dual cores, hyperthreading etc. (and even mentions to switch it off in the BIOS for ture switch off)

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2004/05/28...uck/index.html

Heres the link for the cgtalk thread

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...light=maya+7.0

thers also a maya 8 thread. if you search for it!

if we were talking triads and Harmony, midi and VST I wouldn't feel so stupid, I have no idea what hyoerthreading is or where? Architect, yes correct about the render, and it may well be over heating as I did get a warning from MS saying I might have a cooling problem or power supply, ect, but all those error messages are so standard that I take no notice.

As for 'wake up' I meant I have to wake up in the night to see if the render has stopped because I often have dead lines and though my Maya skills are not up to standard here, they are good enough for the natural histories science film (masters level) students, so I at times find my self doing animations such as germs, chromosomes and things for short docos, I guess it would be fair to say, when it comes to Maya I would be the best at uni. Everyone else wants instant 'success' as a rock star director or DOP, not realizing they are mot many jobs in that area in Australia, example, we have many drama students at uni but there are only 11 full time acting jobs available at any time in Australia, it seems an indulgent hobby for kids with a lot of passion or very rich parents. As for directors?? Well if you make a successful movie it here seems to, ironically, end your career there and then.

As for this '“What IS the best method to use on a dual core system or a single CPU system. ??” – mirek03;

I have no idea, it seems a typo because it makes no sense, have been under a lot (16 hour days) of pressure and deadlines lately (and a divorce) so anything is likely to come out of my mouth, I seem to care little about much, and have little patience for people?? But a lot of patience with the computer.

I may have ,meant 'which is the best way to use a dual processor', As Eric has mentioned one can make a dual processor into a single one. Did you know that soon there will be quad processors?? also I find the new mac system for having both windows and nac os on the same computer exciting, because I do film and for some strange reason Final Cut has becaime an industry standard here ( i think its all buisness and the best results how well one knows their program, not the program itself, but..?) Final Cut Pro only works on Mac is the piont.

I saw a tut last night about rendering, it seems shadows are expensive and if you can use the shadow cache in the attributes editor you can nearly half your render times. I might give it a go on WIP when uni finishes in a week or two, along with my boat.

Did you do the bench test for maya 7 render, anyone, from the link?? I just downloaded the file and might give it a whirl.

Hi Mirek,

I use Avid express pro for editing, when I went for a job at apple they showed me final cut pro, and i've got to say its very similar to Avid (which seems the be a standard here in my humble experiance!) or I should say Avid is very similar to final cut pro as cut pro was out first!.

I've never ran the benchmark scene as i'm still rocking with maya 6! Might upgrade to 8 via uni.

Anywho i'm sure that you'll get over the rough patch mate, have a play with the scene file and different settings using the tomshardware article that I posted, as well as the maya batch render settings for threads (as the benchmark is for mental ray), that is if you get the time as you seem a bit pushed at the mo.

Cheers

Steve

gster123, I have to say that the cgsociety forum really did not mention too much about how they are exactly testing thier systems so they are a bit questionable in my opinion. Anyways, hyperthreading is a not as good as Intel portrays it to be.

As for your link to tomshardware, well the link just took me to another 'page cannot be found' error and I don't wish to pursue it any further (too hard).

mirek03, you mentioned that you get so many warnings from Windows that its become standard. Are you absolutely sure that nothing has overheating and power problems? Its best to check just to be sure.

'I may have ,meant 'which is the best way to use a dual processor', As Eric has mentioned one can make a dual processor into a single one. Did you know that soon there will be quad processors??' - mirek03

You can make a dual core processor into a single one? I thought that it was disabling one of the cores... And yeah, I heard about those quad core processors (is this the start of the 'core myth'?) and about those 8 core processors due in the next five years...

Hope you get this render thing sorted out...

Fair enough, if thats your opinion. I just did a little test, rendering a scene with hyperthreading and one without, there was little or no difference in the speed, so either it's only using one core in both, if i have switched a core off as in my hardware manager it came up as one CPU, switching to one logical core in the BIOS, and 2 swiching it on.

Thats the result i got.

If you dont what to have a look into the dual core, single switch on off etc then its up to you, also i'm a bit confused on the "the CPU doesn't actually have two cores, so its behaviour is not like a mutlicore or multiprocessor at all"

Since my CPU is dual core (looking at diagrams its 2 cores mounted on one die) it must be multi core? or have I been ripped off by some jargon and actually got a single core processor on a single die?

fist, sorry Steve, been calling you Eric?? Don't know why, these alias' (pun again) bother me a little. I even invented 'bill the dill' in a sort of 70s protest, sort of street marching and banner waving.., completely dillusional.., oh well back to the psych..? :)

Avid Pro, I have that but let me say firstly that Avis WAS the industry standard here as it was everywhere. Many high level people here (most actually) still use it and personally I think it better. BUT thats probably because I cut my teeth on pinnacle, then premier and they are all similar. In thelong run, its not how big it is its how you use it. EVERY editing site is similar, its cut paste and colour correct..? Am i wrong? Maybe thats a bit simplified but..?

WHY the uni has turned to Macs I don't know, I feel they didn't get the proper advice or they saw the future and the future was Macs?? ( dare I say my humble opinion). example; They were thinking of starting animation (2 weeks ago) and were going to get 3D Max, I gave them a few names around town of they best animators and told them to get 'advice' before moving forward on that, considering it was for film and not for gaming. You know where I am heading with this so I will move on...

Anyway, it seems FCP is all the rage here now, not just the uni but many production houses are using it to the point where it is safe to say it is ahead in use than Avid, but like all 'facts' i should research this more before stating it in black and white.

Up until 4 years ago, the uni used Avid..?? So you figure it, its a mystery to me, maybe they got a good deal on Macs or as I said I suspect one of the 'shining star students' suggested it, this is what happened with the 3D Max story, and they swallowed it??,in again my humble opinion, a high powered salesmen, Larry Jordon, who projected all this amazing time saving features on FCP, the up shot is I came home and did all the exact same things in Premier 1.5. So I know what you mean be editing systems being similar, especially Avid and FCP, there's barely a difference (in my humble experience too) , they even have the same looking colour corrector windows, ect.

The trouble is It is huge and when I put it on )Avid) it looked incredible but I couldn't capture from the camera. So I took it off and am using premier again.

Is there something I need to know when capturing, I just used it like I did in premier, I got sound but no vision.., But I was using a single CCP camera, not 3 CCP or HD, this shouldn't make a difference, should it?? Can you suggest where I might be going wrong, maybe having both premier and AViD on the same system??

The rendering, yes I think there is something basically wrong the the system, but how to track it down, is there a bench mark software that will test the power supply, heating, etc. Would the INTERNET cause trouble?? You know, if an update for the virus software came in, would that stop it?

As far as CPUs, I seem to be be putting my foot deeper in it alll the time, I meant, or how I read it, was that Steve said the dual CPU (laptop) is using only 'one of its dual cores' and you can make it use both so the computer will use 100% of the CPU rather than 50% as was my dual core laptop, I hope this is starting o make sense?

'If you dont what to have a look into the dual core, single switch on off etc then its up to you, also i'm a bit confused on the "the CPU doesn't actually have two cores, so its behaviour is not like a mutlicore or multiprocessor at all"' - gster123

Oops! My bad, I meant to say: 'The CPU doesn't acutally have 2 processors in one package (IC), so its behaviour is not like a multiprocessor system at all.'

Since Maya has been optimised for multiprocessor systems, having a single core processor with hyperthreading tricking the OS into thinking it has two cpus is not how a SMP system would behave (its charactaristics) so Maya will not perform at its best on hyperthreading computers.

mirek03, as for your benchmark question, I would recommend SiSandra (theres a free version on download.com), however you should tread cautiously as running tests and benchmarks can cause your hardware to be damaged permanantly fail if you have overheating and power issues.

'Would the INTERNET cause trouble?? You know, if an update for the virus software came in, would that stop it?' - mirek03.

I wouldn't know. It depends on the hardware and software that you use and how its configured. As for stopping automatic updates for antivirus, there should be an option to turn it off in the settings of your antivirus program.

'As far as CPUs, I seem to be be putting my foot deeper in it alll the time, I meant, or how I read it, was that Steve said the dual CPU (laptop) is using only 'one of its dual cores' and you can make it use both so the computer will use 100% of the CPU rather than 50% as was my dual core laptop, I hope this is starting o make sense?' - mirek03

Well mirek03, as for the stuff about your dual core laptop reporting 50% load, I wouldn't know how Windows would report your CPU load if one core is disabled. I think that if one of the two cores was disabled, Windows would see a single core processor, not half a processor and therefore have a 100% max load. But then, not actually owning a dual core computer myself, I may be wrong.

thanks again, what I can understand from all this is there is somethingwrong with my coputer and not the wa I render. Which is really what I neded to know so its great you have both helped.

thanks for that, the trouble is I dont trust computer salesmen and I wonder how many in the trade can sort out 3D apps and hardware, not many in Adelaide, but then again, I haven't looked yet?

Hey Mirek,

Bit off the topic but as for capturing woth Avid, I had that problem, it might be that your deck is/was not proporly configured, if thats the cast just set it up manualy with a generic device (PAL in my case but you might be on NTSC being in Oz)

Or the other thing that I found is that Avid seems to default on the first capture (as it saves the settings after) to the video channel only, it must think that the audio is coming in via a different route, to change this in the capture menu its the top next to the highlighted V1 channel, switch on ahte audio channels 1 and 2 (for left and right) and that should do it, as I cant see why there would be a problem with having Avid and Premier on the same system (as it is at my uni).

Are you capturing via a firewire connection? If its usb then this might be why, but having never captured via usb i dont know.

Sometimes when a company goes from PC to mac it might be who is the decision maker, I have a friend who works in CAD architecture and one company he worked for switched from PC to mac due to the fact that the guy holding the purse strings came from a graphics design standpoint and had used Macs all the time and felt them to be better suited to the job, also they got a good deal, but this caused problems with the avaialbility of software for what the company was using it for at the time, (there was less options). But thats just one case in probably many.

As you say, and I agree, its not the software/hardware that makes it its how you use it, as all in all they do the same things, all be it in a slightly different way.

Cheers

hi Steve, well I would say that is exactly what happened in this case, the decision maker probably owned a ac at home or his friend told him, a convincing magazine article, who knows? They are all crashing these days from student abuse. I was doing some sound on Pro Tools and lost hours of work through crashes and found myself hitting 'splat'/S (save)after every tiny change I made. They are only 18 months old, around that and already completely outdated .., G5 I think? Considering the Dual (again?) core/intel/whatever they are CPUs that can read both Windows and Macs, whoever made that decision must be thinking, 'gee wish I had of investigated the situation a little more and waited for these new processors'. Maybe its possible to do the same with some software now, I don't know.

Makes you wonder what makes the world go 'round, someone knows someone who knows where to get a good deal who can completely reassure said friend THIS is the way to go, and don't forget, I can give you such a sweet deal, blah blah.

As for AVID, when you say 'deck' I hope you don't mean AVID needs a capture deck ($2000)? I have a capture card with fire wire, another with s-video and composite, etc, but not a deck. Where do I stand on this?? You mean to tell me you OWN one of these?? Maybe I can get one on e-bay?? Interestingly, i was just about to install it again until I read your post, i have already copied it to 'temps.'

Is this the case or can I simply use fire wire? I'd dig to use AVID, looks very pretty :) compared to Adobe's drab interface, but AE 7 looks a little brighter.

Yours, waiting with baited breathe (hope it doesn't smell that way).

oh, by the way, we down under walk in the bright light of out superiors and hence use PAL too, its America and such early satalite 'provinces' of America, such as, I suspect, Germany and Japan, that use NTSC. :) I guess IRAQ will be using it when they err, settle down..?

what was your render time on that guys test rebder?? I'm just about to try it. I thought you used mata 6?? Did you use yout own scene?

cheers mate :)

Yeah I used a scene that I made myself (the jack Daniels bottle that I posted in the finished work sction some time ago)

As for Avid, I was refering to the deck as the camera that I use (many models etc) as its the terminology for it in the old avid world! If you want theres some great free tutorials for avid free DV, there in flash format but there great for getting the basics down, think there on Avids website, a google for Avid free DV tutorials shoud get them for ya!


Dont bin it its a superb editing software, (then I am biast though! LOL)

Cheers

OK, it goes back on today. I'll check the site.

how you off for RTAS s' (that;s digi for VST or DX), use them much, no doubt you're a muso, most here are.

:)