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KNBits

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Posts posted by KNBits

    2010 Forum Project

    in BUS STOP!

    Posted

    I'm inspired by both.

     

    The "variation on the same theme" is a good thing though. Two environments in a one-shot camera style would add a bit of narrative confusion and technical difficulties in my opinion.

    2010 Forum Project

    in BUS STOP!

    Posted

    I think you guys are starting to over think this thing

     

    I agree.

     

    I think constraints and guidelines are good, but at some point it might get a bit in the way.

     

    I personally prefer the simple idea of a room and camera movement (constrained on the beginning and end for continuity). The "rear window" variant is great, but I assume it would add a lead-in / lead-out requirement for each scene right?

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    A little follow up on the multiple cores/instances story.

     

    The same Mug render test on a 2.8ghz 8 cores MacPro (early 2008 model), 10GB of RAM, booted on Vista64 (which is now supported by Bootcamp) installed on a 74GB raptor:

     

     

    1 instance:

     

    1m45s

     

    *****************************

     

    8 instances:

     

    1: 1m45s

    2: 1m46s

    3: 1m43s

    4: 1m45s

    5: 1m43s

    6: 1m42s

    7: 1m44s

    8: 1m45s

     

     

    The cpu usage was glued at 100% during render, and the total memory used by the computer maxed out at 3GB.

     

    Those results are awesome, but may vary depending on the project. I guess the more it have to seek on HD, the less it will scale well, because every render will have to share HD ressources.

     

    If the project rely heavily on procedural calculations, it should scale well with multiple cores/instances.

    New Computer Suggestions

    in New Users

    Posted

    Thanks for your help! I'm getting frustrated with all these pre-built computers, so I'm going to follow your lead and build it myself. I have a question about some of this crazy graphics stuff. SLI and Crossfire- do these features help A:M at all or is it most useful for high end gaming? Right now, I'm looking at an ASUS MSN-SLI Motherboard bundle from tiger direct:

     

    http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=2430

     

    I guess a better question is to address the "power users" of A:M and ask them what their personal systems are. If there's a pre-existing thread, please send me a link and I'll check it out!

     

    Thanks again for the help-

     

    Erik

     

    I wouldn't go SLI/Crossfire. Not only you add an entire level of troubleshooting in the mix, but also the gain from it usually isn't worth the cost, except if you running games at 1920X1080 and higher. One good graphic card will do fine, and you won't need expensive motherboard and power supply.

     

    I'm very pleased with my Q6600. AM won't take advantage of the multicore when working in the program, but you can launch multiple instance and render multiple frames (up to three, you won't see any performance hit). Intel just released a new line of CPU, the Q9XXX, which would be a better choice if you'd buy it today.

     

    A faster dual core E8400 wolfdale would also be a very good choice, depending on how you use AM and if you have any program that can take advantage of a Quad.

     

    For the motherboard, I can recommand the GA-P35-DS3L from Gigabyte as a solid inexpensive choice.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    Our double-quad MacPro doesn't use all his CPU power most of the time. Applications like After Effect do make use of the ressources during rendering, but it doesn't scale that well up through the eight cores in term of performance. However the system does feel pretty solid under tremendous workload.

     

    I think fast Quad cores with plenty of RAMs is the sweet spot right now, in term of performance/$$$. Some can overclock their Quad to 3.8ghz stable, which should be damn fast at rendering. More and more encoding and rendering applications are multi-core friendly too.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    Follow up:

     

    We've been through a big render session here. Resolution is 5124 X 2100 with simple set-up but large cookie maps.

     

    We use intensively multi-core computer and I think it scale well for that kind of render too.

     

    Save few Exception #10, it saves a lot of time.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    Ok. I haven't experienced that issue so far.

     

    I usually check if a render is finished through Task Manager and CPU Usage %. I try not to bring back minimized instance because it sometimes introduce visual glitches in the frame it render.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    So on a 4 core machine it scales well from 1 to 3 cores but using the last one causes a slowdow.

     

    I wonder... if one had an x core machine, would it always scale well up to x-1 or is "4" somehow a magical saturation point?

     

    I will verify this next week when I'll install bootcamp on the 8 cores MacPro we have here.

     

    While there is a slow down at 4 instances on 4 cores, there is a gain nonetheless. Rendering 120 frames would take about 87min at 3 cores and 73min at 4 cores. Of course, different frame size, textures and other factors might change those numbers.

     

    I cant say for sure as I only have 4 core machines... but I'd have to imagine it would however many cores minus 1 in order to run the software and the system stable.

     

    I can run with 4 instances, but the computer is just completely unstable.

     

    You mean unstable as crashing or unstable as unresponsive? I did not suffer any problem so far with 4 instances, but I don't use the machine at all while it render.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    I just build a Q6600 for an ongoing project project and did the Mug render again with multiple instances:

     

     

     

    1 instance:

     

    2m09s

     

    *****************************

     

    3 instances:

     

    1: 2m10s

    2: 2m08s

    3: 2m07s

     

    *****************************

     

    4 instances:

     

    1: 2m25s

    2: 2m23s

    3: 2m26s

    4: 2m25s

     

     

    Project was consolidated on hard drive first. System is Q6600 at stock (2.4ghz), 975X chipset motherboard (a bit old by today's standard), 4gb of RAM.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    Refering to this thread....

     

    http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...l=quad&st=0

     

    I did a test using a X2 4800+ Toledo 2.4ghz

    2GB RAM

    XP Pro SP2

     

    AM 13s

     

    1 instance of AM : 2m26

    2 instances of AM (assigned auto) : 2m26 / 2m39

    2 instances of AM (assigned manually) : 2m26 / 2m40

     

    Nothing scientific, and result might vary depending on scene, RAM, and, as Yves said, many other factors.

     

    Still, it might worth it. I just wonder how hard is the hit with 3 and 4 cores.

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    Thxs Yves I'll have a look at it (even if I doubt to understand anything :) ).

     

    So what do you think Yves? Is running 4 instances of AM in a 64bits OS and 8 gig of RAM would...

     

    a) ... use all the RAM effeciently.

     

    B) ... render nearly as fast as 3-4 times.

     

    ?

     

    Thxs

    Quad CPU and multiple instances

    in (2008)

    Posted

    Does anyone have an authoritative answer to this...

     

    A:M is still a 32-bit program, right?

     

    If I build a new new PC with 64bit CPU and 64-bit OS and 8Gigs of RAM, A:M will still only be able to use 4 Gigs, right?

     

    But... If I run two instances of A:M on the 64-bit 8Gig machine, will they both be trying to use the same 4Gigs or does Windows somehow direct the second instance to ram that isn't being used by #1?

     

     

    Robert, this is exactly where I was going with this thread. I want to build a Quad with 8gb of ram and a 64bits OS, running 4 instances with 2gb each. I see that 3DArtz machine gets sluggish when he max out his cores. On a dual cores it gets sluggush too but it is usually pretty stable. So if I need to render only it doesn't bother me. Maybe on a Quad more ressources are shared and it gets difficult at a point.

     

    Is there anyone out there with a 64bit machine and sufficent ram to test this out?

     

    That would be awesome.

     

     

    Thxs everyone.

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