[Guns_888]

Hi All,

We have just purchased a new rendering server at the office and a rendering node so that we can access the power of the server from any of the 8 maxwell licenced laptops we have.

I did a couple of tests yesterday using the benchwell scene and have a couple of questions about coop rendering.

1 - What is the difference between a coop rendering and a non-coop rendering which still uses both machines? When I start a coop rendering the MXCL window lists the two render servers and their progress, if I don't use coop rendering but select two machines to render on MXCL gives the progress of the two machines combined. How does this second method work? - how is the rendering split between the two machines in this instance?

2 - During coop rendering how is the render job distributed? The new server renders approximately 6 times faster than the laptop, and the laptop seems to hold up the whole process towards the end, ie once the new server has completed its task the laptop continues rendering - I had expected them both to complete at the same time?

3 - The sample file has been placed on the network and is accessible to both computers but once I begin a coop render the new server receives the MXS file very quickly whereas it can take the laptop upto 15 minutes to receive the same scene (again, benchwell scene). Any ideas why this may be?

Many thanks/

[pwrdesign]

Hi All,

We have just purchased a new rendering server at the office and a rendering node so that we can access the power of the server from any of the 8 maxwell licenced laptops we have.

I did a couple of tests yesterday using the benchwell scene and have a couple of questions about coop rendering.

1 - What is the difference between a coop rendering and a non-coop rendering which still uses both machines? When I start a coop rendering the MXCL window lists the two render servers and their progress, if I don't use coop rendering but select two machines to render on MXCL gives the progress of the two machines combined. How does this second method work? - how is the rendering split between the two machines in this instance?



2 - During coop rendering how is the render job distributed? The new server renders approximately 6 times faster than the laptop, and the laptop seems to hold up the whole process towards the end, ie once the new server has completed its task the laptop continues rendering - I had expected them both to complete at the same time?

3 - The sample file has been placed on the network and is accessible to both computers but once I begin a coop render the new server receives the MXS file very quickly whereas it can take the laptop upto 15 minutes to receive the same scene (again, benchwell scene). Any ideas why this may be?

Many thanks/

1. A Co-op simply means that the output MXI file is merged when the wanted SL is reached or you've stopped the rendering. If you render with two machines and nop Co-op you'll end up with two MXI files, that you manually have to merge in Maxwell Render.

2. If you start a Co-Op with your uber-server and your slow laptop, they should both stop at the same time when you hit the stop button. Though what it does after that is that the mxi file is sent to one of the servers in the co-op rendering, the time of this can of course differ due to cpu speed, memory, network card etc.

3. When you start a render it loads the MXS file with the settings, it loads the textures etc, the loading times and voxalization can ofcourse differ due to hardware specs of your servers.

I've got a few servers that I render with, they differ some in hardware spec, and when I've stopped a render its about 5-10 min difference between when the first computer is done and the last one.

HTH / Patrik

[Guns_888]

Thanks for your quick reply, a few more points...

1 - When I execute a non-coop rendering and I specify a location to save the mxi file in the render options, I only get one mxi at the end, I dont' have 2 to merge.

2 - The renders I have been doing are set by time, ie 30 minutes, and while the uber server might achieve a rendering time of 30 mintutes, the slow laptop doesnt - making the total rendering time way above 30 minutes. If I stop the render as you said that's fine, but for an office with several computers who aim to use the same uber servers (by queueing jobs one after another) we have to be sure that when I set my render going for 2 hours that it will complete after 2 hours so that someone else's render will begin promptly after that. If I'm waiting for my laptop to catch up at the end of the allotted time frame then we're in trouble.

The solution maybe is to use the laptop simply as a render manager to send the job to the uber server but it seems a shame to waste the processing power of the laptop since it might not be used once the render is sent.

3 - Understood, but for the relatively small and simple benchwell scene (which would load and render normally on the laptop if I weren't network rendering) I cannot understand a 15 minute loading time! There has to be something wrong there which I cannot identify.

Loading and rendering that scene on the laptop by itself is a doddle - it loads the scene in seconds.

Many thanks/

[Bubbaloo]

1 - When I execute a non-coop rendering and I specify a location to save the mxi file in the render options, I only get one mxi at the end, I dont' have 2 to merge.

Don't do that! They are overwiting each other unless you specify different output paths.

[Bubbaloo]

The solution maybe is to use the laptop simply as a render manager to send the job to the uber server but it seems a shame to waste the processing power of the laptop since it might not be used once the render is sent.

It sounds like there is a pretty bad bottleneck you are experiencing when using a laptop to render. I suggest you do a small test:
Render a scene on your new computer at 30 minutes.
Then render the same scene for the same amount of time on your laptop.
Now merge the 2 renders and compare the merged render to the original render from the new computer. If there's not much difference, which I'm assuming there won't be, you should just skip rendering on the laptop altogether. It's pobably not making much difference in your render output and it's creating slowdown problems.

Logic says that 2 processors are better than 1 but if there is a great disparity between them then 1 fast processor is probably better than 1 fast processor and 1 slow.

[naikku]

One a bit different question:
If I have an animation with xxx frames, can I assign my 3 computers to render each frame as co-op. I have now tried with and without the co-op
checkbox and the only thing which is changing is the text below "assigned to".

Any ideas?