[pdqwest]

The reason for posting this here rather than in the Plugin section is that the plug in developer has reached the end of his ability to help me. So here is the issue. About 6 weeks ago I started having an issue where I would launch Maxwell from within From.z and it would render it fine. If I then went back and changed anything at all in the model and re launched Maxwell the program would go through Voxelization and get as far as "Start Rendering" and then it would just stop there for hours. The program does not crash or send an error log. Something as simple as a cube with one light source can take 166 hours to render. The only solution was to restart the computer and then it worked fine for ONLY ONE RENDER.
Now in the past week my problems have worsened. Now it won't render at all. I have installed the latest beta software and plugins. I have completely wiped my computer and re installed the OS and all software. I have updated my video driver, disabled virus software, run memory leak checks, checked the mother board, put the model file with all textures on my C drive, unplugged the other hard drives, etc, etc.
Windows 7, 64 GB ram, dual 2.6 GHZ xeon 8 core processors, 500 gb ssd, Nvidia Quadro 2200.
I don't know where to go from here. I have checked the license server and it has the proper Mac Address. The license is node locked and I have Maxwell installed on two machines but I only run one of them. I can't help but feel that it is somehow connected to the license. Any suggestions from the community would be welcome.
By the way, I have emailed tech support three times since Friday and have not gotten a single response. Considering the cost of this software one would expect some support.

[Mihai]

If you suspect something with the license, try deleting the license so you're running in demo mode and see if there are any delays. Does using FIRE also take so long? If you just export the MXS, open Studio and load it, send it to render from there - same thing?

[pdqwest]

Fire is actually working fine. If I save it as an MXS and launch it from Studio I have the exact same problem. I will try deleting the license. How exactly does one do that?

[Mihai]

On Win you will find it in C:\ProgramData\Next Limit\Maxwell\licenses

Just move or rename the .lic file in that folder. You can also look in the Console panel in Maxwell, it will tell you where it found the license and some other system info that may be useful.

I suppose with that simple cube test scene you're not using displacement but just to make sure, uncheck Displacement in the Render options and try.

[pylon]

Hi Mihai,
Thanks for offering that suggestion; in my email follow up by with pdqwest, he indicated that your suggestion helped him resolve his issue.
-Ben

[pdqwest]

Everything worked great last week and Maxwell was finally up and running again after being down for a month. Today my problem has returned. I opened a model that was working perfectly on Friday and today it does not render at all. I have changed nothing in the model or on my computer. Nothing.
As I have explained before I hit the Maxwell Render button in Form.z and it launches the program. It gets as far as "Start Rendering" in the dialogue and then it just stalls forever. After 15 minutes of waiting I finally hit the stop button and then in another 5 minutes a preview suddenly appears showing the very start of an image at SL 0.4. This was a model that rendered to SL 15 in 20 minutes last week. Today it would take 166 hours if at all.
I have the latest build downloaded and installed this morning. Removed the old licenses and uninstalled the old program and plugin. Re licensed the new program. I have the latest driver for Nvidia quadro k2200. Virus protection software and firewall are turned off.
I restarted my computer and Maxwell rendered a simple scene with three cubes instantly. Then I opened up my model again and tried to render it. The problem came back. So then I opened up the three cubes again and the problem now infects all my models and any new models that I create. The three cubes that rendered in 30 seconds to SL 15 now takes 3 hours.
I have exported the model using Package to Render Farm and opened it in Studio. Tried to render it and the problem persists.
What on earth is going on here? I am at a complete loss as to what to do.

[pylon]

Mihai - do you think this could be an issue with changes made to how Maxwell handles windows thread affinity (e.g. -affinity running flag)? What would be a good test for Andrew to perform, that might determine if thread affinity is implicated in his problem?

[pdqwest]

Mihai - do you think this could be an issue with changes made to how Maxwell handles windows thread affinity (e.g. -affinity running flag)? What would be a good test for Andrew to perform, that might determine if thread affinity is implicated in his problem?

I have no idea what that means but it sounds important. In the mean time I have been looking everywhere in the Maxwell folder for the .lic file to remove it. I can't find it anywhere. I did a search and it seems that there isn't one.
So I uninstalled the program and got rid of the Next Limit folder. I turned off the virus protection software and firewall and then re installed the software. Started Maxwell in Demo mode without a license. The problem persists.

[pdqwest]

Okay. You mentioned something about threads so I changed the setting in the Maxwell display options to use 12 threads instead of the default of 0 which uses all the threads. IT WORKED! The model went from taking 166 hours down to 4 minutes. I just don't understand what is happening and frankly I don't care as long as it is working. I have two 8 core E5-2640 V3 processors. If I allocate any more than 16 threads the program stalls.

[Fast Render Farm]

A little bit off topic but it's worth to mention that more is not always faster. Sometimes when rendering our users work we make performance tests. For example in cooperative rendering (single frame - many render nodes), there is always an ideal number of nodes. If you surpass that number the total render time will increase...we've concluded (quite empirically) that the .mxi join process at the end of the render process can cause major delays and sometimes take even more time than the render process itself...

[pylon]

Hi Andrew,

It seems like a few other users are hitting a similar issue, please see:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... ity+normal

In Display Options > Maxwell > Scene Tab, try setting the command line (run flag) to
-priority:normal

[F. Tella]

Hi Andrew,

Could you check if you have in your computer's BIOS an option called NUMA support? It's related to threads affinity in computer with high number of cores. You'll probably find it enabled, just change it's status and try again some simple tests.
It's nothing really dangerous and you can always turn it on again if performance decreases.

I hope this helps; please, let us know how it goes.

Best,
Fernando