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Problem with not all of your cores being recognized?

Posted: Jul 16, 2009
Category: Autodesk 3ds Max

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From our tech expert:

Apparently, there is a bug with the new Intel i7 chipset. The CPUID instruction reports the wrong number of cores on a physical CPU. So when mental ray asks for the total CPU count from Windows and divides by the per-CPU core count you get the wrong result. With one CPU, they get 0.5, rather the expected 1.0. This rounds down to 0 licenses to request, since mental is licensed on a per physical socket basis.

We're working with both Intel and mental images to get this resolved. If you do have i7's be aware that this might bite you.

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Newest users comments View All 10 Comments

	Posted by pierzak on Oct 14, 2009 at 01:42 PM
Can anyone please tell me which CPUs this is about?? new Intel i7 chipset is not very precise. I am planing to buy new workstation and I am a bit confused. Thanks

	Posted by koberko on Aug 06, 2009 at 08:42 AM
I don't have problem with my I7's; all eleven of them (i7 920) are working fine with all renders. And I wouldn't call this a cpu bug; this is in mine opinion software bug; if every other render is working fine, then it's not hardware bug... I mainly use Vray, but even when I use Mentalyray, all cores are in use (4 cores and 8 threads)

	Posted by bill n on Jul 28, 2009 at 06:43 AM
Hi Ken, Does this bug also include the Nehalem Xeons? (essentially the same processor as i7)

Posted by beestee on Jul 22, 2009 at 09:52 AM

darthmikael, this is not worth halting your i7 build for...and it is not a flaw with the processor. As Ken says, they are aware of the issue and it is being resolved.

As far as I know, you would be able to sidestep this issue by disabling the hyperthreading in your BIOS until it gets resolved. Then your number of cores would match the number of threads and MR should be able to utilize it properly. You will not lose any of the render processing power of the i7 by disabling hyperthreading, it would just make the computer a little less snappy when you are trying to multi-task.

	Posted by Ken Pimentel on Jul 22, 2009 at 08:32 AM
We've already got a fix for this in mr standalone, just can't make it widely available yet.