Hello,

I have searched the old discussion forums, but failed to find a clear answer.
The problem is - i have a dual-core processor and 3DS MAX 8 uses only 1 core (actually 50% of 2 cores, as Vista is showing me) when rendering scene.

Current MAX settings:
In “Render Scene Dialog”, “Assign Renderer” roll out, it is set to ”Default Scanline Renderer”.
SSE is not enabled
Multi-Threading is Enabled

My Scene contains:
Polysurfaces, 1 spotlight, a lot of hairs(fur, grass), fog, rain.

Render time: 33 minutes per frame (50% CPU usage :( )

What i tried to do to make MAX use all the 100% while rendering:
Launched 2 applications at same time. failed (1 app always hangs after first frame is done, the other app is running fine, but again, uses only 50% of CPU)
Launched 1 application and BackBurner. failed ( application hung, backburner running fine, and again, uses 50% also)

So, this is it, i have no more ides on how to make MAX to use both cores.
I really hope someone have an answer to this.

NOTE: I am a student and my experience in working with 3DS MAX 8 is only 1 month, so please post your answers as simple as it is possible for You.

Thank You.

If you switch to MR rendering, it will use all cores available. But app itself can only use 1 core.

rgds

3ds max 2012 SP2
Dell Precision 690
Win 7 64bit
Dual Quad Core 2.66GHz
12Gb RAM
Quadro FX4800

Doesn’t work :( It is still using only 50% of CPU, even with Mental Ray Renderer.

Attached image is the screen shot.

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That’s cuz you got it from emule or utorrent, full licensed commercial versions use all cores :P :D

Sorry couldn’t resist, saw that stuff running in your taskmanager.

Try distributed bucket rendering.

particle mechanic

Well it is possible.
Attached image shows Task Manager/Perfomance tab rendering the same scene.
The top is scanline, the bottom is mental ray.

Windows XP Pro 32bit.

Is the Performance tab showing activity in both windows or only one?
In Processes, right-click on 3dsmax.exe and check the Affinity setting so that both CPU’s are checked.
Also check the Priority setting. Mine is set to Normal.

Do you have any application that will use both cores at 100%.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

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Affinity is set to both cores CPU0 and CPU1
Priority is normal

Task manager shows that both cores are at 40 to 60% load with default scanline and mental ray renderers.

If i set affinity to use only 1 core, graph will show CPU0(or 1) load is 100% always , but second is droped to 0-15%

To add: rendering on 1 CPU with mental ray renderer takes about 90% more time then with default scanline renderer. So i guess there is almost no difference between rendering with default renderer and using only 1 core, and rendering with mental ray and using both cores.

Better solution for me would be running 2 rendering processes at same time.
So please, if you know how to make 2 processes run smoothly, without crashing, tell me.
This would save me like a week of render time.

Attached is a max 8 test scene.
Load it and render with Scanline and mental ray.
This is what I used to produce the CPU usage charts shown in previous post.

The scene uses only a tiny bit of additional RAM.
If you render it and you get 70-80% Scanline, and near 100% mental ray for all cores, then
the problem is most likely scene specific.

If you still are only getting 50% on both cores, then the problem is most likely OS/hardware specific.
You may want to check the BIOS (F2 on boot) for any likely settings.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

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58_LVDs22KdsirmvsBu8Wjr.zip

All four cores render here as well. I was serious when I said try distributed bucket rendering in MR, you assign your local workstation as a render node and it will find all the available cores. When I enable it I get eight buckets instead of four (one bucket per core), whether it makes any speed difference...about one second on a 44 second render so???

This may be part of the issue… Hair and Fur calculations are only single threaded, meaning that only one core will be used during this process.  There are other things in max that are not multi-threaded as well. Pflow is another.

Mental Ray can certainly take longer to render than scanline, it also supports a host of features that scanline does not, IE FG, GI, caustics, ect.

particle mechanic

If hair and fur is not multi-threaded then this explains everything.
Attached image shows that everything was fine with the teapot.
1st bump on both core was default scanline renderer
2nd bump was mental ray
As you can see, both used 100% of CPU.

So thats my problem, theres A LOT of hairs in my scene. (sorry, cant attach it as .rar size of the scene is 1.3MB)
You can see Camera1 view in 2nd attached file.

I used hairs for grass = 40.000 hairs * 4 (multi strand count) = 160.000 (hair passes = 1)
model fur = 300.000 hairs * 3 (multi strand count) = 900.000 (hair passes = 4)
nose = 4000 hairs

so total of 1.064.000 hairs :)

So now, the only hope for me is to launch 2 applications at same time, but how do i do it, if one of them always crashes after 1 or 2 frames?

Also, heres the render result:

Its not a masterpiece but hey, I’m just a newbie :)

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Looks to be a good scene. Hair and Fur is a wonderful addition to max.

My suggestion would be…

I hate to say spend more money, but thats the thing, go pick up a half decent pc for a couple hundred bucks (or better yet build one) get the best processor/ram/mobo you can for say $250 stick a 250 gb drive in use the onboard graphics and use it as a render node. Let the thing bake and render for a few days, and free up your primary workstation for production.

Or if you have an old PC just use that. (try and put at least 2 gb of ram in it so you lessen the chances of “out of memory” errors)

That’s the thing with computer generated anything it needs time to bake, and I just like about every other artist you want to see results in realtime, that just ain’t so in this line of work.

An extra machine can do wonders, believe me, you can actually be working while your other project is rendering, and is soo much better than “watching the paint dry”.

particle mechanic

Its scene specific.

Watch the Commit Charge Total in Task Manager (Performance tab) when rendering.
I guessing you have a 32bit system and therefore you have a limit of memory that can be
allocated to any one process. (Normally that’s 2gb in XP 32 bit which works out to be
about 1.8gb before Max pops.) That’s probalbly why you cannot run two applications at
the same time without one crashing. You’ve hit the upper limit. In XP, adding more RAM
will only help if you turn on the 3gb switch, or go to a 64bit OS.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010