Any succes of multi core support?

[buchvecny]

Hey im wondering if Pside gonna tell us some pre release date of multi core support. I need to know it because its tightly connected with buying my new computer. By the way guyz the Quad core from intel is so fucking cheap. I know its not native and its actually 2x2 but who the hell cares. its ticking 2.4 ghz. Costs 320 dollars in my country.

[choronr]

I am running an Intel quad core now in a system I built a few months ago. I've noticed about a 15% decrease in render time. My hard drive is a 10,000 rpm Western Digital 'Raptor' which must also improve upon render time.

[Oshyan]

TG2 is not multithreaded yet but it will be upon final release. That's the best we can say at the moment. Buying a multi-core processor is definitely a good idea for TG2 and many other compute-intensive tasks.

- Oshyan

[Cyber-Angel]

Theres some thing I'd like to know about running TG2 on a multi-core machine, licensing structure. What kind of model is been invisaged for TG2 would it be structured so that you can run TG2 on as mny cores as you have available to you in a single machine or would it be as some other vendors do and you have to pay per-core which is cost prohibitive if you have a system with say dual quad core Xenon Processors?

Some thing else that comes to mind is what about render nodes (When network rendering is available) would one licence cover you if had say a 2000 node (Not many nodes I know) farm or would it be up to say five nodes then additional licences would be required per every additional five nodes?

The above could be cost prohibitive for individuals and smaller studios if the latter model where used, which could work in the short to medium term to recover the development cost of TG2, then at a latter time switch over to the former model.

I know many over these things may still be undecied but it would be nice to know initial feelings on the matter if both reasonable and appropriate to do so, but I understand if it is not.

Thank you  for you understanding in this regard.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel   

[old_blaggard]

Actually, the TG2 license allows you a three (or is it two...?) render machines (as many cores per machine as you like) for Deep and five for Deep + Animation.

[Cyber-Angel]

Sorry I should been more clear, I was talking about rack based render nodes not multiple networked PCs which is just one type of render farm, a rack based render farm would I think take up less room?

Thank you old_blaggard I haven't looked at my TG2 EULA for some time, I was just interested in the state of play. End Of Line.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel 

[Oshyan]

Currently, although this is not official policy (this will be determined with the final release), we are envisioning licensing per-machine not per-core or CPU. With the rapid increase in multi-core systems it does not seem reasonable to be charging for more cores, just as it would not have been reasonable to charge someone on a 3Ghz machine more than someone on a 2Ghz machine before the advent of multi-core. Parallelism is essentially the modern answer to increased performance since clock speed does not scale as well anymore (we have been stuck around 3Ghz for several years now).

As for multiple systems, as o_b said the current pre-purchase options do already include some render node licenses. For the Deep option you get the main system license and 3 render nodes (4 total). With Deep + Animation you get the main system license and 5 render nodes (6 total). Obviously render nodes on the Animation version can be used to render animation frames whereas with Deep only you could only render crop sections or different scenes.

Additional render node licenses will be made available at a reasonable price with the final release. We may also be offering discount bundles and site licenses.

- Oshyan

[firesuite]

Currently, although this is not official policy (this will be determined with the final release), we are envisioning licensing per-machine not per-core or CPU. With the rapid increase in multi-core systems it does not seem reasonable to be charging for more cores, just as it would not have been reasonable to charge someone on a 3Ghz machine more than someone on a 2Ghz machine before the advent of multi-core. Parallelism is essentially the modern answer to increased performance since clock speed does not scale as well anymore (we have been stuck around 3Ghz for several years now).

As for multiple systems, as o_b said the current pre-purchase options do already include some render node licenses. For the Deep option you get the main system license and 3 render nodes (4 total). With Deep + Animation you get the main system license and 5 render nodes (6 total). Obviously render nodes on the Animation version can be used to render animation frames whereas with Deep only you could only render crop sections or different scenes.

Additional render node licenses will be made available at a reasonable price with the final release. We may also be offering discount bundles and site licenses.

- Oshyan

Any news on current progress Oshyan, is planetside still aiming for year end for final release ? any more patches coming up. its been a few months now since last update...

Graham

[old_blaggard]

Planetside is working on an update that they will hopefully release soon.  As for the final, so far as I know it's still targeted at 2007.

[Oshyan]

We are still targetting a 2007 final release. An update for registered users should be available fairly soon. The same update will be made public a couple weeks later.

- Oshyan

[vissroid]

well...I have an interesting trick for you. since TG2 doesn't use all your cores just yet. I found this lil thing is a major help when it comes to a person lacking on time.

when you have more than one core and watch how it runs; you'll notice that it'll only use one core at a time in TG2.

I did a test render of a scene once and it took me over a day hours to render out. no biggy(but can be annoying to those short on time). but when I started TG2 twice(so there was two programs running) the next day I decided to see what would happen if I actually set both to render a cropped side(another words one program was rendering the left half and the other was rendering the right half).

not only did this use both of my cores but also cut the render time in half! matter of fact. the render(s) were done in about 9 hours. this was around the time I went to be and got up the next day and had already started my day before I knew it was already done.


So! While we're all waiting for multi-core to get ready in TG2. heres a lil thing you can try out(which has worked many MANY time for me).
I have even gone back and did renders I knew that took over a day(one took me three days actually) and have them finished before the first day or just after the 24 hour mark).

Of course the problem with this is you pc is working 'hardcore' and wont take kindly to interruptions(like deciding you want to go online and check your E mail and such). It can be picky at times with such hassle. lol

[reck]

vissroid,

I don't think that works very well when using GI, sorry. Besides in less then 20 weeks we'll have multicore support, so not that long to wait really.

[FrankB]

this works ok most of the time when you have two slightly overlapping crop renders. I usually render two half with 5% overlap on each, and in general do not have GI íssues. Sometimes, the overlap needs to be larger than 5% though.

I believe in the interim, this is at least a more effective solution than rendering the whole thing with just one core.

Frank