Terragen is being lazy, why?

Started by WAS, April 10, 2018, 02:37:15 AM

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WAS

What's going on here? I made a colour adjustment to my scene, and went to render a new preview (takes about 2-3 hours) yet this one is almost 7 hours, and not complete... and it's not even utilize my CPU to, well, near it's fullest... I thought it'd be done when a nap was over, but instead get this still render. When I watch it, I see no progress. It's like watching a pot boil.

Could it be because it's almost maxing the 4 gigs integrated ram, and waiting for swap? If so, why suddenly this one time? Does cloud color serious impact resources? Though only one color was added, to a scene full of colored clouds.

ajcgi

That 28%cpu suggests it might be near the end of the render. If so, that could mean it's chugging along just finishing that extra tile. Certain operators do seem to have an impact, plus cloud layers intersecting one another slow things down. Plus I'm still convinced there's a way to go before Win10 is ready for TG.  ;D

WAS

#2
Quote from: ajcgi on April 10, 2018, 05:54:24 AM
That 28%cpu suggests it might be near the end of the render. If so, that could mean it's chugging along just finishing that extra tile. Certain operators do seem to have an impact, plus cloud layers intersecting one another slow things down. Plus I'm still convinced there's a way to go before Win10 is ready for TG.  ;D

Normally I'd agree about the render but with this CPU TG hogs it rights down to Ambient Occlusion and there was 4 buckets still working. I restarted the PC and it was fine. Waiting on a almost complete render at 7 hours AA 6 and MPD 0.6. which only has one bucket left and still 89-99% usage and ram peaked.

ajcgi

Is this potentially the CPU slowdown while updating windows thing mentioned elsewhere? Those win10 auto-updates are a nightmare and why VFX co.s wish they'd get stuffed.

luvsmuzik

My virus or defender (whatever they are calling it today) software tends to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, no matter how you set it. I had the old cpu set on that setting to trick it from doing that. Then Win10 decided to just clean my whole computer wiping out whatever old stuff it felt like deleting, with restore date as that time and day. I know they warned us they would no longer support it, but I didn't know they could just wipe out working programs.

digitalguru

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

ShutUp10 - can turn off a lot of obtrusive WIndows 10 features - like automatic updates - easy enough to turn off temporarily while you're rendering

WAS

Quote from: digitalguru on April 11, 2018, 03:42:39 PM
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

ShutUp10 - can turn off a lot of obtrusive WIndows 10 features - like automatic updates - easy enough to turn off temporarily while you're rendering

Oh nice, I'll have to check that out. I usually use SmartClose and turn everything off right down to WDM. Just a blank blue background and TG, no desktop, start, explorer, etc. Have to open task manager and manually run explorer.exe and wdm to get functionality back.

Oshyan

Given how much memory TG is using and how much you have (just 4GB) my guess is it was swapping to disk. That will *definitely* slow a render *way* down. And it could just be coincidence from continuous use of TG for a while. Sometimes TG won't release all memory from some prior operations without a restart. Usually it's minor, but in a highly memory constrained situation like this it could mean the difference between a successful render and swap-to-disk slow-as-hell render. Switching to RTP and back again is one example of something that could cause this.

My advice: get more RAM, for the love of god! Your Terragen enthusiasm is fantastic and it's sad you have to struggle on that hardware. I know it may be beyond your means, which is sadder still. But I had to say it.

- Oshyan

Dune

QuoteSometimes TG won't release all memory from some prior operations without a restart
I notice that often too, and everything gets slow. A flush button would be good. You mean that a restart of TG is enough or is a reboot necessary? I tend to do the latter before starting a huge render.

Oshyan

A restart of Terragen will address any memory TG is unnecessarily holding onto. But a restart of the system can be good for doing the same to other applications and the OS as a whole.

- Oshyan

Dune


WAS

#11
Quote from: Oshyan on April 12, 2018, 01:06:46 AM
my guess is it was swapping to disk. That will *definitely* slow a render *way* down.

That's what I figured was going on. I wonder if a 64GB Flash Drive in the USB 3.0 slot as a Memory Boost would help this? It will basically be used as swap, but dedicated, and 10x faster. Just not sure how it works and if it's windows managing it or per-application support.

Quote from: Oshyan on April 12, 2018, 01:06:46 AM
My advice: get more RAM, for the love of god!

I wish. I've got 8GB on my [broken] desktop, which I've been wanting more, but last upgrade I did I tried to go cheap from China to save 20 bucks and ended up just buying dead RAM. It was really a let down. This intel stick however I wouldn't even begin to know how to add more RAM other than flash drive memory boost or extending swap limits, though there is no space really even left for swap, let alone extending it with 64gb max internal memory.

Speaking of the desktop I guess the CPU is BSODing on my board and in a test board so it appears I'm out a CPU from overheating with barely any heat paste applied from whoever built it. Though it'd odd I never had any BSOD until it was pulled. It just ran super slow and hot.