Affinity of cores changes after every rendered frame.

Started by Kadri, February 06, 2019, 05:30:01 PM

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Kadri


I don't remember this happening before, if i remember right of course.
Is this a Windows 10 (64 bit) problem (affinity change made in task manager) or Terragen related ?

This is kinda annoying when you are rendering a long animation and want the computer for other uses too.

Oshyan

Are you rendering from the GUI or commandline? If it's in the GUI it shouldn't change every frame, as far as I know...

- Oshyan

Kadri


I have never used the commandline. Just from the GUI Oshyan.

It surprised me. I had suspicions about it (and i wrote it here around too i think before).
But tonight i saw it clearly changing after every frame (i just tested it for 2-3 frames).

It is the same project i send to you about the smooth node by the way.

When the affinity changing computer is the computer your wife uses it gets actually a little more then annoying :)

Oshyan

Why not just limit the number of render threads in the Preferences or Render node settings?

- Oshyan

Kadri


When my wife doesn't use the computer only 6 cores are used. She changes the affinity easily from the task manager.
But changing the cores from within Terragen dynamically isn't the same when you think about how many times someone is on and off the computer.
For me it is easy (i am nearly always using my computer), but she doesn't.
If you take into account that rendering will take maybe at least 2-3 months or more... It is not practical in that use case.

I don't know even if dynamically changing the render treads while rendering is secure and-or is effective (is it?).

Matt

Quote from: Kadri on February 06, 2019, 10:03:32 PM
I don't know even if dynamically changing the render treads while rendering is secure and-or is effective (is it?).

It is safe, but the change will not take effect until the next frame starts.
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Oshyan

I would suggest using something like ProcessLasso then. https://bitsum.com/ I'm fairly sure this is something we can't control, or at least not easily.

- Oshyan

Kadri


Thanks Matt.
Render time can-will go up to 1 hour or so. That is not quite practical too unfortunately but good to know.

Thanks Oshyan for the link. I will have a look.

Kadri


I tried it on my pc to replicate it and it didn't work (affinity stayed the same).

I tried it on my wife's computer (a laptop that could be a hint of the problem). But no. Even the same scene stayed the same. No affinity change.
This happened before too and was the reason i hesitate to say anything clearly.
We both looked at the change and saw it together so an error on our side is much much less likely...

I hate when things on a computer behave in this way and you can't be sure what and why it is happening.

If anyone who does have seen a similar behaviour can say something more about this i would be happy.
Good that it is at least just in the annoying category.

Kadri


Just for information.
The long render that is going on on the laptop (the same project i send you about the smoothing problem) behaves still in the same weird way about affinity.
We tried a couple more times and it changes after every rendered frame.
On my pc there is no problem at all. Strange really.

archonforest

Perhaps the laptop got a special power management? Like power saving can regulate the speed of the cpu...
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

Kadri


Yeah that comes to my mind too. But it does not happen all the time. Rarely actually.

And then there are not many but some posts about this like this about 3DMax, Vray rendering:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/3d-studio-keeps-resetting-cpu-affinity/td-p/7601753

Some changes like mentioned in this thread comes to my mind.
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21888.msg220123.html#msg220123
Coincidence only maybe.

Anyway moving on.

Kadri

#12

Another update. Now it resets the affinity on my pc too after every frame.

Matt

New threads are created on each frame, but it has always worked this way and Windows affinity settings carried over to the new threads. If the affinity behaviour has changed then it's a change in Windows.
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Kadri


Probably. Just curious why it is not consistent.
Wish i could find something more about this and if possible a solution.