Multithreading

[Neilg]

For some reason, no matter what I put in for the thread count I cant get phoenix to use more than 20% of the cpu. It's not all one and none of the others either - the task manager performance screen has all 8 at fairly steady (but very very low) levels.

Whats causing this? I didn't get this issue with the demo - it calculated significantly faster. I've had to go back to using the demo to play with settings and try and get the look I want.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

If you have played with the 1.2 demo, there was a multithreading option there, which was removed in 2.0. This option was having problems with Hyper Threading and newer versions of Maya/Max. Multithreading will be back with the new service pack. However do not expect some huge performance gain. Fluid simulations are mostly memory limited.

[Neilg]

Ah, so the 'threads limit' in the current version doesn't do anything then?

That explains it well enough. I was hoping for a huge performance gain so it's better I know now
Maybe it just seemed faster in the demo because I was expecting it to be.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

No, multithreading is used in the most parts of the simulation. Just not in the conservation which is the slowest part.

[Paul Oblomov]

Changed my memory to 2400, but it can't run on my SB at full speed, working on 2133. I get 15% speed gain from 1600 (9 9 9 24 vs 11 12 12 30). Will play with timings, hope to low 'em a bit

[ivaylo.ivanov]

10x, good info. I don't think we have benchmarks to help choosing a machine for simulation.

[Neilg]

Changed my memory to 2400, but it can't run on my SB at full speed, working on 2133. I get 15% speed gain from 1600 (9 9 9 24 vs 11 12 12 30). Will play with timings, hope to low 'em a bit

I just spoke to our IT guy about this and we're going to do some tests on this too
Good info if this makes the biggest difference. I'm currently on 800, 8 8 8 24, whatever that means.

[Paul Oblomov]

You can test your system vs mine with this scene. 5minutes to test Used 22796 nightly.

[Neilg]

Mine took 50 seconds and looks nothing like yours... I'm not on the nightlies though, and had to use the 2010 scene.

[Donald2B]

I thought I would test it out also, but I too was at 43.3 seconds using latest official. 2013 and it doesn't look anything like the images.

[Neilg]

I'll set one up in an hour or so from 2012 and the official build. something around 5 mins total, 50f.

[Paul Oblomov]

Guys, you have to prepare for the next sp, so you have to try nightlies right now

[Donald2B]

I'm just starting to feel like I almost, sort of, kind of know what I am doing, almost!

I am assuming we just contact support to get hooked up with the nightlies?

[Neilg]

OK!

6:11 here
Don't judge my settings, I was 'experimenting'


ptest.zip

[Donald2B]

I didn't do too bad.

7m 25s
Comp: Dual Xeon E5-2670, 64GB Ram, Quadro K5000 (Default Memory Timings)