3ds max won't launch on our Opteron/XP64bit render nodes...

[ShaunDon]

I'm trying to get max working on our new render servers, however everytime it launches I get this message:

“This application has failed to start because d3dx9_26.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.”

Has anyone else encountered this? Autodesk does not officially support 64-bit operating systems, so I'm on my own to figure this one out. I know people here are running 64-bit opterons on WinXP 64 -- has anyone encountered and overcome this message?

Here're our server specs:
Dual AMD Opteron 275 HE processors
4GB of RAM
Tyan Thunder K8SD Pro S2882-D motherboard
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Service Pack 1

I'll keep plugging away at it, hopefully I'll post a fix! Thanks all.

Shaun

[emora]

I'm pretty sure thats Direct X9.0 c.. missing in your installation
the installer for that is on Max's original disc, or you can get it from miscrosoft..

install it and all should be fine..
now does it run in Xp64? that i dont know.. try it out

hope it helps

Esteban Mora

[ShaunDon]

You got it, buddy. Installed this and all was well.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Thanks for the help!
Shaun

[Fernando_Blanco]

Hi,

Are your Opterons a 275 dual core models?
A dual dual core Opteron is a system I'd like to assemble.
If it is the case, could you please post a comparison render time against
one of other Pc's you run Vray?
We have a AMDX2 4800 and it is on the average 20 to 30% faster than
a dual Xeon 2.9ghz runing the same scene.
Thus a dual dual core Opteron must be a great cost benefit machine.

[ShaunDon]

I can tell you so far they have been blazing fast. My current workstation has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 in it (each core at 2.2ghz, the same as the 275's core speed) and the new servers have been performing roughly twice as fast, as I expected.

I plan to run firm benchmarks next week with all the machines we have. The rest are about three years old (about 1.6-2ghz dual Athlon MPs) and generally they perform at 50-60% the speed of my dual-core 64 X2 4400.

Suffice it to say, the Opterons are super fast. Once my new Op275 workstation is online, with these four nodes in the background I'll have 44ghz worth of 64-bit AMD processing power to use. It's brought 90 minute test renders down to the 5-8 minute range. Pretty impressive.

Shaun

[DJ-Studd]

I just aquired a dual dual core Opteron 270 machine - it's absolutely fantastic!

I'll try to do some benchmarks as soon as I get a chance!

-- DJ

[meanadam]

Unless you need it yesterday..... Woodcrest is coming.
http://<br /> <a href="http://www.t...ron/</a><br />

[timmatron]

Unless you need it yesterday..... Woodcrest is coming.
http://<br /> <a href="http://www.t...ron/</a><br />

We've got a dual Woodcrest on order from Boxx. Looking forward to it.

[Fernando_Blanco]

Hi,
I've seen that.
But there is still no benchmark using max availablle.
Woodcrest is promissing, they run with HT on and vray likes it.
There will be 8 happy buckets on the screen at once and not DR related.
Processor price is very good comparing to AMD.But the cheapest MoBo I found is close to U$600.
An Asus dual Opteron is about U$230.
Let's see if the flowting point on the Xeons has increased.
So far my dual xeon 2.9ghtz Ht on is 20 to 30% slower on the same scene
than a single X24800 2.4ghtz.

[ene.xis]

Woodcrest is promissing, they run with HT on and vray likes it.
There will be 8 happy buckets on the screen at once (...)
So far my dual xeon 2.9ghtz Ht on is 20 to 30% slower on the same scene
than a single X24800 2.4ghtz.

yeahhh i say ditch the buckets....i ve got a bunch of them in my dual pentium 2.6 and mnd both th X2 4200 are faster with 2 buckets each!

jockin aside i real hope this is a strong piece for intel! this competition that Amd brought with the X2 is yet to flower some juice for us users!

[studioDIM]

But there is still no benchmark using max availablle.

There is one.
http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/3...-duo/page5.php

Scanline, allright, but still some indication of performance...

Lele

[Fernando_Blanco]

Hi,


Impressive number for scanline.AMD has been beaten hard.
Let's hope to see a Vray test soon...See if they scale up the same when doing serious raytracing.

[ShaunDon]

Eight buckets would be a little overboard -- don't forget that your RAM is divided between each bucket, so splitting up the CPUs even more and lowering each core/thread's speed means you'll actually lose efficiency when each process gets half the RAM it otherwise would.

It's nice to see Intel come back. We're seeing some pretty incredible competition in the processor market.

Shaun

[Dynedain]

Hi,


Impressive number for scanline.AMD has been beaten hard.
Let's hope to see a Vray test soon...See if they scale up the same when doing serious raytracing.

It should be noted that Intel has a deal with Autodesk so that 3DStudio (especially the renderer) is optimized for the Intel processors. The question becomes if that slight advantage for the Intel chips is worth the price premium.