Vray and Processor Cores

[Smalerbi]

Hello All.

Processors are becoming faster and faster and core architecture is increasing. My question is, does vray have core limitations? For example, my IT guy would like to experiment with a new Xeon 10 core processor. He would like to build a quad processor rendering slave which means there will be 40 cores per machine (hyper-threaded to 80). I guess the trick would be sizing the buckets correctly to take advantage of this.

Can Vray handle this or is it good old fashioned overkill?


Thanks,


Scott

[vlado]

While V-Ray itself does not have a hard-coded limitation on the number of cores, the operating systems typically do. Support for more than 64 cores in a single machine was only recently added to Windows and programs must be modified to support this functionality explicitly. We are working on this, but for the moment Windows will not give more than 64 cores to V-Ray (the actual number may be lower depending on the particular configuration).

You may have more luck with V-Ray for Linux, although I have not tried this either.

Best regards,
Vlado

[iTiunov]

If You have more that 64 core in Your machine than all cores will be divided into some processor groups, depending on systems physical configuration. In Your case You'll have two groups with 40 cores in each. There is 99.9999% software on market that will not recognize groups for now. Vlado is right. V-Ray will see only one group with 40 cores in it for now.

P.S. You'll need Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 to work with your Westmere-EX (if You have more than two processors). Windows 7 as a desktop system is limited for two CPUs.
P.P.S. We have a server with four E4870 CPUs (80 cores). After some research We are able to run single copy of V-Ray on 64 cores.

[Smalerbi]

Thanks….I had a feeling there would be an OS issue. It looks like 40 cores for now.

Scott.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

does this mean that DR only supports up to 40 cores???

[vlado]

does this mean that DR only supports up to 40 cores???

Er, no. The discussion is about cores in a single machine. Through DR you can use as many cores as you want. For example, if you have 10 machines with 24 cores, you can use all the 240 cores for a single DR rendering with one V-Ray license.

Best regards,
Vlado

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

great Vlado thanks!