Lightmap calculation multi-threaded?

[moshenko]

Hey -

I've been noticing that the processors on my dual P4 are only working at about 50% during lightmap calculation, and 65% during irmap calculations. Is this the nature of the beast, or am I "lucky" ?

[natty]

Or unlucky ... depends how you look at it..

[moshenko]

Or unlucky ... depends how you look at it..

Yes, unlucky indeed! I assume, then, that this is abnormal behavior?

[dennis]

dunno we have 4 HP servers and i have a compaq workstation. The HP servers is average 78% while the compaq is 100%. We cant figure out why though.

[natty]

dennis.... are they the same spec's ?

[dennis]

the 4 HP servers have the exact same specs ( besiddes a replaced HD in 1 ) and the exact installation. we have upated all possible ( software / firmware ). They are running XP pro sp1 and vray is 1.45.70. What we have tested is running jobs either thrugh backburner or max directly on the server, same results. HT on / off, actually off gives better times. Isolating the processes to on 1 cpu on the server gives 100% _on that cpu_ obviously we would like to take full advantage of both.
What remains to be tested is a change of OS to w2k sp4 as this might be more suited for the server. And ofcourse to check if its the same with vray 1.09

The main difference between the workstation and the servers are the chipset ( or so i think with my limited pc knowledge ) I actually dont know what chipset is on the servers.

its a hp proliant dl140 1u with 2x Xeon 3.06 512k l2 FSB533 2gb ddr 2100

pheeeew what a lot of mumbo jumbo but any insight would be great.

[moshenko]

Dennis, this sounds familiar. I've been trying to track down another problem (with image motion blur) and may have found something that will help you. Is Bitmap Pager enabled in Max/Viz on those machines? Try disabling it (set "BitmapPager=0" in your 3dsmax.ini file) and see what happens. Also, could you note any other parameters for BitmapPager and post them here?

[dennis]

Moshenko, thanks alot.

with the help of your insight it worked !!
it went straight to 100% and stayed there.

BitmapPager=0 ( was 1 )
BitmapPagerThreshold=10480
BitmapPagerPool=50000
BitmapPagerPageSize=128

thanks again. What is the problem with the bitmappager and the servers and what is the sideeffect of shutting it of. Do you know that.

going through the workstation .ini i wasnt able to find entries for bitmappager so i guess my question should be what does it do and why is it there ?

/edit

ohh and btw sorry for hijacking your thread with my own problem without even having a solution to yours

[moshenko]

Great! Glad it worked out. I thought this was a bug of some sort, until I read this (in particular, the discreet link):

http://www.chaoticdimension.com/foru...pic.php?t=4982

I guess VRay's lightmap calculation falls under the category of "Some render effects are incompatible with this feature..."

Now I'm off to find out how many of my other machines have been inadvertently crippled