Set Affinity To Leave Cores Open

[joelly3d]

So i have this monster machine. I was wondering if there was a way to leave some core open when i render since it has a big farm as well as 96 local cores.

I tried running 3d max via cmd

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "3ds Max Low " /Low /affinity FFFF "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2021\3dsmax.exe"

but it still uses all my cores. I also tried using the vray environment flag VRAY_NUM_THREADS but it dint do anything.

Has anyone got this working so they can limit the hogging of Max/VRay? Any insight appreciated.

[braddewald]

I had the same problem and lots of people have been pointing this out. It's mind boggling to me that it hasn't been officially addressed. I finally found a solution that worked on WIndows 10 for me from an old thread:

1) Type "environment" into windows start bar, and choose "edit environment variables for your account."
2) Choose "Environment Variables..." at the bottom of the window.
3) At the top, under "User Variables for [username]," add a new variable with the name VRAY_NUM_THREADS
4) For the value, type in a value of 1 below whatever your CPU's thread count is. I'm using a 32 core/64 thread processor, so I set the value to 63.
5) Restart Max. (Maybe restart Windows for good measure)

[joelly3d]

Ah I didn't restart prior, looks like it does work after a restart. Thanks braddewald.