Render server much faster than render manager

[vermu]

Hi,

I am rendering current project with two machines. Manager machine is amd x2 3800+ and server machine is x2 4200+. I am wondering why server machine is rendering and calculating irr maps almost twice as fast as manager machine. Actual speed difference of processors shouldn't be that much and when rendering with brazil the difference is quite small. Both machines are rendering in net rendering mode and the prosessors of both machines are in 100% of use. I am using max8.

[vlado]

You can try to render locally through the command line and see if there is still such a difference. Also, you can try a smaller test scene and check if the speed ratio is still the same.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vermu]

Ok. I'll try with another test scene. Can alot of proxies cause that?

Here are just some rendertimes from the sequential frames. This is the scene where I have this problem.

x2 4200 3 min 58 sec - render server

x2 3800 5 m 44 sec - render manager

p4 3.0 ghz 7 min 32 render slave

From my experience from brazil the rendertimes of 3800 should be abit over 4 mins. But I'll test this more.

[vermu]

Just got a new +4400 machine to help with anim but to my surprise it's really much slower(2x) than my +3800 in anim scene. Then I tested machines rendering another interior scene and in that +4400 was faster than +3800. Deadline is pushing and I have no clue why my anim scene behaving like that. My +4200 machine is the only one that is rendering it like it should be. Has anyone else encountered this kind of behaviour. There are a few displacement objects and about dozen proxy objects in the scene. Rest should be just normal geometry. Any ideas, please.

[studioDIM]

try and move the proxies locally on each pc.
You can use that old proxy path replacer script i posted a while back to change the proxies paths in the scene to something like "nameoftheproxy.vrmesh".
When the scene will open up locally, it will look for proxies in the scene file path, and in the maps path, and load them automatically.
This, particularly if your proxies are very big, might make for a faster rendertime.

Hope it helps.


Lele

[Morbid Angel]

i bet your server machine has the proxies on its local drive, and thats why network machines render slower.

[vermu]

So how should I setup the proxies?

[Morbid Angel]

well you cant compare the speed of the hard disk read/write to the speed of the network, unless you have fiberoptic or something. Since the proxies are loaded dynamicly, it would obviously take longer to transmit the data via network cable then for the server machine to read it of of its local disk, even though it might be mapped as network disk. Its the same as if you had an ftp in the office, and from your office machine upload to ftp would be super fast, but from else were in the world it would be slow.
If you want speed, and you have only few machines, then copying proxies to their local drives and setting path in your master scene to be something like c:\temp\proxy where all machines have identical folder, would speed this up.
However it can be a problem if you have 100 nodes...

[studioDIM]

However it can be a problem if you have 100 nodes...

not!
i think i forgot to upload this, but never you mind :P

->here it is<-

It does a search amongst the selected objects, finds all the proxies amongst them and searches and replaces for two strings you specify.
So for instance, run the script, select all the objects (lights, helpers, whatever) in your scene, type in the script box the string to find (eg. "c:\vrproxies\" - without the brackets), the string to replace it with (eg. "\\bemyslave\vrayproxies"), and press the button.
It will find that string amongst the selcted proxies, and replace it.
Easy, and it works with as many proxies as you wish it to.

Lele

[Morbid Angel]

enjoy

[vermu]

Thx alot guys. I just tested the scene as you suggested and rendertime increased 2x and is now faster than my +3800.

[vermu]

Rendering is now working like it should be but another question about pre irr calculation. My manager machine (+3800) is calculating irr pass in 14 min 29 sec. My fisrt rendernode (+4200) is calculating it in 6 min 33 sec and my other render is calculating it in 14 min 11 sec. What could be the reason that my other node is way faster than manager and other node? This is the same scene that is mentioned above posts.

[Morbid Angel]

well perhaps a faster cpu/ram+hard disk speed?

[vermu]

Then other node that is slow is x2 +4400 machine so it's fastest machine on my farm. Memory is abit older so not as fast as on other node. But is there usually a difference in irr map calculation speed when doing over backburner? Even if the nodes got the same computing power. If not then I have no idea what's causing that.