LC - calculating - CPU usage

[Macrog]

Hi,
I have a problem with LC in my scene (not only in that one ) - when it's calculating, 3dmax doesn't use all CPU "power" - I've noticed that in 3dmax9 64-bit it's almost normal practice (in 3dmax9 32-bit it happens seldom). But in this case it doesn't matter if it's 64 or 32-bit.



software: vray 1.5 RC3 - max9 - x64 / x32 - 78 proxys (trees & buildings) - vraydisplace on the grass (large area)

hardware: 2xIntel Xeon Quad Core - 2gb RAM - WINXP x64

Mac

[trick]

My experience is that Lightcaching on multicore machines AND lots and lots of proxies AND a sufficiently high reslution each core is using too much memory since it needs to load all the information in the complete frame (compare to bucketed irr.mapping and qmc), even if use Dynamic memory, bitmap paging and no VFB. The only solution I know of is to use a lower resolution (the IMAGE resolution NOT the Light cache subdivs) to calculate the LC and load it for the final pass. And also try to avoid the VFB !! Your problems are solved if you'll get 16GB+ RAM: then each core can use 2GB+ With 8 cores and using lots of proxies (especially when these are very close together) you will also probably run into problems with bucket rendering very soon with just 2GB of RAM. ALso use a bucket rendering method that randomly samples the image so you don't have 8 cores sampling the samearea containing all the proxies and also lower the bucket size!!

[RErender]

Not to disagree with trick but if you are not too far over the constraints you can get a bit more headroom by raising the "dynamic memory limit" to around 2 gigs (lower if you have a lot of standard geometry or higher if it is mostly proxies, leave the geometry set to "static") and by turning off the "show calc. phase" for the LC

[vlado]

You can try to increase the Dynamic memory limit to e.g. 2000 or 3000 MB; it should help. It would also help if you have more physical memory in the machine.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Macrog]

Thanks for yours reply I just increased dynamic memory limit to 2gb - it helps - big thanks

[DaForce]

Also make sure you your lightcache settings to have the number of passes to be the same as your number of cores. So in your case.. 8