Vray SP4 bad CPU Utilization and corrupting files

[Midiaeffects]

Hi everyone!

I'm using Vray SP4 for a month now and I must say it's trying to destroy my love for it. It's supposed to be a bugfix release and all I've seen for now was loads of problems. Well, not many actually, mainly 2 that happen way too often to my taste.

First that sometimes Vray simply use one core of the system. Maybe even less, because on Mac Pros here task manager shows 10-12% os processors usage, but things get so slow that looks like it's using 1% of the system.

Second is related to first actually. Most of the times when Vray starts to use 1 core of the system, if I happen to save the file, it will probably get corrupted. In a month I got 4 file corruptions that by luck I didn't lost important stuff.

Those two problems are incredibly annoying and to my frustration I can't find reproducible steps.

Most computers here are Mac Pros (Dual Quad Xeon 2.8ghz) and one Dell Precision T5400 (Dual Quad Core too) with Windows XP 64bits SP2.

Does anyone have been experiencing similar problems? Is it safe to step back and use Vray SP3 again?

Thanks in advance,
Eugenio Jr.

[Neilg]

Is this on all scenes or one in particular? Theres a few custom objects/plugins that will only use one core for a prepass and which could be thing thats corrupting it.

[vlado]

I would suggest to install SP4a; it should fix the file corrupting issue.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Midiaeffects]

Thanks Vlado. It's good to know that SP4a should solve the corruption issue. But what about the CPU usage? This is huge problem too...

I've installed SP4a here and now I have another problem, all my scenes done with SP4 the render parameters have been reseted.

EDIT: I just found that resetting renderer parameters somehow happened only in one file. Will see how SP4a behaves now...

Regards,
Jr.

[vlado]

Is the CPU usage on any scene, or just some scene in particular? Is multithreading turned on in the 3ds Max preferences?

Best regards,
Vlado

[terysek]

Thanks Vlado. It's good to know that SP4a should solve the corruption issue. But what about the CPU usage? This is huge problem too...

I've installed SP4a here and now I have another problem, all my scenes done with SP4 the render parameters have been reseted.

EDIT: I just found that resetting renderer parameters somehow happened only in one file. Will see how SP4a behaves now...

Regards,
Jr.

I would try set higher memory limit in Raycaster params/Dynamic memory limit. I had on 400MB and increasing on 4000MB solve the problem with cpu utilization!
I hope it will help you also if vlado cant say you nothing better.

BR

[Midiaeffects]

Yes, multithreading is on in 3dsmax preferences. I don't think it would be the case anyway, because it doesn't happen all the time. It's not even specific to scene, usually I'm working and bang, rendering starts to get really slow then when I open task manager it's using just 1 processor.

Actually, it's happening while I'm typing (Vray SP4a). Looks like it's something with Vray Fur. But again, if I try to reproduce in a new scene, it doesn't happen. So it's hard to say that's the problem. However, as far as I can remember, I think most (if not all) problematic scenes I've used vray fur somewhere.

[vlado]

Ok, that would explain it... parts of VRayFur are not yet multithreaded - specifically, the generation of the fur strands. If there are a lot of them, it may take a while. Increasing the dynamic memory limit might also help to increase processor usage.

Best regards,
Vlado

[mcvltd]

Sometimes I get problems when using a large amount of displacement - vray seems to initially drop to one core for quite a while and then will start to use more processor power as the render goes on.
This is even with the dynamic memory limit set to 4k or over.
If I really over cook it and use all possible 16gb of ram then the scene is buggered! Even if I remove the displacement modifier I still get the one core rendering.
The only solution I've found is to merge the old scene into a new one.
Not sure if this is related to your problem or not?

[Midiaeffects]

I would try set higher memory limit in Raycaster params/Dynamic memory limit. I had on 400MB and increasing on 4000MB solve the problem with cpu utilization!
I hope it will help you also if vlado cant say you nothing better.

BR

Thanks for the tip, but it didn't work.

But looks like VrayFur is causing the problem indeed...in some scenes here, whenever I add it, CPU usage goes to 10-13%.

Regards,
Jr.

[BBB3]

I've had something similar happen and couldn't find a solution. It tends to happen when using in excess of 100,000 proxys (with VrayScatter), regardless of the complexity of the proxy and even with between 4-6GB of dynamic memory. I can make the render use up to 50 per cent of CPU power, but not more.

[Roest]

The same happens to me here, using backburner. Only 15 percent cpu !! On three different computers..
Its a big scene with lots of vrayscatter and a bit of displacement, No fur.

update:
I seems to be the animated water material / object in comination with backburner.
It renders with 100% cpu, till it hits the water, then drops down to 15%.
The same frame rendering local, nothing wrong uses the full 100% cpu...
?

update2:
It is the animated bump (noise) of the water. i.c with bb. which causes the dropdown.

[KiboOst]

We have also a lot of such problem, specially rendering with DR. some DR will use only 12/15% of power... If any have a solution, it would be really usefull !