Hey, all havent installed max 5.1 or vray
do i have to do anthing special when i do
an install so that the software will recongnize
both cpu’s. i built dual zeons 2.8 ghz with
2 meg of ram. works great!
uuuhhhh…i hope you mean 2 gigs ram not 2 megs!! 
Hopefully you are running Win XP so you can hyperthread that dual XEON system for a total 4 buckets.
Check out this thread by Greg Hess over at CGArchitect.com for some info.
If the O/S recognises the dual cpu’s then the software will utilize both. Windows 2000 will only see 2 cpu’s on a dual xeon with HT. To take advantage of the HT you have to run either XP pro or Win 2000 server or better.
-dave
Hey Dave!!
We must of posted at the same time. I’m also considering a dual 2.8 XEON system. Take care.
Hey g_i_joe
would love to see the full spec of that box you have just built with the dual zeons 2.8 ghz with the 2 gigs of ram. Need to build a machine, and I need some guides on motherboards, cases, cooling systems etc. Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks
Hughg
hughg,
What i did is upgrade my current system.
I upgrade the motherboard, cpu, Ram and power supply.
For $1362.93 tax included no money left for video.
Oh and my OS does see both cpu’s
Here are the spec’s,
Upgrade:
Motherboard: Asustek PC-DL Deluxe
Cpu: (2) Intel Xeon 2.8ghz Cpu
Memory: (2 gig) Samsung 512 PC3200 DDR SDRAM
Power supply: Antec True550 EPS12V ATX 550 (must for 2 zeons)
Existing hardware:
Case: Coolmaster ATCS 201
Harddrive: western digital 180gig drive
Video card: 3dlabs GVX1 Pci (looking to replace)
But no money left. Any recomondations welcome
Looking at nvidia pny quadro.
Up to now its running flawlessly, Ive been running
For 2 days non stop. Hope this helps any advice I can
Give id be happy to help.
Your OS should see 4 cpus (the 2 actual cpu’s and the 2 Hyperthreaded ones) assuming you have Hyperthreading enabled. This only works in windows XP. If you are running Windows 2000 Proffesional you will be cutting yourself short as you will not be able to enable hyperthreading properly.
So in short use Windows Xp if you want to get the most out of your cpus, if you are then Cool, if you are not, then i would suggest changing 
g_i_joe
Much appreciate the info on the machine spec, looking to buy build a machine, ned to start working at home.
Cheers
Hughg
I remember it being some problems with xeon and hyperthreading with Vray, I experienced crashes witch disapeared when disabling hyperthreading…Any news on this?
-Tom
I have max 5.1 and Vray up now both are working
fine. i have hyper thread enabled i have not had max
crash on me so far very stable.
and the OS im using is windows 2000 proffesional.
ill continue to test and keep all informed.
i wanted to get xp but i dont have any money
left but i saving for both my video card and XP next
Ok as in my previous post, if you run hyperthreading in windows 2000, your basically waisting your time, as it will not work properly, best to leave hyperthreading OFF until you get windows XP. By turning hyperthreading on you basically not using the 2nd cpu at all.
If you bring up task manager, and have a look at the performance tab, you will notice that there is only ever 2 cpu graphs there. With hyperthreading properly enabled under windows XP you will have 4 cpu graphs (2 real, 2 hyperthreaded ones).
At the moment you either have 2 real cpu’s or 1 real and 1 hyperthreaded one, thus not using the 2nd cpu. Atleast thats how i believe it works.
Make getting Windows XP a priority to get the most out ouf your dual xeon setup!
actually that is kinda odd:
I have a dual xeon 2.4 ghz w/ win 2k pro.
when I run finalrender stage 1 - it sees and creates four processors /threads in my renderer just fine, but when i run the latest vray (m/n) with the above setup vray only gives me the 2 threads for the two prysical cpus.
It seems to me that is not an OS issue but rather an optimization/ taking advantage issue from the renders stand point - in other words if FR can see/create 4 threads even in win 2k pro then vray should too.
also, how do I see/turn off/on hyper thtreading in win 2k??
thanks,
paul.
paul.
That is extremely strange, as it is defintly an OS issue.
Thats the thing, you cant turn on or off hyperthreading in Win 2k Pro.
So i dont know what is up with Finalrender.
A quite test, bring up Task Manager, and see how an cpu graphs its showing there, its there is only 2 then all programs can only see 2 cpus.
With FinalRender Stage 1 you can create as many threads as you want (in use all procs you can set the number). It’s a feature of this software
(yes, i was a FR user 
)
well yeah, you can set a number of procs in any of the three (brazil/vray/fr) but it still shouldn’t see more then what’s there to begin with…shouldn’t it???..very odd… :?
so how do you turn off/on hypertreading in win 2000 pro??
paul.
RE: “well yeah, you can set a number of procs in any of the three (brazil/vray/fr) but it still shouldn’t see more then what’s there to begin with…shouldn’t it???..very odd…”
Actually at my friend’s office I played with fR stage-1 a bit and I was able to set 12 threads (there were 12 buckets) on dual processor system, although it was slower than 2.
You can not “turn off” hyper threading in Windows 2000, you have to go into the BIOS and enable/disable it in there. I would not recomend playing with the BIOS though, unless you are comfortable in that you know what you are doing. I have spent countless hours fixing friends PC’s cause they start mucking about with the BIOS and end up messing something up. Sorry for the rant 
All else fails read the mother board maual carefully and it sould tell you how to enable/disable the hyperthreading safely.
-dave
hehehe…don’t worry I wouldn’t mess with it …just courious
although it still BOTHERS me that fr seems to recognize HT and give 4 threads (even though I didn’t change the default of 2 procs in the dialog box), while vray doesn’t.
I mean if fr can recognize HT under win 2k pro, so should vray!!!..don’t care what win xp can or can’t do…
paul.