for people with max 7 and dual opterons

Common Common :: Public
1

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=256013

if anyone here wants to add to this their config and a “yes/no issue” id be greatfull. if anyone knows how to fix id be more greatful. i have no idea if vray is affected in the same way that brazil and scanline seem to be.

im basically trying to establish whether this is a pervasive issue in max 7 or just related to a botched setup.

thanks.

2

For some reason i cant view that page…
i’ve had opterons from the start and never had a problem..

3

here’s what it says:

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this is a little test/survey for people using any dual cpu amd opteron system and 3ds max 7.

i am in the process of confirming a somewhat serious issue with nforce based opteron machines and 3ds max 7. i’ll start off by explaining the behavior that seems to be common, well, always happens on nfrorce (3,4) based opteron boards.

when rendering in 3dsmax 7 (happens in both scanline and brazil, but with brazil its very apparent) the first cpu is always pegged at 100% usage, while the second seems to float between 50 and 90% usage. it varies from scene to scene, but it is always very clear the second cpu is never fully utilized. take this same scene and render in 3dsmax 6 or 5, and both cpu’s are always evenly balanced, and usually at 100% during rendering. so its fairly easy to test if your machine is exhibiting this behavior simply by rendering in both max 7 and an older version. windows task manager at times can report cpu usage incorrectly, but the rendertimes are indeed 10 to 25% slower in 3dsmax 7.

so, what i would like people to do is to take a scene, any scene, that can be rendered in both r7 and 5/6 and watch the task manager and time the render to see if they get the same behavior. try scanline, MR, brazil, vray. im fairly certain its not renderer specific, but who knows. its also not related to any particular os or service pack it seems. ive now seen this on win2k, xp, and xp64. intel xeon systems seem not to be affected, and we have one dual athlon system that may be doing the same thing (unfortunately alongside several hundred more that dont, so its hard to pin that one down)

if you can, please report in this thread what motherboard, cpu, os/servicepack, renderer, and max versions you try, and the result (yes bug, no bug).

thus far, weve tried the tyan k8we, asus k8n-dl, and iwill dk8n. all of these have the same issue. we tried a tyan tiger k8w and another non nforce board and they do not exhibit this issue. ive tried many bios configs on the k8we and none have any effect.

i really want to find out on who’s end this issue needs to be fixed, and then badger the hell out of them to get it done. if anyone actually does know how to fix this… by all means, tell us, many people will be very happy.
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stupid double post… grrr

5

We have dual Opteron 250’s. Haven’t seen this issue. Can you post a scene for us to try?

Rob

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its any and all scenes here. its very simply a threading issue. try a scene that takes at least a minute to render though. then compare it to r6 or 5.

either way, if both cpus seem to be loaded equally, then you dont have a problem. if one seems to peak first, then the second, or the second doesnt hit 100 at all, then you have the problem. like i said, maybe vray isnt affected, or maybe not as much in terms of speed, but the way it threads likely will be the same.

what motherboard do you have?

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i dont have this problem … tyan tiger.. 250amd

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so i found at least one person with a k8w non nforce machine doing this. and a person with an nforce not doing this.

maybe its a hardware config issue. i have no idea anymore.

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Do you think it may be heat and speed stepping (or whatever AMD calls it)?

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i highly doubt it. my cpu’s read under 40c usually.

then of course there is the fact its only in max 7 and only happens on 1 cpu. besides which, its woul dstill read 100% if it throttled down.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/12/amd\_vs\_intel\_code/

interesting. pretty sure thats not it, but still interesting.

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i have dual 248’s and its 100% for both cpus when rendering… it preps the scene at 50% (ie, 100% on one cpu) then when rendering it goes full.

however on a DR render the slaves bounce a bit. perhaps waiting for network data I suppose, its not a solid but a rather jaggy mostly 80-100p graph on the slaves. My other machines are dual or HT machines also prep the scene with 50%.

my board is a tyan which isnt nforce.

interestingly I just noticed when pausing the render it still uses 100%

also i was running windows cpu graph at full speed to make sure i didnt miss anything.