#Network Rendering
33 messages in this thread
I am running several 486/66's on a Pathworks Network running off a VAX server.
We have a pretty substantial amount of traffic (over 500 systems are running
off this network during peak hours). When I try to use network rendering, I
get anywhere from a 50%-95% slowdown in rendering, as compared to a machine
running the files locally. I have tried bumping all the Net-Poll and other
options in the 3DSNET.SET file up to their upper values, to no avail. Our
network is sluggish, but should not cause these kinds of problems. For
example, rendering the Autodesk Duck locally took 10 seconds (486/66 32MB RAM).
On the network machine the time was almost 10 minutes! Time ratios go down for
larger files, but I'm taking a pretty big rendering time hit that I don't
beleive I should have. Any Ideas?
A Pathworks Network on a VAX server, eh… Since Network Rendering should
only detract about .2-.5% from a single machine's performance, I'd say that
something pretty bizarre is going on in VAX-land. That type of hardware
configuration is completely foreign to me, so I think I'm going to have to
defer to others on the forum who have more experience with highly non-standard
network environments. Greg?
– G
Sounds spooky! We are installing a PC-NFS network on a VAX for a
client Monday, I'll let you know! Never tried Pathworks, though,
heard some negative things about it recently. Anyone else running
Pathworks and care to talk about it? Greg Pyros
Greg,
PC-NFS I have never had a problem with. This one is a stumper!
Chuck
PS From my experiences with Pathworks, I would like to comment about
it! But that is one of those Cereal Malt conversations that we'll
have in CA! <BG> Oooops, I just justified the Dr's earlier comment!
Just to give you some more info on my problem (rendering with
Pathworks on a VAX server), I have used the stock 3dsnet.set file
(other than machine names and ID's) and then I have changed all net
timing settings to their supposed MAX values and run the same file
with no noticable difference in performance (10 minutes plus a few in
both cases). When I render the duck on that same machine locally, I
get 10 seconds.
Maybe if I could understand what types of things were happening during
Net Rendering, I could run it past our Pathworks/VAX gurus and make
some sense out of it. I use net rendering all the time on my home
stuff with no performance hit, so it makes no sense to me…
The only thing that 3DS does during net rendering is check signal
files on shared drives throughout the system. That kind of
performance hit that you're seeing on the VAX server is probably
illustrating a serious problem with the file system somewhere.
Perhaps one of the networking experts here on the forum would have
some ideas for you to try.
– G
Conrad,
<< network rendering >>
have you downloaded 3dsnet.txt from the what's new library?
jonas[adesk]
We just installed a 3DS network on a VAX today and it renders
flawlessly. We used PC-NFS, and the install was easy. You might
want to get a copy to test on your system to see if it has anything
to do with PathWorks… Chuck may be able to refer you to a good
dealer out there! <bg>
Oops…
Caught lurking again… How would Chuck be able to find a good dealer? Oh,
thats right… He's a powerful member of tha…
Silenced like a lamb…
Bahhhh
Dr Pixel
Greg:
Please elaborate on the setup you've installed on the VAX. This arrangement may
be in my future. Thanks.
Bob
Robert:
PC-NFS (from Sun Microsystems) is the software that allows PCs to talk to UNIX
servers the same way that UNIX machines talk to other UNIX machines with NFS.
It works great with 3D Studio, and every other program we've tried on it. We
have 18 PCs hooked up to three Sun Workstations here and it works great!
We have installed this system at most of our larger client's sites, and have
had no problems with it, which is more than I can say for most of the other
networking solutions we have seen out there.
I've hooked up to Suns, SGIs, and even PCs running UNIX with it!
Greg Pyros
Greg,
What software do you run on your Sun's? AutoCAD?
(Are there some essential MMedia tools I'm unaware of??)
BITS
We run AutoCAD, in addition to a great network flight simulator
called Aviator on the Suns! They also do all our networking, e-mail,
printing, plotting, modeming, backups, and don't go down! By far the
most robust network I've ever worked with. If you ever want to
translate 2,000 graphics files, Image Alchemy running on a Sparc 10
with a local hard disk cannot be beat! We also run Frame, and other
DTP software. We tried Wavefront and 3D GIG, but stay with 3DS for
rendering.
At my office we have 48 Vaxstations and I thought you were describing
a network hookup to a Vax so it piqued my interest. Is there anyway
that you know of for me to tap into this resource for 3ds? Via
pathworks we have only two PC's able to access the VAX network. I'm
hoping as we transition over to ALPHA workstations and our CADD
software (GDS) is ported to NT that 3ds by that time will also run on
the ALPHA under NT and I will suddenly have the most powerful render
farm on the east coast!! I've gotten advanced word that GDS is going
to have an important announcement about the software and NT. I
haven't seen any flap here about the upcoming DX4 overdrive chips.
Touted as being faster than pentiums I figured the messages would be
flying. Any ideas?
No, 3DS only runs on 386 class PC's. You'll need to get a few of them
to get your render farm going!
I was wondering if running some kind of DOS emulation would work.
Don't know any product except SoftPC that may do this. I got a bunch
of PC's lying around but most are diskless so I think this makes them
useless as well for a render farm.
I can't see DX4s being faster than pentiums, because the pentium is a
better chip design. Certainly where FPU performance is a key factor
the Pentium should win out, it's definitely more sophisticated than
the 486's. Perhaps with Excel or Word for Windows, or some other
boring, integer bound software it'll give the Pentium a run for its
money, but who cares about that (other than 99% of PC users <g>)?
>>>who cares about that (other than 99% of PC users <g>)? <<<
John:
You got it, that other 99% are really screwing things up for us real
professionals. <g> I hadn't heard any supposed performance numbers on
the DX4 chip but Computer World gave it front page space and
prejudged it to be faster than the Pentium (doing what, it didn't
say). I've learned not to take articles like this too seriously but
I like to keep up on what's available.
There is only one computer mag that I really trust for info, and
that's BYTE. They really seem to take the long view, and the time to
address subjects beyond the "buisness apps" bound stuff that ruins PC
and all those other boring rags. I'm sure there are probably other
great computer mags out there, but I don't know of any. Of course
the graphics trade mags are always fun if you can find one that
doesn't spend 90% of the time talking about MACs. CGW is about my
favorite at this point.
>>>Of course the graphics trade mags are always fun if you can find
one that doesn't spend 90% of the time talking about MACs.<<<
Finding a graphics mag without overcoverage for Mac is as easy as
finding a brief message from Marion K. Marks <g,d&r>
I just read an article in ??Computer News?? or something like that
about the new chips. They claimed that there indeed was a speed
difference and that the DX4's were faster. I believe they credited
the difference to motherboard design and non optimized software.
Their prediction was that this is short lived and should not be a
reason for purchasing long term.
I'm thinking that this might be a good bridge for an upgradable before
you bite the bullet and buy a built for pentium machine. This way
you have a MB already for the 486 chip and a faster chip. Although I
have heard and found that upgrading a machine is often not a good way
to spend money. Better to buy another computer and put the old one
on the farm.
Yeah, I did that, but then the old computer was sooo much slower than the
others that I upgraded it anyway <g>. It just killed me to watch it do half
hour frames where the others would take like 15 minutes or something. Of
course, now I don't have money to upgrade anything, so I've decided to be
completely grateful and content with what I've got for a change.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John,
Yeah, right!
Fred
Greg (and Dan),
Do you guys practice this routine? As I always seem to be in a two on one
battle!
Conrad,
I as much as I hate to admit it right now (with Greg here and Dan lurking
somewhere amidst the puffed wheat), I have three office copies of NFS that are
not being used and I could send right up! They're on the way!
Chuck
Chuck:
We just want to make sure you don't get bored out there in the flatlands! <g>
Greg Pyros
I wish I could give PC-NFS a try. I have a feeling it's not a
possibility for our network people, though. Even if they wanted to
try it (I beleive it has already been implemented and disbanded here
– for what reason, I'm not sure), it wouldn't go over too well with
the higher ups. They're very interested in pushing TDI on the SGI
platform (not my first choice for architectural animation), and any
time spent with Studio wouldn't be seen as a priority. Maybe once I
get my current project finished, I can talk some sense into them,
since I'm outperforming their current TDI designer in both production
speed and quality. Also, to be fair to our network guys — we don't
have enough of them for the amount of users we have, and pulling them
off of normal duties to figure out a single isolated problem would be
considered a very low priority.
I'll try to ZIP up those SET files for you (I use CSERVE from my home
machine and keep forgetting to grab them before I leave the office),
but I don't think you'll see anything out of the ordinary…
P.S. You know — I really am getting tired of being the only person
who's having a problem with these things! Since I don't have these
problems on my personal equipment, I can only chalk it up to some
sort of conspiracy at the office!
It is a gremlin unleashed by TDI on your office equipment! Quick,
take two 3D Studios and call me in the morning!
TDI was acquired by Wavefront and will be part of Wavefront releases
in the future. I'm not sure that it can be had as a stand alone
product anymore.
Conrad:
No way! Something is really wrong with your setup, the network per se really
has nothing to do with rendering speed of a machine unless it is doing
something really crazy like swapping across the network or something like that.
You are saying that the same machine with the same setup renders the identical
file in 10 seconds if you just hit 'render view' and 10 minutes if it is in
'render slave' mode?
ZIP up your 3DSNET.SET file and send it to me, I'll be glad to take a look at
it for you!
Greg Pyros
Greg,
Does Gus have that slave renderer ready for SGI's yet? <VeryBG>
Chuck
I am having these rendering problems with the default 3dsnet.set files
(other than machine names & ID's). There is no difference (give or
take a few seconds) in performance when I kick all net-poll and other
net timing values up to their MAX values. I've taken the matter up
with our system admin and he has no ideas. Maybe if I understood
exactly what was happening with net-polls, etc., I might be able to
get a better grip on this. I'm using the same 3dsnet.set settings on
my network at home (LanTastic) with no problems whatsoever.
CS
Conrad,
>> I'm taking a pretty big rendering time hit that I don't beleive I should
have. Any Ideas?<<
The best way to compare apples to apples is compare the same job rendering on
the net and locally _on_the_same_machine_. You can do this by rendering to the
net queue and selecting "any". Before this, make sure there are no other slaves
available. Then make the same machine that you are working on a slave.
These are the times you want to compare .. see if you still have such a large
difference.
Ang
Ang, As a friend of Conrad's (not his dealer though) let me quote the
Mountain Dew commercial and say… Did That, Done ThAT, Tried THAT,
BEEN THERE ……. AAARRRGGGHHH! Chuck