Messages

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[Max] General Discussion / Multimap slow when used on many objects

« on: 2023-09-14, 10:47:10 »

We've notice rendering grinds to a halt when lots of multimaps have been used in different materials applied to trees and foilage specifically when using multimap on instances and mesh element. We also used multimap on the scene spotlights and bulb objects with light material applied on. Is this somewhat a known issue?

The render went from rays/s 3.5 million to rays/s 700,000 on an i9 12900K.   

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-12, 18:17:20 »

Maybe a silly question, but is it worth the price of such a system ?...

I guess it depends on your rendering needs. We had to render a lot of animation work lately and using an online renderfarm was too costly especially since we have to develop the animation throughout the process so a lot  of draft rendering was required for interim meetings before final rendering.

We had considered buying a large number of desktops based on either Intel 12900K’s at the time or Ryzen 7950x’s but we calculated that we needed around 10 systems and it just wasn’t feasible space wise to hook up 10+ PC’s together with 10 separate power supplies and network connections. On top of that you have to deal with 10 installs and multiple software licenses. The hardware would have cost much less than the dual Epycs though.

Having the dual epycs on racks allowed us to store them in the server room which is temp controlled and saves a lot of space. In the long run I think the return on investment is justifiable. We will be using these for the next several years.

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-12, 05:51:44 »

What can be happening with Epycs is more complicated inter-core communication with the 64+ core versions esp. in multiple sockets. Dataset on one CPU will need to access the data-set on second one. Populating channels is thus not increasing the performance, but just making sure a bottleneck isn't happening.

Yes I think the 64 Core versions of the EPYCS running in multiple sockets is the issue here with Corona and not every dual CPU system. That's why it was so hard to find out what the problem was as there wasn't many user cases out there.

Thanks again for the advices given.

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[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: dual CPU issues?

« on: 2023-02-11, 05:47:24 »

Some updates on our experience with a DUAL CPU system

On our Dual EPYC node, we realised that 4 x 64Gb Dimm configuration was the issue. Supposedly on a Single CPU, filling 4 Dimm slots would enable the system to run in Quad Channel but since we have 2 CPU's then 4 Dimms is just a Dual Channel Memory set up and we would need 8 Dimms for Quad Channel or 16 Dimms for 8-Channel Memory set ups. (Our school boy error when setting out the original specifications).

So it seems Corona is much more bandwidth dependent on the number of memory channels much more so than Vray and Cinebench. When we ran benchmarks for Vray and Cinebench in Dual Channel, the scores were very good and matched to other systems of similar spec. It was only Corona that had issues, Dual Channel Ram literally halved the performance on the Corona Benchmark giving us around 20seconds where as Quad Channel gave a respectable 11 seconds. I suspect 8-Channel may push the Corona benchmark to 8-9 seconds but we don't have enough Ram to test this.

Other things we considered to resolve this speed issue before switch the RAM were:

- Upgrading to Windows Pro 11 Workstation Edition (This version can run more CPU's and RAM than Windows 11 Pro but it didn't affect our case even with 128 Cores and 256 Threads)
- Turning off Virtualization (Didnt really do much)
- Turning off VBS, Core Isolation and Memory Integrity on Windows (Didn't really do much)
- Power Plan on High Performance (Both in Windows and BIOS - Not sure how this affects the system performance as yet)
- NUMA settings on BIOS (Not yet looked into it) 
- Windows Updates and latest BIOS

Hope this can help others out there configuring Dual Socket Systems.  I would be interested to know from the Corona Development team why there is such a dramatic performance difference between DUAL and QUAD/8 Channel RAM configs as Vray doesn't have this issue at all.

Cheers.

5

[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-11, 05:44:43 »

Some updates and positive news.

On our Dual EPYC node, we realised that 4 x 64Gb Dimm configuration was the issue. Supposedly on a Single CPU, filling 4 Dimm slots would enable the system to run in Quad Channel but since we have 2 CPU's then 4 Dimms is just a Dual Channel Memory set up and we would need 8 Dimms for Quad Channel or 16 Dimms for 8-Channel Memory set ups. (Our school boy error when setting out the original specifications).

So it seems Corona is much more bandwidth dependent on the number of memory channels much more so than Vray and Cinebench. When we ran benchmarks for Vray and Cinebench in Dual Channel, the scores were very good and matched to other systems of similar spec. It was only Corona that had issues, Dual Channel Ram literally halved the performance on the Corona Benchmark giving us around 20seconds where as Quad Channel gave a respectable 11 seconds. I suspect 8-Channel may push the Corona benchmark to 8-9 seconds but we don't have enough Ram to test this.

Other things we considered to resolve this speed issue before switch the RAM were:

- Upgrading to Windows Pro 11 Workstation Edition (This version can run more CPU's and RAM than Windows 11 Pro but it didn't affect our case even with 128 Cores and 256 Threads)
- Turning off Virtualization (Didnt really do much)
- Turning off VBS, Core Isolation and Memory Integrity on Windows (Didn't really do much)
- Power Plan on High Performance (Both in Windows and BIOS - Not sure how this affects the system performance as yet)
- NUMA settings on BIOS (Not yet looked into it) 
- Windows Updates and latest BIOS

Hope this can help others out there configuring Dual Socket Systems.  I would be interested to know from the Corona Development team why there is such a dramatic performance difference between DUAL and QUAD/8 Channel RAM configs as Vray doesn't have this issue at all.

Cheers.

6

[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona 1.3 Benchmark

« on: 2023-02-08, 10:28:44 »

Just wondering what do these numbers mean at the end of the CPU column?

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-07, 08:28:14 »

We had Windows 11 Pro installed and apparently this tops out at 2 CPU's and 64 Cores per CPU. So we upgraded to Windows 11 Pro Workstation Edition that can take up to 4 CPU's and 6TB of Ram. Still have the same issues. It's utilizing all threads in the task manager but the CPU fluctuates up and down constantly during rendering from 100% to 40-50%.

Virtualization is disabled in bios and power profile is on high.

We noticed that in Cinebench and Vray benchmarks the results are consistent to all the hardware out there.

Have a look at the Task Manager during the rendering if it's utilising all the threads. Alternatively, see if you can change the graph to see NUMA nodes (right click onto graph).

You can try disabling virtualization in bios, setting power profile to High or Ultimate (from stock balanced) and run the benchmark multiple times.

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[Max] Bug Reporting / Re: dual CPU issues?

« on: 2023-02-07, 08:23:56 »

I've been having some issues getting Corona to run at a decent speed with our new DUAL EPYC Racks systems. Came across this thread and it has given me a bit more knowledge over the issues pertaining.

We thought it was a Windows 11 issue too and just upgraded to Windows 11 Pro Workstation Edition which handles up to 4 CPU's and 6TB Ram (We have Dual EPYC's at 64C 128T with Total Core count of 256 and 256GB Ram) But it seems Corona is still rendering slower than many of the benchmarks on out there on the Corona Benchmark Page and also CPU Utilization jumps up and down during rendering time.
 

Hello again,

Srr if I am reviving a "dead topic", but after 4 months I have more data to share.

4 months ago, I thought the problem was with my "exotic CPUs", because they are the OEM version (e5-2696v4). I thought that was the problem... So I decided to buy 2 original e5-2699v4 and change them... And surprise... I have the same problem :/

I found a post on the official Autodesk forum (they're old, but I'm pretty sure they haven't fixed it yet) that said 3dsmax can NOT properly handle +64 threats.
In addition, Windows 10 also has some problems with +64 threats... for example, I cannot "set affinity" in task manager and manage the number of threats for a certain application (Windows denies this action if it has more than 64 threats) And TR 3990x is known to have issues with its performance: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15483/amd-threadripper-3990x-review/3


And on top of this, corona is NOT working properly too. There are maps that SINK render performance when I use them (like triplanarTex) or native 3dsmax output or bitmap (and I think there will be more maps for sure).
I'm using corona 6/7 and I don't know if in corona 8 any of this is fixed or at least in a "fix schedule". I know you can not fix 3dsmax maps, but at least, try to fix your own maps like tryplanarTex, and check the others.

I'm still shocked that it took me like a whole year to know what was going on here. Finding almost 0 information on this. And I can not believe nobody is complaining of this.


There is any alternative? Can I render in other OS? do you have Linux render node soft?

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: Corona 1.3 Benchmark

« on: 2023-02-06, 09:33:18 »

Dual EPYC 7T83 with 256 GB of old 2666 MHz RAM - 9 sec

Just wondering how much Ram you have in your system and how is the RAM fitted in the system, 4 channel or 8 channel?
We just got a Dual EPYC 7773x and we're averaging 20 seconds on the benchmark which seems super slow.

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-03, 13:31:10 »

What version of Windows are you running, and are you sure that can access all the threads of all the processors? https://www.amd.com/en/processors/epyc-minimum-operating-system#amd-epyc-7003-series would suggest it has to be Windows Server?

We're running Windows 11 Pro. All threads of the processors are working and showing on the Task Manager

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-03, 12:05:21 »

(x2) vs (x8)? I have no idea if 8 CPUs on a single board is possible at all, or if it's just a benchmarks failure to properly detect specs :]

Yes I saw that too and I think it's inaccurate. For the Threadripper (Which are single socket only) CPU's on the database it also lists (x2)

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[Max] General Discussion / Re: AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2023-02-03, 11:25:01 »

We finally got our Dual Epyc systems and did a test on the Corona Benchmark and it seems like the hardware is not running at full speed.

Results for our system were:

00:00:18.86   25,763,100   AMD EPYC 7773X 64-Core Processor (×2)   Win   2.98   128 / 256   256   2023-02-03

We saw a similar spec system on the database and it was twice as fast!

00:00:09.12   53,289,000   AMD EPYC 7773X 64-Core Processor (×8)   Win   2.79   128 / 256   512   2022-05-16

Any idea why that could be?

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[Max] General Discussion / AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

« on: 2022-10-25, 08:46:28 »

We're considering leasing a few units of Dual Epyc Racks for our inhouse rendering needs. I'm wondering whether Corona 9 has any limitations on the number of cores per cpu when rendering.

Does anyone have any experience and knowledge on this? We'd be using backburner to render individual frames for animations but for still images, maybe all of the racks will have Corona distributed rendering turned on. So say 4 x Dual Epyc Racks (8 x 64 core CPU's) all rendering 1 single image on DR. Would that work? Would W11 handle this load? I know we had issues with W10 on the 12900K's not being able to read all the cores and had to upgrade to W11 to resolve the issue.