Corona not using all cores ?

[visualart]

Hi, just acquired myself a new workstation with a dual 18-core, so 36 physical cores, 72 logical processors.
When rendering, I see only 36 processes are used.  With iray I also only see 36cores listed as maximum, anyone knows if  this is an autodesk limitation ?

Would be a shame not to have all potential unleashed here... :)

[Juraj]

What infographic are you looking it ? Task manager/Logical processors ? And it shows only half of them are working and CPU usage is 50perc. ?

Depending on what you're judging the use upon, you either already are using 72 threads, or have Hyper-threading off, but I don't think that would be the case.

[visualart]

I'm looking at task manager & resource monitor.

In task manager it shows 3dsmax application CPU 55.4%, in resource monitor it shows CPU average 49.44
When looking at the cpu curves, I can see CPU 0 to 36 (node0) not working, CPU 0 to 36 (node1) working 100%

So it kind of looks like 1 cpu is neglected.

In the bios hyperthreading is enabled.

[Juraj]

Hmm, well, that's the new 2699v3 ?

Do you have Windows8, perhaps latest update, chipset drivers installed ? Everything in UEFI looks right ?

[visualart]

Looks like the system wasnt installed using UEFI.
I hope i don't have to reinstall everything here... So far it looks like only 1 of the 2 cpus isnt used for rendering.

I'll check all latest drivers. It's the new E5-2699v3 indeed :)

Just turned off hyperthreading and now it's using all cores. (except the logical HT's of course)

[Juraj]

Do you have the "Professional" version of your Windows ? Although that would probably not even read those additional cores, not only ignore their use.

By being installed without EUFI you mean the boot doesn't give you option to even choose UEFI shell (All current boards support simultaneous use, I suppose you have the Asus board) ? It just loads into regular bios ?

[visualart]

I have a supermicro X10 DRI-T4+ motherboard. Windows version is 8.1 Pro

It loads just regular bios. I'll have a look into using the uefi shell.

[Juraj]

You might already have it or not. By default it seems to have its own regular bios, but the web also states support for generic 2.7.x uefi support. You bought expensive server-grade board with features towards data centers and not workstation. You paid for Quad-Lan, 24dimm slots and sas3 ports, none of which you you will ever use, and instead miss better thermal design, comfortable UEFI, and option to squeze another 10perc. performace. Strange choice ?

The issue will be somewhere else. Time to perhaps dig into manual :- ) But I don't think that has much to do with Corona at all.

[visualart]

I got this adviced as I'm using 256GB of ram, a shitload of raiddisks and using heavy loads of network traffic.

What would be your choice as motherboard ?

[Juraj]

I got this adviced as I'm using 256GB of ram, a shitload of raiddisks and using heavy loads of network traffic.

What would be your choice as motherboard ?

Workstation oriented Asus like Z10PE-D16 WS. I am using Z10PE-D8 WS for current build in process as I don't need more than 64gb (but using 16gb sticks you still go up to 192), but D16 has enough to go up to 1024. Looks like it's not easily available outside of OEM builders yet.
Pretty much the same features and usability in workstation environment plus far more comfortable use and better build for performance, minus the server stuff (sas3 ports,...)

But ok, given that you're on rendering forum I had no idea you could use 256gb or prefer to build disk raids inside workstation, so I presume this is more video-editing machine ? No honestly, now I am quite curious :- )

I am not really fond of aggregated links (using multiple NICs on boar), does that really help you with traffic ? I've setup "cheap" 10gbit network (dual-NIC intel cards inside every workstation, plus netgear prosafe unmanaged switch), maybe this is something you can look into given it's probably within your budget ? It's best thing I did since I use SSDs inside file-server, but don't setup any storage inside workstations since I need all three of us in office to access them.

Sorry for side-tracking, I'll still look into what could cause your issue.

[visualart]

Thing is, I do a variety of stuff ranging from video-editing/compositing, 3D, simulations, audio. I take my workstation a lot on the road so I want everything maxed out in as less machines as possible. I'm working a lot for entertainment and resolutions/file sizes get huge rather quickly (imagine making 1hour of videocontent on 16k resolutions).
Then when I'm working from home and can comfy use my rendernodes & server I don't want to have the feeling I'm on a network.

I'm still looking into optimizing my network doh, I have the advantage of usually being with maximum 3 persons on the network, however the filesizes and amount of data transfer can bring it down fast. (last time happened with a 20TB krakatoa project). So any tips are defenatly welcome !

In meantime I contacted autodesk, adobe & intel, none of them have a clue so far and are looking further into it.

Thanks for the help !

[Stan_But]

Is there some task that use all of 72  logical processors on your system?

[arqrenderz]

If you use some of the Stress test software out there like Everest ?

[daniel.reutersward]

I´m using a Supermicro motherboard, the X10DAi, with dual Intel Xeon E5-2697v3 (didn´t know Asus released a new dual cpu board until now...would have gotten it if I knew!) and Windows 8 and it´s using all 28 physical and all 56 logical cores.

Could there be some limitation in Windows? I read somewhere that there was a limitation but can´t remember how many physical/logical cores.

/Daniel

[Juraj]

I´m using a Supermicro motherboard, the X10DAi, with dual Intel Xeon E5-2697v3 (didn´t know Asus released a new dual cpu board until now...would have gotten it if I knew!) and Windows 8 and it´s using all 28 physical and all 56 logical cores.

Could there be some limitation in Windows? I read somewhere that there was a limitation but can´t remember how many physical/logical cores.

/Daniel

There is but not in Pro version. x64 Windows8.1 pro can go into 256 I think, but using 2 CPUs only.