Speed up your FPrime renders!!

[kmscottmoore]

OK, I just learned this little trick. I hope you guys can use it. My apologies if you already know it.

FPrime is not multi-threaded, so it doesn't take advantage of multiple processors. However, if you open multiple instances of Lightwave, you can work around this limitation. Example: If you have a scene that is 400 frames, it will take a long time for FPrime to refine all of the frames. But, if you open one instance of Lightwave and have FPrime render frames 1-200, then open another instance and have it render 201-400, then you've just doubled your throughput!! Better yet, check your CPU usage meter. You may be able to open 4 instances, that render 100 frames each.

I just did this on a 1200 frame animation (4 instances rendering 300 frames each) my CPU usage is now at 100% (Dual 2.8 Ghz P4 Xeons) Provided that my machine doesn't melt, I just cut my FPrime render time by 1/4!!!! :D :D :D

Now, the bad news for Mac users: As far as I know, the only way to open multiple instances on a Mac, is to install the program multiple times. If someone wants to try this and report the results, I'd like to hear them.

-Scott

[trick]

And of course second bad news: rendering two identical tasks consumes double RAM :(

[toma]

…all you have to doo on a mac is to run a copy of the application, just select lightwave in the programs folder, hit command-D to make a copy of it and run that copy…

2ct. ;)

[monovich]

when doing this (on a Mac, at least), it's best to disable the Hub, otherwise layout will crash unless it has already started rendering before opening the 2nd lightwave instance.

-s

[toby]

and re-name it. I called my copy 'Zeitwave'

Run 2 copies without the hub and you can switch back and forth all day doing test renders

[ginger247]

thanks for that, big help BIG
but how many different lightwaves do you think i could run on g5 2ghz dp 1 gig ram ?
thanks again BIG help
jamie

[toby]

oh... more than you can use - somebody here posted a screengrab with 11 copies running ~

[antwik-2]

im nor sure if i get this right, if i start the layout twice so i got 2versions of the program open and render 100frames in one of them and 100frames in the other version.
The animation will be render faster?! huh
how does it work?

[toby]

render engines do not use 100% of the processor's power, for whatever technical reasons, especially when you have a dual processor machine and the software is not programmed to take advantage of both processors. So rendering 2 scenes at a time will take better advantage of the processor(s).

[trick]

...So rendering 2 scenes at a time will take better advantage of the processor(s).

That depends on the scene. I have a simple scene which uses Shadow Designer: when I render it on a P4,3Ghz (with enough RAM) without HT it takes 5 minutes per frame. When I render the same scene twice with HT one, the two scenes (=2 frames) are ready after 15 minutes. One would expect it takes max. 10 min. :confused:

[trick]

...So rendering 2 scenes at a time will take better advantage of the processor(s).

That depends on the scene. I have a simple scene which uses Shadow Designer: when I render it on a P4,3Ghz (with enough RAM) without HT it takes 5 minutes per frame. When I render the same scene twice with HT one, the two scenes (=2 frames) are ready after 15 minutes. One would expect it takes max. 10 min. :confused:

[toby]

Yea it definitely depends on the scene. Have you tried HT off with 2 scenes? I've heard that it can slow down some processes.

[trick]

2 Scenes with HT off, is just a little under 11 minutes...probably because of the double scene loading... :(