POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.beta-test : Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit Server Time
30 Jun 2024 13:25:33 EDT (-0400)
  Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit (Message 1 to 9 of 9)  
From: sevendy
Subject: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 17 Mar 2010 22:35:01
Message: <web.4ba190505f3ff45c4f7319a80@news.povray.org>
Let me apologize ahead of time for not being at all specific, but when I
compared 3.62, 32 vs. 64 bit, I saw roughly a factor of two improvement in
elapsed time for the 64 bit.  With beta 36, 32 vs. 64, the improvement is only
10%. (I'm running Win7-64 on a i7-860.)

Anyone seeing similar results?


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From: sevendy
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 18 Mar 2010 09:45:00
Message: <web.4ba22d8ffe63fe049753a48e0@news.povray.org>
Let me add a little bit to this: the factor of two (or more) is for one
particular scene--the classic floating glass sphere--but I'm only seeing the
improvement with 3.6.2. Another scene shows no such 64-bit improvement. And it's
not photons--the large factor is there with or without. But I'm not seeing
anything like that 64-bit advantage in 3.7: just 10%, or so.


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From: Le Forgeron
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 18 Mar 2010 10:12:29
Message: <4ba234cd@news.povray.org>
sevendy a écrit :
> Let me apologize ahead of time for not being at all specific, but when I
> compared 3.62, 32 vs. 64 bit, I saw roughly a factor of two improvement in
> elapsed time for the 64 bit.  With beta 36, 32 vs. 64, the improvement is only
> 10%. (I'm running Win7-64 on a i7-860.)
> 
> Anyone seeing similar results?

I have no time to test both on windows 32 & 64 bits (more over, my
hardware would be different as well as the OS: 2008R2 for 64, XP for 32)
But could you please report all the time (from the reported renders), so
that we could at least have an idea of your glose ?

For instance, if 3.62 32 was 2 hours, 3.62 64 1 hour, and 3.7b36 32/64
is roughly 1 hour, I do not see any issue.

If 3.7b36 32/64 is now 8 days, now that's a problem!

Please also report CPU, frequency & memory (total & available during
render, including used-swap size, as reported by task manager)



-- 
A good Manager will take you
through the forest, no mater what.
A Leader will take time to climb on a
Tree and say 'This is the wrong forest'.


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From: sevendy
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 18 Mar 2010 15:45:01
Message: <web.4ba2753bfe63fe047c707290@news.povray.org>
Thanks for your response.

FYI:

i7-860 2.8GHz, 4 core, 8 "logical" CPU, 8GB RAM (6.5GB available while
rendering, so RAM to spare).  Two cases, both 1024 x 768 AA .3, no radiosity:

                      time in seconds -- elapsed time (total CPU)

                 trace                        Case 1                   Case  2
                threads  CPU(approx.)  photons       no photons       no photons

3.6.2 64bit                 13%           99             31              158

3.6.2 32bit,                13%          209             71              160
    SSE2

3.7 b36 64bit      1        13%       119(119)        36(36)           154(154)
                   4        51%        48(159)        13(51)            53(208)
                   8       100%        37(214)         9(66)            35(270)

3.7 b36 32bit      8       100%        39(228)        10(70)            41(310)


Case 1 is a glass sphere, in front of an image on a plane, illuminated from
above, and casting a shadow on a horizontal plane. Case 2 is a single object
against a distant background.


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From: clipka
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 18 Mar 2010 17:43:50
Message: <4ba29e96$1@news.povray.org>
sevendy schrieb:

>                  trace                        Case 1                   Case  2
>                 threads  CPU(approx.)  photons       no photons       no photons
> 
> 3.6.2 64bit                 13%           99             31              158
> 
> 3.6.2 32bit,                13%          209             71              160
>     SSE2
> 
> 3.7 b36 64bit      1        13%       119(119)        36(36)           154(154)
>                    4        51%        48(159)        13(51)            53(208)
>                    8       100%        37(214)         9(66)            35(270)
> 
> 3.7 b36 32bit      8       100%        39(228)        10(70)            41(310)


To me, these figures are evidence that...

(1) with 3.7, the 64-bit version has a slight speed benefit over the 
32-bit version (but not much), which appears to me to make sense, 
provided that the 32-bit version uses SSE2;

(2) the 64-bit version of 3.7 is typically slightly less CPU-efficient 
(as can be seen when running on a single thread) than that of 3.6, which 
makes sense given that 3.7 needs some overhead to make sure that it can 
make use of multiple cores (or CPUs);

(3) the 32-bit SSE2 version of 3.6 is exceptionally slow with photons.

 From my seat, only (3) opens up questions. My first guess would be that 
3.6.2 32-bit SSE2 is compiled differently than 3.7.b36 32-bit - possibly 
due to a different compiler, though I'm not sure about that. Would you 
mind posting the exact version info (including platform and compiler 
identifiers) for each of the POV-Ray versions report when started? You 
should find it in the Messages pane, where it will output something like 
this:

-------------
Persistence of Vision Raytracer(tm) for Windows.
POV-Ray for Windows is part of the POV-Ray(tm) suite of programs.
   This is version 3.7.0.beta.34.msvc8.win64.
[...]
-------------


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From: sevendy
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 18 Mar 2010 20:00:01
Message: <web.4ba2be3ffe63fe04a350581d0@news.povray.org>
This is version 3.7.0.beta.36.msvc9.win64.

  This is version 3.6.2.msvc9.win64.

  This is version 3.7.0.beta.36.msvc9-sse2.win32.

  This is version 3.6.2.msvc9-sse2.win32.


(I think I'm wearing our the "install" and "uninstall" buttons.)


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From: sevendy
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 19 Mar 2010 09:10:00
Message: <web.4ba37714fe63fe0450e894150@news.povray.org>
Updated with additional 32-bit case 1 w/o photons runs.  Note improvement for
single thread vs. 3.6.2:


                      time in seconds -- elapsed time (total CPU)

                 trace                        Case 1                   Case  2
                threads  CPU(approx.)  photons       no photons       no photons

3.6.2 64bit                 13%           99             31              158

3.6.2 32bit,                13%          209             71              160
    SSE2

3.7 b36 64bit      1        13%       119(119)        36(36)           154(154)
                   4        51%        48(159)        13(51)            53(208)
                   8       100%        37(214)         9(66)            35(270)

3.7 b36 32bit      1                                  37(37)
    SSE2           4                                  13(52)
                   8       100%        39(228)        10(70)            41(310)


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From: clipka
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 21 Mar 2010 07:50:51
Message: <4ba6081b$1@news.povray.org>
sevendy schrieb:
> Updated with additional 32-bit case 1 w/o photons runs.  Note improvement for
> single thread vs. 3.6.2:

Again, to me it looks more like 3.6.2 32-bit SSE2 has /some/ issue, as 
all the other versions roughly agree on how long Case 1 should take to 
render in a single thread. Obviously not compiler-related though.

Is there any special feature you're using in that scene?


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From: sevendy
Subject: Re: Beta 36--32 vs. 64 bit
Date: 22 Mar 2010 10:15:00
Message: <web.4ba77b20fe63fe0475bb60e90@news.povray.org>
Off hand, I just don't know enough about POV-Ray to speculate about where the
problem might be. I'll just stick with the 64-bit versions---why not?

Thanks everyone for your help and expertise.


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