Anyone?

I've only just downloaded it (a day or so ago), but am finding it 
slows down enormously (under 9.2.2 on a G4 @ 400MHz - I don't have 
X at all - looks to freeze, but hasn't, quite) soon after it starts 
rendering. [Reading the threads back to August sometime hasn't shed 
much light :-(]

Maybe another question should be asked first:
is anyone not having lockups/slowdowns under 9.2.2?
[Base extensions vs all+a few 3rd party seems to make no 
difference]
TIA

Have Fun
Martin
-- 
Kinky:
What I do that you wouldn't
Perverted:
What you do that I wouldn't

Almost always SMASHed

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In article <0001HW.BA2B9D9300039FDC0F42B1F0@news.povray.org> , Martin Crisp
<Spa### [at] tesseractcomau>  wrote:

> I've only just downloaded it (a day or so ago), but am finding it
> slows down enormously (under 9.2.2 on a G4 @ 400MHz - I don't have

If you want slower rendering you can just move the "Application
Friendliness" slider to "Lazy" in the Preferences: general pane.

As many people never read the manual they never found this slider and
consequently never used it in previous versions and then complained that
rendering was slow.  So now the default is more aggressive in 3.5...

> X at all - looks to freeze, but hasn't, quite) soon after it starts
> rendering. [Reading the threads back to August sometime hasn't shed
> much light :-(]

This only happens with a few specific configurations.  POV-Ray either works
on your configuration (which it seems it does) or it won't.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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In article <0001HW.BA2B9D9300039FDC0F42B1F0@news.povray.org> , Martin Crisp
<Spa### [at] tesseractcomau>  wrote:

> Maybe another question should be asked first:
> is anyone not having lockups/slowdowns under 9.2.2?

POV-Ray is developed under Mac OS 9.2.2 so if it would lockup everywhere I
could not develop it, could I?

I saw your bugreport you submitted, and from that I saw that only the render
commands are "slow" for you in a particular slow to render and complex scene
(abyss.pov).  What happens is that it takes until a line has completed to
render until rendering is stopped.  That is why it appears slow for you...

If you really want, you can force the rendering into the background using
this hidden option:

You can control if preemptive threading or cooperative threading is used.
By default cooperative threading will be used.  In order to change this
setting go the the POV-Ray preferences dialog.  Switch to the Editor pane.
Now hold down the "option" key* and switch back to the General pane.  Now
you should see another checkbox:  The checkbox for preemptive threading
which will only take effect after you restart POV-Ray!

While it won't make the rendering faster (unless you have a dual G4), it
will make the whole GUI react immediately as rendering takes place in the
background.  The only catch is that parsing will be a tiny bit slower.


    Thorsten


* The "option" key is the one usually marked "alt" on German keyboards, not
sure what it is called on your keyboard...


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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On Sun, 22 Dec 2002 21:50:48 +1100, Thorsten Froehlich wrote
(in message <3e059908$1@news.povray.org>):

> In article <0001HW.BA2B9D9300039FDC0F42B1F0@news.povray.org> , Martin Crisp
> <Spa### [at] tesseractcomau>  wrote:
> 
>> Maybe another question should be asked first:
>> is anyone not having lockups/slowdowns under 9.2.2?
> 
> POV-Ray is developed under Mac OS 9.2.2 so if it would lockup everywhere I
> could not develop it, could I?

OK. I wasn't aware of what systems were in use for development. 

As my bug report noted - the behaviour I'm describing occurs 
whether I boot with my (few) 3rd party extensions, or with the Base 
9.2.2 set. I can install a fresh system on an empty partition... 
I'll let you know how that goes. Failing that, and given the 
similarity with symtoms that others have reported, what's weird 
about _your_ system?

> I saw your bugreport you submitted, and from that I saw that only the render
> commands are "slow" for you in a particular slow to render and complex scene
> (abyss.pov).  What happens is that it takes until a line has completed to
> render until rendering is stopped.  That is why it appears slow for you...

Nope. I've taken that into account. 

Abyss.pov renders at the speed I'd expect for 30 seconds, then 
slows drastically - in the first 30 seconds it maybe manages 45 
scanlines, in the next 15 minutes it manages about 15 scanlines. 

The other file I've tried (referred to in the bugreport) can 
complete (just) in 30 seconds with some rendering options (no 
anti-aliasing, 320 x 240). If I turn anti-aliasing on (original, 
0.3, 2, 0.1) then it also falis to complete, getting about 3/4 of 
the way through the render at normal speed (30 seconds), then 
slowing down.

Consistently: 28-30 seconds after the preview window is displayed, 
my machine goes into near catalepsy - screen updates happen once 
every 60 seconds thereafter.

Subject: 7Facets.pov - a very simple scene
in povray.binaries.scene-files


> If you really want, you can force the rendering into the background using
> this hidden option:
> 
> You can control if preemptive threading or cooperative threading is used.
> By default cooperative threading will be used.  In order to change this
> setting go the the POV-Ray preferences dialog.  Switch to the Editor pane.
> Now hold down the "option" key* and switch back to the General pane.  Now
> you should see another checkbox:  The checkbox for preemptive threading
> which will only take effect after you restart POV-Ray!

I'll see what difference it makes. Thanks.

 
> While it won't make the rendering faster (unless you have a dual G4), it
> will make the whole GUI react immediately as rendering takes place in the
> background.  The only catch is that parsing will be a tiny bit slower.

It's not the GUI that's annoying me, other than it's change in 
behaviour indicates other things going awry. 

Have Fun
Martin
-- 
Kinky:
What I do that you wouldn't
Perverted:
What you do that I wouldn't

Almost always SMASHed

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Martin Crisp <Spa### [at] tesseractcomau> wrote:

[...]
> 
> Abyss.pov renders at the speed I'd expect for 30 seconds, then 
> slows drastically - in the first 30 seconds it maybe manages 45 
> scanlines, in the next 15 minutes it manages about 15 scanlines. 
Hmm, always after 30 secons you say...
This looks like a setting in the energy saver control panel.
I don't have that option on my dual but on my iMac it was there.
You should try this: once POV start to render slow, simply move the
mouse a little bit.
If rendering speeds up again, you should go an take a look at the energy
savings panel.
I don't now the correct name but look for something to slow down the
cpu.

Yvo
-- 
MacMegaPOV at:
http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh

E-mail: yvo### [at] gmxnet

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On Mon, 23 Dec 2002 1:18:32 +1100, Yvo Smellenbergh wrote
(in message <1fnlm8j.1ve5dhx1kfrl2aN%yvos.s@gmx.net>):

> Martin Crisp <Spa### [at] tesseractcomau> wrote:
> 
> [...]
>> 
>> Abyss.pov renders at the speed I'd expect for 30 seconds, then 
>> slows drastically - in the first 30 seconds it maybe manages 45 
>> scanlines, in the next 15 minutes it manages about 15 scanlines. 
> Hmm, always after 30 secons you say...
> This looks like a setting in the energy saver control panel.

Nope. Set to sleep the monitor after <checks> something a little 
more than 20 minutes. [I've been tooling around with a genetic 
algorithm I've written, so I don't sleep the CPU.]

> I don't have that option on my dual but on my iMac it was there.
> You should try this: once POV start to render slow, simply move the
> mouse a little bit.
> If rendering speeds up again, you should go an take a look at the energy
> savings panel.

Nope. I've been keeping an eye on the machine, and stopping the 
monitor from sleeping, but that made no difference. Every minute 
the preview and the clock would update, and if there'd been a 
keypress or mouseclick in the meantime then it would be effected 
then.

> I don't now the correct name but look for something to slow down the
> cpu.

Energy Saver is the only thing, and it's set way beyond 30 seconds.

Thanks for the thought though.

Have Fun
Martin
-- 
Kinky:
What I do that you wouldn't
Perverted:
What you do that I wouldn't

Almost always SMASHed

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On Sun, 22 Dec 2002 22:29:28 +1100, Martin Crisp wrote
(in message <0001HW.BA2BED48001659E70D78DFC0@news.povray.org>):

[snip]

> Consistently: 28-30 seconds after the preview window is displayed, 
> my machine goes into near catalepsy - screen updates happen once 
> every 60 seconds thereafter.
> 
> Subject: 7Facets.pov - a very simple scene
> in povray.binaries.scene-files

[snip]

Here's a jpg of the rendered scene from when I first made it (at 
320x240):
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/7facets.jpg

Here are some screenshots of the preview window taken a few seconds 
after pausing the render, but at 640x480
As soon as my machine slowed down (+ 60 seconds):
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/7facets_30secs.jpg

After an hour:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/7Facets_1hr.jpg

2hours
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/7Facets_2hrs.jpg

3 hours
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/7Facets_3hrs.jpg

And the output file -> jpg when I stopped it (also at 3 hrs)
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~martincrisp/7Facets_stopped.jpg

FWIW

It's a simple scene that shouldn't take a G4 400 more than a minute 
or two. [and didn't in the past].

Have Fun
Martin
-- 
Kinky:
What I do that you wouldn't
Perverted:
What you do that I wouldn't

Almost always SMASHed

Post a reply to this message

Martin Crisp wrote:

> Anyone?
> 
> I've only just downloaded it (a day or so ago), but am finding it 
> slows down enormously (under 9.2.2 on a G4 @ 400MHz - I don't have 
> X at all - looks to freeze, but hasn't, quite) soon after it starts 
> rendering. [Reading the threads back to August sometime hasn't shed 
> much light :-(]
> 
> Maybe another question should be asked first:
> is anyone not having lockups/slowdowns under 9.2.2?
> [Base extensions vs all+a few 3rd party seems to make no 
> difference]
> TIA


Add me to the list, the render queue stays open and I have to quit to 
get it to stop.  I see a lot of people have this problem but I see no 
answers?  G4, OS 9.2.2, Carbon Lib 1.6; all the same systems?

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Dale Walsh wrote:

>Add me to the list, the render queue stays open and I have to quit to
>get it to stop.  I see a lot of people have this problem but I see no
>answers?  G4, OS 9.2.2, Carbon Lib 1.6; all the same systems?

I'm running on a 500MHz G4 PowerBook, OS 9.2.2, Carbon Lib 1.6, and I
have no problems with the rendering speed or the queue. I set POV-Ray
to Tyrannical or Selfishly fast and turned all the sleep and power saving
settings off.


By the way, I posted these questions a few months ago and received no
response, so I'll try again:

I've set my Edit-> Preferences...-> Editor font to Courier 12, but when I
open new windows they come up in the default font and size. Only by
reselecting the Courier popup in Preferences do the windows display using
my editor preference font settings. Is this problem unique to me?

While I'm here, it would be nice (for me anyway) if POV-Ray Mac asked if you
were sure you wanted to quit. I use the apple-1 and apple-2 keys to pop up
windows and sometimes I accidentally hit apple-q. It will quit without
question even if I've modified some text.

Other than these minor complaints, I've found the editor a joy to use; the
color coding really helps code clarity.

Okay, one other question. POV-Ray Mac crashes when I try to render a large
PICT file, such as 6600x4400 resolution. PNG and Targa work fine, but
Photoshop won't let me look at partial renders in those formats so I prefer
PICT. Is there a limit to how big a PICT file can be?

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In article <web.3e06024d42f46e194b5522fd0@news.povray.org> , "Renderdog" 
<slo### [at] hiwaaynet> wrote:

> I've set my Edit-> Preferences...-> Editor font to Courier 12, but when I
> open new windows they come up in the default font and size. Only by
> reselecting the Courier popup in Preferences do the windows display using
> my editor preference font settings. Is this problem unique to me?

No, it is a bug that will be fixed in a future version.

> While I'm here, it would be nice (for me anyway) if POV-Ray Mac asked if you
> were sure you wanted to quit. I use the apple-1 and apple-2 keys to pop up
> windows and sometimes I accidentally hit apple-q. It will quit without
> question even if I've modified some text.

Yes, unfortunately this sometimes happens.  The cause is a bit complicated
and related to an incorrect Apple Event being sent internally.  Eventually
this will be fixed.

> Okay, one other question. POV-Ray Mac crashes when I try to render a large
> PICT file, such as 6600x4400 resolution. PNG and Targa work fine, but
> Photoshop won't let me look at partial renders in those formats so I prefer
> PICT. Is there a limit to how big a PICT file can be?

Yes, they have to be smaller than 4096 pixels.  There used to be an error
message if this was detected before rendering before.  As that code was
replaced, the error message seems to have been lost :-(

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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