"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message
news:47afb3c2@news.povray.org...

> My poor dual core can't keep up :(
> Currently running:
> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)

Why do you run 5 instances on a dual core?

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somebody wrote:
> "Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message
> news:47afb3c2@news.povray.org...
> 
>> My poor dual core can't keep up :(
>> Currently running:
>> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)
> 
> Why do you run 5 instances on a dual core?
> 

Each frame renders in 10-30 seconds, and the parsing time is between 2-3 
seconds.

Since the parsing time is anywhere from 6-30% of the total render time, 
and it is single threaded (even in the 3.7 beta), I just run 5 instances 
to ensure that CPU usage remains as close to 100% as possible.

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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Chambers wrote:
> Currently running:
> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)
> Firefox & Thunderbird
> Handbrake
> CloneDVD
> UT3 Editor
> 
> My poor dual core can't keep up :(
> 
> I think I'm one of the few home users who could get some real use out of 
> an 8 core machine :)

I think anyone using a newer 3d app. can claim to be 'one of the few'. ;)

Sam

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Chambers wrote:
> Currently running:
> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)
> Firefox & Thunderbird
> Handbrake
> CloneDVD
> UT3 Editor

...!!

You're running 5 instances of POV-Ray? My God...

Doesn't the UT3 editor use up nearly 100% CPU on its own?

I have no idea what Handbrake is, but I'm guessing it might be slowing 
you down. *rimshot*

Seriously - you need more PCs! o_O

> My poor dual core can't keep up :(

Yah think?!?

> I think I'm one of the few home users who could get some real use out of 
> an 8 core machine :)

...or possibly 8 seperate 8-core machines. :-P

But anyway, check this out:

http://blog.orphi.me.uk/archives/86

When I posted that, the HP xw6400 I linked was priced at only £600, with 
a second quad-core CPU thrown in *for free*. So that's basically £600 
for a box with 8 Intel Xeon cores at 2.33 GHz. (Unfortunately, it's now 
gone back to a normal server price of several thousand pounds. Damn, I 
knew I should have purchased it back then!)

BTW, do you think we will ever reach a situation where controlling 8 
seperate PCs is as easy as controlling just one?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> You're running 5 instances of POV-Ray? My God...

Yes, my child?

> Doesn't the UT3 editor use up nearly 100% CPU on its own?

50%, so basically 100% of a single core.  I think it's a bug (and so do 
several other people on the UT3 forum), since it never varies (even when 
minimized).

When building the level, it can use up to 100% CPU on a dual core.

> I have no idea what Handbrake is, but I'm guessing it might be slowing 
> you down. *rimshot*

Encoding a DVD.  For some reason, TMPGEnc is having trouble reading the 
VOB files from certain movies, so I'm trying other software to see if it 
works.

> BTW, do you think we will ever reach a situation where controlling 8 
> seperate PCs is as easy as controlling just one?

Not exactly, but I do think that distributed computing will become much 
easier (spawn a task, and dozens (or hundreds) of computers will pitch 
in to finish it).

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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>> My God...
> 
> Yes, my child?

._.

>> Doesn't the UT3 editor use up nearly 100% CPU on its own?
> 
> 50%, so basically 100% of a single core.  I think it's a bug (and so do 
> several other people on the UT3 forum), since it never varies (even when 
> minimized).

M$ Access 97 has precisely the same bug:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/160819

"During idle time, Microsoft Access continuously polls its message queue 
to check for keyboard and mouse activity."

"Microsoft Access was originally designed to operate in the cooperative 
multitasking environment that Microsoft Windows 3.x provides."

In other words, a simple polling loop. A surprising amount of software 
still uses such brain-dead technology. (E.g., I frequently see it in 
printer and scanner drivers. Like my mum's HP printer, that connects 
over the parallel port. Printing to it causes 100% CPU usage until the 
print finishes. No reason for it...)

>> BTW, do you think we will ever reach a situation where controlling 8 
>> seperate PCs is as easy as controlling just one?
> 
> Not exactly, but I do think that distributed computing will become much 
> easier (spawn a task, and dozens (or hundreds) of computers will pitch 
> in to finish it).

I just wonder if one day it will be, like, you run a program and as many 
computers as you have switched on automatically start biting into it... 
but hey, that sounds *far* too easy! ;-) Even Apple haven't done it yet.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47b06768$1@news.povray.org...
> A surprising amount of software
> still uses such brain-dead technology. (E.g., I frequently see it in
> printer and scanner drivers. Like my mum's HP printer, that connects
> over the parallel port. Printing to it causes 100% CPU usage until the
> print finishes. No reason for it...)

I've seen exactly the same thing on a piece of hardware I had to deal with.
Can't remember the name of it (Rakal or something similar)
Drove one CPU's kernal usage to 100% flat. Lovely thing to have on a
database server.

> I just wonder if one day it will be, like, you run a program and as many
> computers as you have switched on automatically start biting into it...
> but hey, that sounds *far* too easy! ;-) Even Apple haven't done it yet.

I don't think it's that farfetched. You could argue that Google's done
similar with their distributed search.
Distributed computing was a big research topic when I was at iuniversity. I
think it still is. I keep running across references when I'm reading
It's not easy though.

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Gail Shaw wrote:

>> A surprising amount of software
>> still uses such brain-dead technology. (E.g., I frequently see it in
>> printer and scanner drivers. Like my mum's HP printer, that connects
>> over the parallel port. Printing to it causes 100% CPU usage until the
>> print finishes. No reason for it...)
> 
> I've seen exactly the same thing on a piece of hardware I had to deal with.
> Can't remember the name of it (Rakal or something similar)
> Drove one CPU's kernal usage to 100% flat. Lovely thing to have on a
> database server.

Yes, truly wonderful, isn't it?

OOC, how many cores does your server have? (Mine has 2. And they're both 
Pentium-III...)

>> I just wonder if one day it will be, like, you run a program and as many
>> computers as you have switched on automatically start biting into it...
>> but hey, that sounds *far* too easy! ;-) Even Apple haven't done it yet.
> 
> I don't think it's that farfetched. You could argue that Google's done
> similar with their distributed search.

I'm not familiar with that.

> Distributed computing was a big research topic when I was at iuniversity. I
> think it still is. I keep running across references when I'm reading
> It's not easy though.

The Haskell guys keep telling us how parallel processing is the future 
and how Haskell is right there ready to step in... but it's not actually 
that easy. Haskell has far fewer problems than *cough* C. Emphasis fewER 
problems...

Anyway, things like PVM exist. But it's nowhere near as easy as opening 
Word and start typing... You've got to configure a whole heap of stuff 
to get it going, and then you can't just *run* your program, you must 
configure that also. And your program must be specially built to work 
with PVM, and... and...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47b092dd$1@news.povray.org...

> OOC, how many cores does your server have? (Mine has 2. And they're both
> Pentium-III...)

Which one? I have somewhere around 50 database servers, and those are just
the ones that run production databases.

The one in question was a 2 proc server with hyperthreading, so windows
thought there were 4 processors. I can't remember what speed. We managed to
get that app transfered to another department. SEP now.

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Chambers wrote:
> Currently running:
> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)
> Firefox & Thunderbird
> Handbrake
> CloneDVD
> UT3 Editor
> 
> My poor dual core can't keep up :(
> 
> I think I'm one of the few home users who could get some real use out of 
> an 8 core machine :)

This another way of saying "I use POV-Ray."

Regards,
John

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