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 :)

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

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Chambers escribió:
> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)

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

I have been rendering on these:
http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=123
http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=113

Not mine.

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Chambers escribió:
>> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)
> 
>> I think I'm one of the few home users who could get some real use out 
>> of an 8 core machine :)
> 
> I have been rendering on these:
> http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=123
> http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=113
> 
> Not mine.

Hey, nice to see that the IMP is doing something still - the website 
hasn't had much activity lately (though I haven't been reading the forums).

Is it possible yet for users to submit jobs, or do the jobs still need 
to be manually added by an admin?

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

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Chambers wrote:
> Hey, nice to see that the IMP is doing something still - the website 
> hasn't had much activity lately (though I haven't been reading the forums).

OK, correction: the forum is offline, and the website has been inactive 
for more than a year?!?

Since I'm still interested in contributing CPU power, if nothing else, 
to the IMP, is there a way to join your BOINC team?  (I tried the way 
your project page at http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/ states, but it gave 
me an error.  I either need an invite code, or you need to accept public 
applications again).

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

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Re-posting. I'm not sure if it's only my ISP acting up. According to 
internettrafficreport.com, South America has an speed index of 39!

Chambers escribió:
 > Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
 >> Chambers escribió:
 >>> POV-Ray (5 instances, each rendering part of an animation)
 >>
 >>> I think I'm one of the few home users who could get some real use 
out of an 8 core machine :)
 >>
 >> I have been rendering on these:
 >> http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=123
 >> http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=113
 >>
 >> Not mine.
 >
 > Hey, nice to see that the IMP is doing something still - the website 
hasn't had much activity lately (though I haven't been reading the forums).
 >
 > Is it possible yet for users to submit jobs, or do the jobs still 
need to be manually added by an admin?
 >

There is a web-based job submission script for the impfarm software, but 
it wasn't too tested... I don't think anyone has sent any work on 
impfarm for a year.

What I linked to is all my own stuff. It's technically independent from 
the IMP farm (the one with the Perl client); just happens to be hosted 
on IMP server. Job submission there is even worse. I manually run a 
script on the server, via ssh.
And the script is kinda ugly. Coincidentally, I was *just* about to 
rewrite to support dynamic tiling: changing the size of tiles to try 
making them all take approximately the same time (to avoid 3-second 
tiles with just the background and 1-hour tiles in the middle of glass 
objects).

Post a reply to this message

Chambers escribió:
> Since I'm still interested in contributing CPU power, if nothing else, 
> to the IMP, is there a way to join your BOINC team?  (I tried the way 
> your project page at http://impfarm.imp.org/boinc/ states, but it gave 
> me an error.  I either need an invite code, or you need to accept public 
> applications again).
> 

The project started as Renderfarm@Home. Reached like 1000 users. But 
after a few months I lost my free hosting (the friend who was hosting it 
had to reduce his ISP plan). Then I sort of revived it on IMP server. 
The plan was just testing it for a start, and then moving Renderfarm 
database there, but it never happened (lack of time, motivation... busy 
in *other* time wasters...). So currently it's in a state of having an 
even more hackish backend than the original Renderfarm@Home, and with 
less users.

Plan now is somehow merging both databases (if a user was on both 
projects, his credits would get added, for example), but that's 
something else I haven't got around to. I don't want to open account 
creation and watch the user list grow again... The less users, the 
easier it will be to merge (but I have to do it!).

Not to mention the big changes I'll have to do on my wrapper when POV 
3.7 is out. More like a rewrite. I'm interested in many of the 3.7 
changes, and multithreading isn't one of them! Mainly: the new state 
file for resuming renders, and the cleaned-up internals that would make 
my modifications less "invasive".

Lately I have been busy making a screensaver for PrimeGrid (another 
BOINC project), and I may even get paid for it, so I try not to get too 
distracted :)

PS. this became somewhat on-topic about POV, which is off-topic for 
.off-topic. Should we move to povray.general?

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are you sure you're able to simultaneously browse the web, read the mail, edit a
game map and tweak povray renders?

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nemesis wrote:
> are you sure you're able to simultaneously browse the web, read the mail, edit a
> game map and tweak povray renders?

Well, Firefox and Thunderbird just run in the background, and every few 
minutes I check them to see if anything interesting has been added :)

The POV renders are, as I said, animations that will probably run for 
several more hours.  As each one finishes, it'll make more CPU time 
available for the others, so they should finish faster, et cetera.

Likewise, CloneDVD (which has now finished) and Handbrake (which has 
not) are background tasks.

So, that leaves UT3Ed, which was nearly unusable.  So, I took a break 
from it to give Handbrake a chance to finish encoding, and played some 
flash games on the web (which I found were almost as CPU intensive as UT3!)

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

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Chambers escribió:
> So, that leaves UT3Ed, which was nearly unusable.  So, I took a break 
> from it to give Handbrake a chance to finish encoding, and played some 
> flash games on the web (which I found were almost as CPU intensive as UT3!)

I'm still in the look for a good game to play while waiting for renders. 
Playing a CPu-hog game while waiting for a render to finish is 
counter-productive. My biggest problem isn't intensive games... but 
games that always use 100%. Doesn't matter how fast your CPU is, always 
100%. It's clear they have some busy loop (polling instead of blocking 
for events, for example).

Bejeweled 2 is great but eats 100% CPU (well, only one core). I can't 
figure out why... If I use it in windowed mode, I notice it doesn't use 
CPU while the window is unfocused. However, mouse hover effects still 
work while window is unfocused, and CPU usage isn't very significant, so 
it's not the graphics. Busy loop on the sound handling?

I remember a Sega emulator that used 100% CPU, unless sound was disabled 
and VSync enabled. So, sound was eating all CPU, and video was rendering 
as fast as it could instead of keeping a constant framerate (VSync would 
keep its framerate locked at your monitor refresh rate).

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it seems to me it is your PC who is in need of a less CPU-intensive user. :P

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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 :)
> 
Ben, you definitely need an 8 core machine.  You can tell your wife I 
said so.

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hey, there's always minesweep! ;)

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Jim Charter wrote:
> 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 :)
>>
> Ben, you definitely need an 8 core machine.  You can tell your wife I 
> said so.

Well, thanks!  Since the fact that they cost >$2k doesn't matter at all 
to us, the only thing holding me up was her permission - but that'll be 
easy to get with you backing me up :)

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

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Chambers escribió:
>> So, that leaves UT3Ed, which was nearly unusable.  So, I took a break 
>> from it to give Handbrake a chance to finish encoding, and played some 
>> flash games on the web (which I found were almost as CPU intensive as 
>> UT3!)
> 
> I'm still in the look for a good game to play while waiting for renders. 
> Playing a CPu-hog game while waiting for a render to finish is 
> counter-productive. My biggest problem isn't intensive games... but 
> games that always use 100%. Doesn't matter how fast your CPU is, always 
> 100%. It's clear they have some busy loop (polling instead of blocking 
> for events, for example).
> 
> Bejeweled 2 is great but eats 100% CPU (well, only one core). I can't 
> figure out why... If I use it in windowed mode, I notice it doesn't use 
> CPU while the window is unfocused. However, mouse hover effects still 
> work while window is unfocused, and CPU usage isn't very significant, so 
> it's not the graphics. Busy loop on the sound handling?

Did you try enforcing VSync in the video driver?  If its rendering at, 
say, 200 fps, this should limit it to ~33% CPU usage.

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

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Chambers escribió:
> Did you try enforcing VSync in the video driver?  If its rendering at, 
> say, 200 fps, this should limit it to ~33% CPU usage.
> 

It's probably not video. While the window is unfocused but visible, it 
still renders, since mouse hover effects work. But CPU usage is barely 
noticeable.

Post a reply to this message

"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?

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

>> 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.

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:
> "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.

Woah. I have 4 servers. One of them is dedicated to Oracle.

But then, I have 30 users, so... you have more servers than I have 
users. ;-)

> 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.

Ah, SEP fields FTW!

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

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47b16275$1@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
> > Which one? I have somewhere around 50 database servers, and those are
just
> > the ones that run production databases.
>
> Woah. I have 4 servers. One of them is dedicated to Oracle.
>
> But then, I have 30 users, so... you have more servers than I have
> users. ;-)

I work for an investment bank. Enough said.
We've got about 1200 staff. How many of them use what server, I don't know
offhand.

My servers range from single processor to 16 dual cores. Memory from 1 GB to
64 GB

> > 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.
>
> Ah, SEP fields FTW!

???

SEP = Someone Else's Problem

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

>> Woah. I have 4 servers. One of them is dedicated to Oracle.
>>
>> But then, I have 30 users, so... you have more servers than I have
>> users. ;-)
> 
> I work for an investment bank. Enough said.

;-)

> My servers range from single processor to 16 dual cores. Memory from 1 GB to
> 64 GB

OK, seriously. *Where* can you buy a machine that takes more than 2 
physical CPUs? I've tried, just for a laugh, but I cannot find anybody 
who sells them. The best I could come up with is a HP ProLiant with two 
4-core Xeons, giving a total of 8 cores. How on Earth do you get 32 
cores? [And what in the name of God does something like that cost??]

>> Ah, SEP fields FTW!
> 
> ???

In one of the Hitchhicker's Guide books, there's a spacecraft of some 
kind hidden inside a SEP field, thus rendering it effectively invisible...

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

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> OK, seriously. *Where* can you buy a machine that takes more than 2 
> physical CPUs? 

Back in 1994 or so, we bought a Sun server with 8 CPUs or 16 CPUs, I 
forget which. Sun makes such things, generally. They're expensive, of 
course, especially if you think $3K is expensive. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     On what day did God create the body thetans?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>
> OK, seriously. *Where* can you buy a machine that takes more than 2
> physical CPUs? I've tried, just for a laugh, but I cannot find anybody
> 

http://www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/4000/configs.html

Notice the marketing sector for the left one - mid-range server. :)

>>> Ah, SEP fields FTW!

\o/

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
   http://www.zbxt.net
      aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> OK, seriously. *Where* can you buy a machine that takes more than 2 
>> physical CPUs? 
> 
> Back in 1994 or so, we bought a Sun server with 8 CPUs or 16 CPUs, I 
> forget which. Sun makes such things, generally.

16 CPUs... This is the stuff of POV-Ray dreams!

> They're expensive, of 
> course, especially if you think $3K is expensive. :-)

...and this is the harsh reality. :-}

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

Post a reply to this message

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

Have a look at QNX:
http://www.google.com/search?q=QNX+distributed+computing

- Or read about dsh (distributed shell for Unix machines).

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

Post a reply to this message

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 :)
> 
Maybe someone suggested it before but I don't have time to check, MS 
launched Windows Home Server that goes with a HP Home Server (midi-tower 
like case), don't know about hardware specs about it but I think it has 
2 sockets so you can get you 8 cores, good luck :)

Post a reply to this message

> 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 :)
>
> --
> ...Ben Chambers
> www.pacificwebguy.com

Hi Ben
I've got this machine, and I'm think about maybe to give it away.
http://supermicro.com/products/system/4U/8044/SYS-8044T-8R.cfm

It has 4 CPUs and 8 Cores 16VirtualCores with Hypertreading active.
The CPUs are: Xeon 7120 Dual 3GHz and it has 8GB Memory.

I'll need this machine until end of April ore May. Are you interested?

-holger-

Ps.: Its very loud :(

Post a reply to this message

H. Karsten wrote:
> Hi Ben
> I've got this machine, and I'm think about maybe to give it away.
> http://supermicro.com/products/system/4U/8044/SYS-8044T-8R.cfm
> 
> It has 4 CPUs and 8 Cores 16VirtualCores with Hypertreading active.
> The CPUs are: Xeon 7120 Dual 3GHz and it has 8GB Memory.
> 
> I'll need this machine until end of April ore May. Are you interested?

Very :)  But I have a hunch the shipping alone would be prohibited 
(depending on where you are).

Email me the details, and we'll talk.

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

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