dual xeon 64 bit processor

bullx · Post by **bullx** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:34 pm

i've a dual xeon 3,2 64 bit machine, wich is the best way to use all my cpu power to render with blender?
i mean can i use both the processors?

i'm planning to have dual boot, win e linux so don' t worry about os.

SirDude · Post by **SirDude** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:45 pm

make sure the threads button is enabled in the render buttons(f10)

and if your doing an animation I'd use the commandline to render
and split it into two sets of frames.

bullx · Post by **bullx** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:59 pm

what do you mean exactly with split in two set of frames?
i have to launch blender two times?
and doing this way how can i say to first-blender to use one processor and to second-blender to use the other one?

SirDude · Post by **SirDude** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:25 pm

Say I have an animation that is 200 frames in length.

I'd do the following from the command prompt:

blender -b myfile.blend -s 1 -e 100 -a &
blender -b myfile.blend -s 101 -e 200 -a &

Then you can use blender or another program to link the two outputs
after they are rendered.

That should be all you need to do.

bullx · Post by **bullx** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:42 pm

yes it work smoothly.
thank you very much.
for more info everybody can have a look here:
http://www.digital-air.co.uk/2005/07/in ... ading.html

bye

bleen · Post by **bleen** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 9:37 pm

will blender render in more than 2 threads in the near future, without a trick?

grimey · Post by **grimey** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 5:54 pm

So if the hyperthreading is enabled/disabled through bios, what does the "use threads" switch in blender do?

I tested the HT option on a 50 second render and found it decreased to 47 seconds, a 6% decrease in render time.

The test Bullx did (with 28% decrease in render time) is not an accurate benchmark since he crippled the OS. Basically, the render performance increase is overshadowed by increased system performance. It's like comparing systems with different CPU's.

mchs3d · Post by **mchs3d** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:57 pm

Yes, you are right. Also, if you want to speed things up, download an optimized build for your system. I offer builds for Windows which can speed up rendering by more than 40%, however, I haven't updated them recently. If you don't use Windows, I think there are optimized builds for Linux and OSX as well.

Just check graphicall.org.

grimey · Post by **grimey** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:16 am

WOW, dowloaded the alpha 1 SSE optimized version you did mchs3d, got a 20 percent decrease in render time

That's in comparison to alpha2 version

Many thx for the tip.

Umm, I assume I copy the exe to the blender folder to use it, correct? Cuz that's what I did and everything seemed ok.

I compared the SSE build to RC1, they were about the same render time