Using All Cores in Compressor (with QMaster)

[Fomaphone]

How should I set up Qmaster to use all of my computer's cores?

The Problem:

I can't get compressor to use all of the power of all of my cores. That's what I want it to do. Please help me make it do that... any ideas would be very welcome.

For one thing, Compressor doesn't show my quick cluster unless I check "managed" in the Qmaster prefs, and even then, i'm not using all of my processor power once I submit the batch. Shouldn't compressor see any cluster with services enabled for it, regardless of whether or not they are managed? (after I hit submit, the drop down gives me the opportunity to include managed and unmanaged clusters. i enabled that option. it doesn't make a difference). Assuming the cluster I want to use necessarily has to be managed, what does that mean? Is there something in particular I should be "managing" to get this thing to use all of my processor power?

Here's what i'm using:

Eight-Core 2009 (Nehalem) Mac Pro 2.66, 6gb RAM, 7200RPM drives not RAIDed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I should have a total of 16 cores at my disposal, eight physical and eight logical.

I'm running the latest version of leopard, and ran software update earlier today when I was thinking this might have been the problem.

Here's what I've tried:

I went to Qmaster settings in system preferences, and I set up a quick cluster with services, with 16 instances, checking the shared boxes for Compressor and Rendering. i experimented with managed and unmanaged, keeping shared checked.

I also tried 8 instances just to see if that would make my computer use eight cores, ie: not requiring the use of hyperthreading. it makes no difference... exactly the same results.

i've restarted my computer after making clusters to see if that's what compressor needed to see/utilize a freshly set up one, but that doesn't seem to make a difference either.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Assuming Compressor isn't malfunctioning (which it has a habit to do) you need more RAM. At the very least 1gig per core. 2gig per core is what I've read as typically suggested.


Lethal

 

[Fomaphone]

fair enough. i'm ordering some soon... as soon as i figure out whether or not the $75 difference between 16 and 12 is worth it, because i've read in the mac pro forums here that having the fourth and eighth slots filled slow down the memory bus.

12gb comes out to 1.5 per physical core (.75 per core if you're including the logical ones) with no bus performance hit... would 12 make a big enough difference here?

i'll can't go up to 2gb/core (for a total of 32) because i can't afford 4gb sticks. 16 is a lot more feasible, but as mentioned above i have concerns about it.

 

[bigbossbmb]

I'd go with 12GB of RAM...

As for the Compressor/Qmaster stuff, do a search. I had a thread on this a while ago and I've got my 8-core (early 08) running very quickly using all 8.

 

[Fomaphone]

I'd go with 12GB of RAM...

As for the Compressor/Qmaster stuff, do a search. I had a thread on this a while ago and I've got my 8-core (early 08) running very quickly using all 8.

i searched google, found your thread, tried the stuff there, and when it didn't work i started this thread. not in that thread, but essential to getting this to work for me, was unchecking the password box. the rest of the problem (proc power) is apparently RAM-related.

1 vote in addition to my own for 12. duly noted.

 

[Annunaki]

Hi,

I actually wrote an article on this for our Company WebSite, you can find the article here.

You can actually set up a Virtual Cluster which can use X instances of compressor to do the encoding. The article explains how it can be done and also gives a few statistics showing the difference between simply submitting a batch to compressor and submitting the same batch to a Virtual Cluster (with 5 instances of compressor).

Feel free to have a look at the here, and comment on it if necessary.

Regards,


Stefaan