So I was talking to my friend about the new MPs and that they should have two 6 core processors in it. I plan on getting one for rendering scenes with Maya and doing stuff on AE, FCP, and the CS5 master collection. We were talking about his computer, which is one quad core processor. He was saying that render times on Maya wouldn't be very different when comparing a quad core versus two hexa cores. I don't agree with him but would like someone elses opinion on this.
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Quad core versus dual 6 core render question
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If the apps support 12 cores (which I think they do), it can be up to 3 times faster (depending on the clock speed though)
It supports at least 8 cores (fast googling) but I'm pretty sure it does in fact support all 12 (maybe even 24 threads) as it, if something, is CPU intensive
FCP and AE can handle n cores, which means as many are available (AE can even utilize Hyper Threading IIRC).
If there isn't a big difference with multi-cores, why did he spend the $ on a quad core vs dual core...? ;P
I can't speak to Maya specifically, but in my experience the render speed of pretty much any 3D software will increase nearly linearly with the number of processors. 12 cores will quite simply kick ass.
edit: apparently Maya may have once had an an 8-core limit. At any rate, that has been removed.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=799784
FCP and AE can handle n cores, which means as many are available (AE can even utilize Hyper Threading IIRC).
24 virtual cores
Do you know if Maya supports hyperthreading?
It really depends on what renderer you are using. Although I do not use Maya's native render engine, it should use every core available to it. I've used RenderMan and proprietary GI renderers through Maya and they use every processor or core available. You can also send jobs to a network of computers and use multiple computers to render one job just the same as using multiple cores on a single machine. This has been possible for as long as I have used Maya which goes back to version 1.0 (but maybe not with the native renderer that I know of). So yes. There is no finite number of cores or processors at which Maya is limited to using. More cores means faster renders (given same clockspeeds). Two cores are twice as fast as one core. You can do the math easily from there. Although, again, I have no direct experience using Maya's native render engine. You don't want to really use that anyway. I believe Mental Ray will use all cores, too, but I haven't done enough with MR to find it's limits.
FCP and AE can handle n cores, which means as many are available (AE can even utilize Hyper Threading IIRC).
Really? I've heard FCP is single core and only the compressor multi-core. Do you have any link? I know you know your stuff but I wan't some proof so I can use it in future
I'm not sure how well does Maya support GPU but upgrading GPU is a lot easier than upgrading CPUs (and a lot cheaper + you can have different ones). Most apps still more or less poorly support GPUs but CPU has always done the hard work
Seconded! Intrested as well,as based on my own experiences,the 100-200% seems to be the max?!
Really? I've heard FCP is single core and only the compressor multi-core. Do you have any link? I know you know your stuff but I wan't some proof so I can use it in future
I'm not sure how well does Maya support GPU but upgrading GPU is a lot easier than upgrading CPUs (and a lot cheaper + you can have different ones). Most apps still more or less poorly support GPUs but CPU has always done the hard work
FCP tends to not fully utilize every core. It may be it is not using all, and the workload is being bounced around. Who knows. Compressor can chop a job up and use multiple transcoder processes (only if you submit to a "cluster"), so it will scale pretty much infinitely.
Also, with crazy numbers of threads, sometimes problems come up even when something should be embarrassingly parallel. Luxrender (open source unbiased renderer, for those who don't know) was found to have issues scaling past 8-10 threads on a single instance, since all the cores doing the raytracing are having to wait on the one handling the "film".
Maya Software renderer tends to scale well up to ~5 cores before trailing off.
Mental Ray will scale nearly linearly with physical cores, and you'll get about a 25% boost from HyperThreading on top of that.
Other modern path-tracing renderers that plug into Maya such as Maxwell and Fry will render nearly linearly even with virtual cores. (thus, clock for clock, a machine with 12 physical/24 virtual cores will be roughly 6x faster than a 4physical/no HT machine)
Most animation and simulation functions in Maya scale relatively poorly, where a 12 core machine will see little speed increase clock-for-clock over a 4 core.
Mental Ray will scale nearly linearly with physical cores, and you'll get about a 25% boost from HyperThreading on top of that.
Other modern path-tracing renderers that plug into Maya such as Maxwell and Fry will render nearly linearly even with virtual cores. (thus, clock for clock, a machine with 12 physical/24 virtual cores will be roughly 6x faster than a 4physical/no HT machine)
Most animation and simulation functions in Maya scale relatively poorly, where a 12 core machine will see little speed increase clock-for-clock over a 4 core.
I recall an article from some ~'07 on Barefeats that indicated it was. And I also recall seeing something here on MR too.Really? I've heard FCP is single core and only the compressor multi-core. Do you have any link? I know you know your stuff but I wan't some proof so I can use it in future
At any rate, I got curious, and re-examined this a bit, and you may be right. It definitely needs further investigation, and I didn't find what I was looking for on Apple's site at all (though I didn't spend a lot of time at it, just searched the specs and discussion threads).
Care to help look into this, as it's beneficial for others?
Normally FCP will only use two cores, and this includes all renders on the timeline. However, when exporting, you can utilize compressor and Qmaster to utilize more cores, which is not trivial to setup...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/compressor_multi_cores_stitzer.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/compressor_multi_cores_stitzer.html
FCP uses one core, but if you export the final render to Compressor, it uses as many as you want/have.
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Are you sure it's just 1 core... I thought it was using 2... but I may have been optimistic when observing my CPU usage.
Are you sure it's just 1 core... I thought it was using 2... but I may have been optimistic when observing my CPU usage.
It always seems to use about 150% on my MBP (C2D)
This really speeds up encoding times. You need to export a self-contained movie, though, you can't just send straight from the timeline if you want to use the virtual cluster.
can handle n cores, which means as many are available
Yes, in my case.. Cinema 4D!
Cinema 4d is wonderful for multithreading. Love it. If Apple falls through with the Mac Pro updates, I'm getting a 20% overclocked Core i7 980x. A nice compromised balance of budget, high clock speed and multi-core rendering power.
I wish Apple would offer that.
I'm getting a Mac Pro largely for Cinema 4D. Could someone confirm that Cinema sees 8 cores as 16, and in turn will see 12 cores as 24?
Assuming Cinema does see 8 as 16 is it fair to multiply clock speed by 16 when comparing processors? Or is that wishful thinking?
Assuming Cinema does see 8 as 16 is it fair to multiply clock speed by 16 when comparing processors? Or is that wishful thinking?
Virtual core ≠ physical core
HT can speed up up to ~30% but it's still nowhere near the performance of a real core thus it's not fair to multiply the clock speed. Forget HT and use real cores. Then add some % due HT
Renderman for Maya single license does 4-cores. Had to buy two to take advantage of one Windows workstation. Mental Ray uses em all.
Maya's own (scanline, vector etc..) uses all cores on your system.
Love seeing topics like Maya on Mac
We havent fully moved our workflow over to the Mac (6 to 1 ratio in workstations) due to slight issues with Maya.
Looking forward to the day that happens