Threadripper 1950X - Daz3D Iray not using all threads

mathiasdeckman

Hey guys and gals,

I just recently invested in a threadripper 1950x, but due to budget constraints, I only have 4 GB of RAM in the system (looking to get 128 GB along with two GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Cards).  I've got it running on a SSD with a SSD cache, but content is on a HDD.  To help compensate for lack of RAM, i've opened up my page to 130 GB.

I've got a scene that I'm trying to render out: its a stair case entrance to a ball room with dining chairs and tables and i think 16 light sources. I have 11 genesis 3 female models, all with various types of dresses (they are characters from a series i'm co-writing).  When i turn on the iray for drawing mode or initiate a regular render (1000 pixels wide by 667 high), Daz only uses 1 thread to render it out. This is obviously going to take a LONG time.

Here comes the hinky part; when I hide the staircase, the chairs and have 1 genesis 3 mode going, Daz utilizes ALL 32 threads (technically about 30 since I allocate all but one or two cores for the rest of the system.)  I throw in the stairs and another model, Daz uses all available at 100%.  I currently have 4 models, the stair case and lights going and Daz is using 30 threads from high 60% to 90%. The more stuff i add, the more the percentage drops across ALL threads. Remember, the 1950x is a 16 core cpu with hyperthreading. It should be using all available at 100%, or at least that's my understanding.

Here is another hinky part: i designed this scene on an 8350 and when i set it to iray on 6 of the 8 cores, the entire model slams the available at 100%.

Does anyone know why Daz won't utilize all the threads available when the entire scene is portrayed? Is it lack of RAM (which is my assumption) or is there a setting that I just don't know about?  I've already compared both sets of settings and couldn't find anything at first look.

thanks in advance. I'll bookmark the thread so i can reply asap.

Padone

My guess is that Iray could need a certain amount of ram for every thread, essentially for the workspace of that thread, so the more threads you use the more ram is needed. Also I seriously doubt that the scene you are describing fits 4GB so I believe SSD swapping is your main bottleneck there. Expanding the ram should be your first choice.

You can also get the scene optimizer that is always good to have anyway.

https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

 

EDIT. And Iray on CPU sucks. You would be better served by a good nVidia card such as a 1070, rather than a thread ripper. Provided that you can fit the scene to the vram of course, that's what the scene optimizer is for.

 

nicstt

It does with my system.

4GB of RAM is likely your issue. Your page size will help, probably, but SSDs are much, much slower than RAM. Although, some are catching up with a fair way still to go; main-stream SSDs are much, much slower than RAM.

Padone said:

My guess is that Iray could need a certain amount of ram for every thread, essentially for the workspace of that thread, so the more threads you use the more ram is needed. Also I seriously doubt that the scene you are describing fits 4GB so I believe SSD swapping is your main bottleneck there. Expanding the ram should be your first choice.

You can also get the scene optimizer that is always good to have anyway.

https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

 

EDIT. And Iray on CPU sucks. You would be better served by a good nVidia card such as a 1070, rather than a thread ripper. Provided that you can fit the scene to the vram of course, that's what the scene optimizer is for.

 

Eventually, they still don't fit. And tbh, how anyone can say he would be better off, without knowing his/her circumstances is beyond me. Take my situation, I've been consiering a 1080ti since they appeared, but have held off. I will upgrade the 980ti i use for rendering, with a 970 for monitors, no idea when though. IIRC, the 1080ti wasn't showing that much of an improvement v its cost. That was just cheeky imo.

But the threadripper performs decently in comparrison to a 980to Strix

Threadripper: 2018-04-08 11:23:50.906 Total Rendering Time: 15 minutes 43.0 seconds

980ti: 2018-04-08 11:51:11.399 Total Rendering Time: 6 minutes 4.80 seconds.

Of course on a scene where it wont fit it is time versus infinite; then it is necessary to factor in the time take to optomise the scene - perhaps that has already been done and the scene still needs breaking down into multiple parts

Back OT

as the OP can see from image, all threads in use.

 

mathiasdeckman

Padone said:

My guess is that Iray could need a certain amount of ram for every thread, essentially for the workspace of that thread, so the more threads you use the more ram is needed. Also I seriously doubt that the scene you are describing fits 4GB so I believe SSD swapping is your main bottleneck there. Expanding the ram should be your first choice.

You can also get the scene optimizer that is always good to have anyway.

https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

 

EDIT. And Iray on CPU sucks. You would be better served by a good nVidia card such as a 1070, rather than a thread ripper. Provided that you can fit the scene to the vram of course, that's what the scene optimizer is for.

 

o_O

but due to budget constraints, I only have 4 GB of RAM in the system (looking to get 128 GB along with two GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Cards

Yes, I just quoted myself- I do plan on upgrading RAM, i just don't have the money for it right now. I'm going straight to the threadrippers max limitation- 128 GB.  I plan on installing 128 GB of RAM. [edit: had incorrect information here, thinking 128 GB was limit, when it's 2 TB] I'm also well aware that the SSD is my bottleneck (IT guy here, making due with what i have).  You know, people say that video encoding on Video cards suck, but in reality, it honestly doesn't matter the processor, be it CPU or GPU- they are still crunching the same formulas for iray. CPU just takes a long, LONG time to accomplish said task.  I've also already tried to fit this scene into the 1080 8GB card (separate build with a slower processor). no luck. I will look into the scene optimizer for this particular one.

It does with my system.

THIS is what i was looking for. Thankyou. So it's something on my system, which means it's a setting somewhere. Another guy who I contacted last night, stated that most of his threads were active on his threadripper, during an IRAY.

I will upgrade the 980ti i use for rendering, with a 970 for monitors, no idea when though. IIRC, the 1080ti wasn't showing that much of an improvement v its cost. That was just cheeky imo.

I'm going to be honest; go for the 1080 ti; they are a superior card in all aspects, but if you wish to go 980 ti and not for the better card, i can't stop you.

But anyways, i'm going to check out the scene optimizer and try to get it to work. I thought i had looked at it previously, but now I'm going to give it a serious look.

- - - - -

EDIT 4/9/2018: Looked into Scene optimizer and tried it. It worked, for the most part. It wreaked havoc on the environment textures and two G3F models; took out all the textures, leaving them blank.  So, I won't be using it again if there is a 50/50 chance of it destroying texture links.  I also used Iray Assistant; nifty little program. My current scene requires ~12.5 GB of VRAM.