Carrara CPU rendering with latest AMD Threadripper ?

Omega Man

I understand AMD have really upped CPU power with the Threadripper range and we now have a monster Ryzen 64 core 128 thread 'Ripper.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/304344-amds-ryzen-9-3990x-64-core-cpu-to-cost-just-4000-launches-feb-7

Would Carrara rendering use all these threads in rendering ?  I've never experienced power like that, so would Carrara be lightning quick for character animation in real terms, like comparable to a GPU ?

Diomede

I don't know about the 64 core Ryzen, specifically..

However, I recently purchased a new computer with a fancy (for me) processor, and Carrara does give me my 24 wonderful render boxes.

Dartanbeck

Omega Man said:

I understand AMD have really upped CPU power with the Threadripper range and we now have a monster Ryzen 64 core 128 thread 'Ripper.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/304344-amds-ryzen-9-3990x-64-core-cpu-to-cost-just-4000-launches-feb-7

Would Carrara rendering use all these threads in rendering ?  I've never experienced power like that, so would Carrara be lightning quick for character animation in real terms, like comparable to a GPU ?

Yes. So you'd see 128 tiny boxes rendering away - except that they'd likely be difficult to see.

To go beyond that via network, you'd need Grid.

chickenman

So what I have experienced with Grid is as follows.

from the master computer it does not seem to include the cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) in the count of 100.

slave computers can only have a total of 100 cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) together.

So in effect you could end up with 228 threads quickly moving across your screen.

Diomede

chickenman said:

So what I have experienced with Grid is as follows.

from the master computer it does not seem to include the cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) in the count of 100.

slave computers can only have a total of 100 cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) together.

So in effect you could end up with 228 threads quickly moving across your screen.

Wow!!!!!!!   Never satisfied with my latest toy.

As Billy Idol would say, "I want more, more, more." 

Or, if you prefer Oliver, "please sir, may I have some more?"

Or, perhaps you prefer the Rolling Stones.  "I can't get no Sa-tis-fac-tion, though I try, and I try, and I try."

Maybe I should be like Jonstark and get some old servers for a render farm?

 

Way back when I was an economics instructor, I used to play this for my class on the first day to explain scarcity.and unlimited wants.

chickenman

My render Farm is just 3 old HP Z820 Desktops picked up on ebay but they work as each has 32 Threads so it brings me up to 96 threads plus my 8 I7 threads on the master.

I have now built a Network Attached Storage (NAS) using an old desktop bought 5 4 TB drives for storage and 2 128 SSD's for the boot partition and installed freenas so all content is in one repository with everything mapped to the same location.

As it is a NAS the hard drives are configured with renduncacy using the ZFS filesystem which the software does outomatically.

You can do this with fewer drives but 5 gives better survivabilty of lost drives. I can then add more drives or change the size of drives and keep it in the same box.

https://www.freenas.org/

3drendero

The current max is dual 64core EPYC 7742 (server version of Threadripper) giving 256 threads. Another 100 from Grid. That rig seems to break the new Cinebench R20 already: https://www.servethehome.com/crushing-cinebench-v5-amd-epyc-7742-world-record-edition/

Dartanbeck

chickenman said:

So what I have experienced with Grid is as follows.

from the master computer it does not seem to include the cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) in the count of 100.

slave computers can only have a total of 100 cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) together.

So in effect you could end up with 228 threads quickly moving across your screen.

I wish that I had such an experience!!! Yikes!

 

chickenman said:

My render Farm is just 3 old HP Z820 Desktops picked up on ebay but they work as each has 32 Threads so it brings me up to 96 threads plus my 8 I7 threads on the master.

Only just! LOL

Dartanbeck

3drendero said:

The current max is dual 64core EPYC 7742 (server version of Threadripper) giving 256 threads. Another 100 from Grid. That rig seems to break the new Cinebench R20 already: https://www.servethehome.com/crushing-cinebench-v5-amd-epyc-7742-world-record-edition/

!!!

Dartanbeck

I've just built my Ryzen 7 Octa core (16 logical threads) and I love it!

I still optimize almost as hard as I always have, so my main characters alone are rendering at between 9 seconds per frame and just over or under a minute, depending upon the camera distance and other factors. All operations on this computer are hightened SO MUCH compared to my previous octa-core, which I also loved!

In building the wishl;ist for this one, I saw the (then) versions of Threadripper cpu, which require a different socket, and those motherboards are in another whole different price bracket that's vastly out of my range after adding everything up. But one day I really hope to jump to such a beast.

Being a big fan of Carrara's native render engine, however, this build does me just fine! Happy = Me!

chickenman

Dartanbeck said:

chickenman said:

So what I have experienced with Grid is as follows.

from the master computer it does not seem to include the cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) in the count of 100.

slave computers can only have a total of 100 cores (physical and hyperthreaded/virtual) together.

So in effect you could end up with 228 threads quickly moving across your screen.

I wish that I had such an experience!!! Yikes!

 

chickenman said:

My render Farm is just 3 old HP Z820 Desktops picked up on ebay but they work as each has 32 Threads so it brings me up to 96 threads plus my 8 I7 threads on the master.

Only just! LOL

It actually is not that hard to do.

Just take an old computer like your old machine boost the number of hard drives installed .I have 5, I also installed 2 128 Gb SSD's for the OS which only uses 8 GB (they say you can use USB Stick instead).

I coppied the image to USB Stick and booted the machine from the usb stick and followed the direction ensuring I selected the 2 drives I have for Boot drives to install the OS to. By having 2 OS drives if 1 dies I just replace it and designate the replacement as a boot drive and it will mirror one to the other.

After installation I just followed the documentation and watched thier videos about how to set it up. They also have videos on how to install everything.

I created CIFS share which is what Windows uses and called it Windows_Share.

On my computer I mapped a network drive and mapped it to \\IP of server\Windows_Share.

Copied all my daz content folder to newly mapped drive

Pointed DIM to the new location.

Started Carrara and pointed all of its folders to the new location, basically just changing the drive letter from D (secondary HDD) to Z: (my Network Drive).

Exited Carrara and started DIM uninstalled 1 product and re installed it.

Started Carrara and created a new scene with an item from my library. I also tried a previously saved file no problem.

 

Dartanbeck

Thank you so much, chickenman! It's crazy, my new boss at work was just talking about this sort of share file space a day or two before this thread came out. The timing is uncanny that you brought this all up just then!

Yeah... I think my Zambezi octa-core (and the 16GB RAM I had for it) is still good - I just need a new motherboard, PSU, tower (or rack box) and some HDD to make a really zippy one. I'll look into this further for sure. Maybe even just use the drive that I'm using now inside that machine, since everything's already installed - just a simple swap-out.

I have to say, however, this crazy new Ryzen machne is freaking awesome already! So I'm not in a huge hurry to go farming my renders. But the future is the future, right?!!!

Thanks again, Pal!!!