Utilizing Multi Processors

loughran.matt · November 21st, 2007

I dont know if this is right but i currently run a dual xeon quad core processor workstation with 3dsmax 2008 64bit and when ever i look at my task manager max only use's 25% of my processor power and often tops out. This is to my understanding that max is not utilizing the multi threads. If it can can some one please correct me and if it does can it in future please?

designmule · November 21st, 2007

If you are rendering and only seeing 25% processor usage something is amiss. Make sure that "multi-threading" is tuned on under "customize - preferences - rendering".

But be aware most functions in Max are not multi-threaded and therefore your 25% CPU usage is normal.

loughran.matt · November 22nd, 2007

Yes when i render it utilises 100%, but yes when i am in active modeling mode it is in my case only using 12ish% (1 of 8 processors).
So can this be a formal request to post help on sorting this out?
Will max ever use multithreading processors or am i better off getting 1 big single core processor that will use 100%?

So many questions

Matt Clementson · November 22nd, 2007

Not all functions are easy to make multi-threaded, some calculations are required to be done in a certain order which you can't guarantee with multi-threading as you never know which processor will finish first. So it's unlikely that MAX will ever be 100% multi-threaded. Having said that I'm sure some of the functions that are not currently multi-threaded could be converted to be so.

loughran.matt · November 22nd, 2007

Thanks guys that is pretty much what i finding out through many forums, so i guess i will leave it on the wishlist and keep my fingers crossed.

For any others interested this is what was posted as a response on another forum.

"What are you processing? Typically other then the second stage of rendering most processes in max are not heavily multithreaded, particularly beyond 2 cores. For most 3d apps the biggest improvement from multiple processors is in rendering. Max used to get a pretty big boost in the viewport display from multiple processors but now we use the graphics cards for all of our acceleration. I’m not a programmer myself but from talking to programmers on our products and others Multithreading is the biggest challenge right now. Essentially intel and AMD could no longer figure out how to make individual processors faster in an economical way and so started creating more cores. Now the software industry has to play catch up and figure out how to deal with this. As I understand it the difficulty is taking existing math which expects to have the answers from the previous operation before doing the next and figuring out how to break those things up to separate processors to do simultaneously. This is hard enough if you know that you will have a specific number of processors. but coding so it deals with and undetermined number of processors is a much bigger challenge.
Yes I know people using supercomputers have been doing this for years. To me it looks like a lot of the things they are doing are in many ways similar to rendering which is much more amendable to threading then say polygonal modeling operations.
This is all just my opinion though as I really am not a coder. Anyone out there actually do coding who can comment?

Shawn Hendriks
AREA Editor and Chief
Autodesk Media and Entertainment"

So i guess thats that for that one for now............

Cheers

leonmagnavox · March 28th, 2008

what is multithread guys?

SandmanNinja · March 29th, 2008

A multi-threaded program will look at the program's instructions (op codes), and dole some of the work out to one CPU and more work to a different CPU. This doling out process is a 'thread'. So, more than one thread? Then it's multi-threading.

There's something called Branch Predicting also, but I don't know if that's old school now or not.

November 21st, 2007	#1 (permalink)
loughran.matt Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Surrey Posts: 3 Name: Matt Loughran	Utilizing Multi Processors I dont know if this is right but i currently run a dual xeon quad core processor workstation with 3dsmax 2008 64bit and when ever i look at my task manager max only use's 25% of my processor power and often tops out. This is to my understanding that max is not utilizing the multi threads. If it can can some one please correct me and if it does can it in future please?

November 21st, 2007	#2 (permalink)
designmule Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Missouri Posts: 119 Name: Matt McDonald	Re: Utilizing Multi Processors If you are rendering and only seeing 25% processor usage something is amiss. Make sure that "multi-threading" is tuned on under "customize - preferences - rendering". But be aware most functions in Max are not multi-threaded and therefore your 25% CPU usage is normal.

November 22nd, 2007	#3 (permalink)
loughran.matt Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Surrey Posts: 3 Name: Matt Loughran	Re: Utilizing Multi Processors Yes when i render it utilises 100%, but yes when i am in active modeling mode it is in my case only using 12ish% (1 of 8 processors). So can this be a formal request to post help on sorting this out? Will max ever use multithreading processors or am i better off getting 1 big single core processor that will use 100%? So many questions

November 22nd, 2007	#4 (permalink)
Matt Clementson Moderator Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Cardiff, UK Age: 36 Posts: 212 Name: Matt Clementson	Re: Utilizing Multi Processors Not all functions are easy to make multi-threaded, some calculations are required to be done in a certain order which you can't guarantee with multi-threading as you never know which processor will finish first. So it's unlikely that MAX will ever be 100% multi-threaded. Having said that I'm sure some of the functions that are not currently multi-threaded could be converted to be so.

November 22nd, 2007	#5 (permalink)
loughran.matt Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Surrey Posts: 3 Name: Matt Loughran	Re: Utilizing Multi Processors Thanks guys that is pretty much what i finding out through many forums, so i guess i will leave it on the wishlist and keep my fingers crossed. For any others interested this is what was posted as a response on another forum. "What are you processing? Typically other then the second stage of rendering most processes in max are not heavily multithreaded, particularly beyond 2 cores. For most 3d apps the biggest improvement from multiple processors is in rendering. Max used to get a pretty big boost in the viewport display from multiple processors but now we use the graphics cards for all of our acceleration. I’m not a programmer myself but from talking to programmers on our products and others Multithreading is the biggest challenge right now. Essentially intel and AMD could no longer figure out how to make individual processors faster in an economical way and so started creating more cores. Now the software industry has to play catch up and figure out how to deal with this. As I understand it the difficulty is taking existing math which expects to have the answers from the previous operation before doing the next and figuring out how to break those things up to separate processors to do simultaneously. This is hard enough if you know that you will have a specific number of processors. but coding so it deals with and undetermined number of processors is a much bigger challenge. Yes I know people using supercomputers have been doing this for years. To me it looks like a lot of the things they are doing are in many ways similar to rendering which is much more amendable to threading then say polygonal modeling operations. This is all just my opinion though as I really am not a coder. Anyone out there actually do coding who can comment? Shawn Hendriks AREA Editor and Chief Autodesk Media and Entertainment" So i guess thats that for that one for now............ Cheers

March 28th, 2008	#6 (permalink)
leonmagnavox Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: melbourne Posts: 17 Name: leon magnavox	Re: Utilizing Multi Processors what is multithread guys?

March 29th, 2008	#7 (permalink)
SandmanNinja Moderator Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia Posts: 1,079 Name: Joel Callahan	Re: Utilizing Multi Processors A multi-threaded program will look at the program's instructions (op codes), and dole some of the work out to one CPU and more work to a different CPU. This doling out process is a 'thread'. So, more than one thread? Then it's multi-threading. There's something called Branch Predicting also, but I don't know if that's old school now or not. __________________ -SandmanNinja website

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