[ericohman]

Hi!

I've coded a simple CPU test for all of you out there who run Shake on OSX.
This App will do a background render on a single frame and then output how fast it rendered with different amount of cpu threads. Please download it and try it out yourself. Post your results in this thread.

(Link working again)
http://dreamfield.dyndns.org/_eric/v...u_test.app.zip

[ericohman]

Here's the results for Mac Pro and my laptop:


Render times:

1 CPU thread: 13.66 seconds
2 CPU threads: 6.91 seconds
3 CPU threads: 4.75 seconds
4 CPU threads: 3.63 seconds
5 CPU threads: 2.97 seconds
6 CPU threads: 2.49 seconds
7 CPU threads: 2.17 seconds
8 CPU threads: 1.97 seconds

Mac OSX 10.5.3
Shake v4.10.0606
MacPro 2 x 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8GB RAM



and my laptop:

Render times:

1 CPU thread: 21.35 seconds
2 CPU threads: 11.46 seconds


Mac OSX 10.5.2
Shake v4.10.0606
Macbook 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM

[CopyRat]

Awsome...

That's a well spent vacation.

Here's mine:

Render times:

1 CPU thread: 13.66 seconds
2 CPU threads: 7.36 seconds
3 CPU threads: 5.21 seconds
4 CPU threads: 3.67 seconds
5 CPU threads: 3.07 seconds
6 CPU threads: 2.66 seconds
7 CPU threads: 2.31 seconds
8 CPU threads: 2.03 seconds

Mac OSX 10.5.4
Shake v4.10.0606
MacPro 2 x 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 6GB RAM


I want more RAM!

//Simon

[ericohman]

Okay. This is pretty confusing, because all I've heard before is that Shake is faster on 1 cpu than on 8, when doing flipbooks etc.

Also, when you startup Shake (by clicking the Shake icon in the Dock) does that automatically use all available processor threads for the GUI?

Because a smart thing could be to startup Shake from the terminal and type:
shake -cpu 6

And when you rendered you can use the remaining 2 threads (if you have 8 threads in total)
Or if you gonna leave the computer while rendering you would use 8 threads.

But like I said before, does anyone know how many threads are the Default value when you start Shake from the Dock or by typing shake in terminal?

[Yossarian!]

Mine:

Render times:

1 CPU thread: 24.42 seconds
2 CPU threads: 13.94 seconds

Mac OSX 10.5.3
Shake v4.10.0606
Powermac, 2 x 2.7GHz PowerPC, 4.5GB RAM

[ericohman]

nice to see some powermac results. hope everyone find the application pretty straightforward. the code is applescript, the only code language except html that i can do something with

still hoping to get my last post answered by Hugh or some other Shake guru. Where are you Hugh?

[Gwuill]

Here my iMac result:

Render times:

1 CPU thread: 19.66 seconds
2 CPU threads: 10.23 seconds
Mac OSX 10.5.4
Shake v4.10.0606
iMac , 2 x 2.16GHz Dual Core , 3GB RAM

[ericohman]

tested on a 3,2ghz mac pro. these are the results:
Have in mind that from 3.0ghz to 3.2ghz is a $800 price difference. The 3.0ghz specs are posted above (2nd post)


Render times:

1 CPU thread: 12.77 seconds
2 CPU threads: 6.51 seconds
3 CPU threads: 4.82 seconds
4 CPU threads: 3.43 seconds
5 CPU threads: 2.86 seconds
6 CPU threads: 2.48 seconds
7 CPU threads: 2.16 seconds
8 CPU threads: 1.87 seconds

Mac OSX 10.5.3
Shake v4.10.0606
Mac pro , 2 x 3.2GHz Quad-Core , 8GB RAM

Shake GUI seems to use 8 cpus when started from the icon in the Dock for example. The flipbook and fileout lets you choose threads. 8 threads WILL be fastest. Try it out yourself, make sure you have no cache what so ever. This means, that if you go for lunch and start a render you should use 8 cpus(threads) and if you want to do a render and continue to work while the render process is on you have to decide how slow your shake gui can be. I'd choose depending on the comp I'm currently working with.

[Hugh]

Can you post what is actually going on inside of that .app? I'd be interested to run it on my Linux machine at work to see how it comes out....

[ericohman]

shake -checker 1600 1600 2 -turbulate 1 1 10 10 10 10 -nocache -cpu 1 -fo /shaketemp.tga -v

You don't need a fileout but i used it so that the flipbook wouldnt come up.maybe you should keep it in case it affect render times, though i doubt it. You have to manually change -cpu to a increasing no. of threads but I guess youll understand. My app deletes the "-fo file out"-file after the script has finnished. Thats how simple the app is. Just a lot unix stuff such as grep and sed thats being used on the apps simple gui. I dont know if -nocache matters but its there just in case. Good luck and sorry about any typos cause this was written from my ipod touch while playing video games.

By the way, is linux version of Shake supporting command line as well?
This should be executed from the command line because if done in Shake gui, shake will insist to cache everything therefore the rendering times won't be accurate.

[Hugh]

Are you logging the length that Shake says it took to render, or the time between the Shake process being launched and quitting?

Here's what Shake tells me:

1 CPU thread: 21.49s
2 CPU threads: 11.12s
3 CPU threads: 8.57s
4 CPU threads: 6.48s

Shake 4.10.0606
Centos 4.0
4Gb RAM
4 CPUs

[ericohman]

Yes I use the shake render time verbose thing. Info: frame 1 rendered in 3.21s that i use with grep rendered and sed info: frame 1 rendered in
i also got rid of the s but i dont know how, all unix stuff though, to set variables from the shake verbose output then display the variables as a complete result list like the posts above...

Never heard of centus, is that the linux you're running? I have only tried fedora and ubuntu.

[ihatebrianwilliams]

1 CPU thread: 14.52 seconds
2 CPU thread: 7.72 seconds
3 CPU thread: 5.63 seconds
4 CPU thread: 4.1 seconds

Mac OSX 10.4.11
Shake 4.10.606
Mac Pro, 2 X 3 GHz Dual Core, 4GB Ram

Its not mentioned here but you guys all know about Shake on Leopard with 8 cores.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1101
I don't think its an issue for terminal rendering, but in the GUI its day and night.

[ericohman]

I've read that before and that's what made me do this test also. I've also tried this in the Shake GUI and 8 threads was way faster when doing a flipbook than 4 threads, on the Mac Pro quad (3ghz).

I don't know if the Apple site is having in mind that you want to work in Shake at the same time as you do flipbooks etc. Or if what they write about 4 threads is ONLY applicable to the GUI, while working and NOT while doing flipbooks, cause flipbooks are faster at max amount of threads. Feel free to test flipbook speeds and prove me different...

[h2opixels]

Just had to upgrade to 10.5 and sure enough, render performance has gone south
What is the most stable/fastest 10.5.x and QT 7.5.x version ?

The Apple tip seems to suggest setting to 4 cores just for RENDERING ... in my case the GUI (flipbooks) the app seems to work fine in default config (not altering maxThread =4).

Just realised that I was rendering from a ProRes HQ file (10bit) ... wonder if that is not helping ? (I had assumed that it's on output that i cant only go to 8bit).

With Apple support no longer being there it's going to get tricky as time goes by