Deadline - dreadfully slow

Deadline
1

Another issue I’m having is with Deadline’s speed with XSI. I’m testing a scene that should render extremely quickly. When I render it in Satellite mode it’s usually done in under 10 minutes.



Deadline has taken 40 minutes and it’s only 1/3rd of the way done (the difference between satellite and distributed in my case is only 1 processor, so there shouldn’t be this significant of a slowdown). I’ve monitored the render machine and it seems to stop at 94.3% done on each frame.



Also, I’ve noticed that it submits each frame as a new batch job, so the machine has to load and unload XSIbatch for every single frame - I’m sure this adds significantly to the slowdown.



Right now Deadline is reporting 25 seconds per frame render time, which should work out to about 25 minutes for the entire render - slower than satellite, but still 1/2 of what I’m experiencing at the moment.



And, as I indicated in my previous post, DL is still saving to the local directory on my render machine, rather than to the storage server’s UNC path.



Paul

2

I think I have figured out at least part of my slowdown.



I am using Final Gathering for this project and I have FG caching turned on. Since it’s submitting each frame as a separate XSIBatch job, it’s creating a new FGmap for each frame, rather than caching it.



However this does not explain why DL seems to hang occasionally. One frame sat for 10 minutes after it had completed and saved.



Paul

3

To speed up your Deadline renders, you can increase the task group size

(aka: chunk size) from 1 to 5 or 10. This way, the scene is loaded and

the FGmap is created once for every 5 or 10 frames. Increasing the

chunksize like this is recommended if you know ahead of time your frames

will only take seconds to render.



With regards to Deadline hanging, does this only seem to happen on the

last frame to finish rendering (note: not the last frame in the

sequence, but the last frame to reach the completed state)? If so, check

out this thread here:

http://support.franticfilms.com/WB/default.asp?action=9&fid=7&read=565



If it seems to be happening on random frames, then sounds like a known

problem with XSIbatch (not Deadline). Here are a couple of posts that

seem to support this:

http://www.softimage.com/Community/Xsi/Discuss/Archives/xsi.archive.0303/msg02074.htm

http://www.softimage.com/community/xsi/discuss/archives/xsi.archive.0606/msg00677.htm



Unfortunately, the renders seem to hang at random spots, so we can’t

simply parse the output for “Render Completed” or something similar,

kill xsibatch, then mark the task as complete.



Cheers,

4

Hi Ryan,



It’s exactly the second one. XSIBatch seems to just be hanging at random occasions.



I’m running 6.01 if that makes any difference.



I’ll also give XSI support a call and see what the latest news is on this issue.



Thanks for the quick reply!



Paul

5

I actually ran into the hanging problem once with XSI 6.01, so the

problem still exists (or so it seems). It’s actually the only time I’ve

ever seen or heard of the problem. If XSI support can provide any

insight, let us know!



Thanks!

  • Ryan