Specifying number of cores

[swashbuckler]

Would it be possible to specify the number of cores that KeyShot has available to use when running?

For example, I normally have Illustrator/Photoshop/Unigraphics NX open at the same time, and it would be good to have KS able to run in a slimmer mode.
Performance mode works well for this to an extent, but it would be nice to have more control. VMWware Fusion allows control of the number of cores used for virtual machines, which keeps Fusion from taxing all the available CPU.

Let me know if my explanation even makes sense.

Thank you!

[idesignstuff]

+1 for this suggestion.
We all use more than one app at a time. Once KS gets its way with the hardware, even our email apps are on their knees. I'd really like to see a throttle setting that would be adjustable on the fly. When I'm wanting to go do something else and don't mind waiting a few minutes longer, I could throttle back KS4.X and have a still-usable machine. This could be either leaving a core free or throttle percentage to evenly free up processor ticks for other things, or even to manage heat load on a less capable machine.
In my team, we mostly run Dell Precision laptops, and they have hot video cards and processors (Nvidia K500M + 8 core i7 @ 2.7GHz). These things cook themselves when we are running KS4.

Speaking of video cards, when will KS4 be smart enough to use the idling 4GB of Vram and GPU (with its own fan) for extra horsepower?

Thanks for the work so far. It's getting really good.

[DriesV]

In the meantime (on Windows), I 'release' cores from KeyShot by setting CPU affinity in Windows Task Manager. You can specify how many cores (logical) KeyShot can use, or more specifically how many cores it should NOT use.
It's a quick and dirty fix, but it works well enough for me. I started using it to get descent performance in SolidWorks while KeyShot is running in the background. Without freeing up cores, SolidWorks gets very sluggish.

Please note that the affinity setting is not permanent. It needs to be reset whenever KeyShot is restarted. It also needs to be set for every running instance of KeyShot. I don't know if there are tools to set affinity permanently...

Dries

[DriesV]

Btw, just discovered this:
Process Lasso

It's a great (Windows) tool to permanently free up cores from KeyShot. You can configure any cores and any number you like. It's done through a permanent CPU affinity setting.
I just tested it and it works great to keep SolidWorks running smoothly while KeyShot is rendering in the background.
Good stuff!

Doesn't cost much either...

Dries