Network Rendering is slow!

[eddiemg]

Just got Network Rendering at my company, initial tests are proving very frustrating:

Rendering a still image, quality setting of maximum 96 samples, takes about 10 minutes on master machine alone (16 cores, 2.4GHz), without using the network render at all. When I sent the same exact render to the Network Render Queue, which INCLUDES the master machine and an additional machine with 8 cores, the render is taking about an hour! Can anybody help with this?

Thanks!

[DriesV]

Do you keep KeyShot running on the master system while the network job is running?

Dries

[Brandon Davis]

Inside the KeyShot 4 network queue, do you see 2 slaves connected with cores: 24 at the bottom right corner of the dialog? You will want to make sure both machines are setup as slaves. In your case the master will be both, a master and slave machine.

I assume you are using 4.2.7 for network rendering as well?

[eddiemg]

Thanks for your replies!

Both machines are connected, I'm getting a total of 24 cores. Using version 4.2.7.

Is there a difference between quitting Keyshot and pausing it in terms of resources? I'm finding that upon pausing, it's still going slower! And quitting is a mess because it's tending to freeze Keyshot and/or Network Queue. I've had a couple successes so far, but nothing that's consistent or repeatable, it's still running slow most of the time! Any other ideas?

Thanks again!

[Brandon Davis]

Can you share your computer specs for both machines?

[eddiemg]

Sure:
Machine 1, Master+Slave = 16 cores, 2.4Ghz per core, 16GB RAM
Machine2, slave, no keyshot on it = 8 core, 3GHz per core, 16GB RAM

Still getting slower render times when sending to the queue on large files.

[Brandon Davis]

This is very odd. I ran a couple of tests here and was not able to produce the results you are experiencing. How big is the file you are using? Also, at what resolution and file type are you rendering?

If possible would you be able to provide us with this scene? 

[Ruckus]

I would say that a job that takes 10 minutes to render on a single machine is not a very good candidate for network rendering.  Here's why...

First the KeyShot application is going to put together a package to send to the Master.  This takes time.  Then it has to send it to the Master.  This takes more time & depends on your network speed.  (in your case this step is very quick since your user machine and your Master are the same).

When the Master gets the job, it has to send that entire package to the Slave(s).  More time & again dependant on your network speed/bandwidth.  (The size of the package is also a factor of course.)  I suspect this may be where you are getting most of your delay.

If you are trying this over wireless connections, you will not be happy.  We were not satisfied until we upgraded our local subnet from from 100Mbps to 1Gbps.

You can tell if the network transfers are a problem or not by watching the Slave Status window of the Queue - How long does that Slave take before it returns the first tile?

Another factor could be disk space.  If you are low on free space on any of the drives where the "temporary" package is stored on the Master or Slave(s) then I/O times may also sow you down.

In general you will need to tune all of your machines & network for optimal performance.

[eddiemg]

Thanks everyone for your replies! With all the information, I was able to figure this out!
Thanks again!

[Pepster3D]

Eddiemg, what was the final result once you figured it out?