Keyshot very bad performance (general weird behavior)

[zeved]

Hello Keyshot forum users!
I am new around here and this is my first post but I have a very urgent matter.

I am currently running Solidworks 2014 x64 and Keyshot 5 x64 for rendering under Windows 7 on a i7 2630QM processor (quad core, 8 threads) 4 gb ram, gt 520m 1gb (not that it matters for a CPU rendering) and it behaves really weird.
The rendering process (real time and background) is very very slow. It was not like this a while ago. I recently reinstalled all my software, the only difference being that i am now using Solidworks 2014 (instead of 2012) and Keyshot 5 instead of 4. The weird part is that when I start Keyshot my CPU clock downthrottles from 2.9 Ghz to 800 Mhz (this only happens with Keyshot!) and all cores are at 100% (this is normal, I know). I also tried older versions of Keyshot (4, 3) and the same thing happens, it downthrottles my CPU. I even tried 'overclocking' tools like setting a CPU multiplier to keep the CPU at 2.9 Ghz but no matter what i do it downthrottles it back to 800 Mhz. The drivers are all up to date and all. Any help is apreciated.

Sorry for bad english

[KeyShot]

In KeyShot 5 you can adjust the number of cores you use for realtime and offline rendering. Could that be a reason for the issues you are seeing?

[zeved]

Yes I Know that. I have selected 7 out of 8 possible 'cores'. When 8 cores were selected the system became unstable and unusable. Thus i selected 7 but there is no difference in the rendering speed..

[KeyShot]

I have not heard of this issue before. Could it be hardware related?

[TpwUK]

I am going to stick my neck out here and say it's a hardware issue. What's interesting is that it drops to 800 Mhz which is 1/2 the speed of the 1600 DDR3 RAM. So, you could have a dodgy FSB controller that throttles back when under duress or your computer has an inefficient power supply or cooling. My advice here is to get a third party app for stress testing your CPU and RAM. If you have a higher grade wattage PSU lying around going spare, then swap it over and test that to see if it fixes the problem.

It is fairly common for computer builders to build a PC with just enough power to get the computer through 'normal' office style usage and that they have not been designed for use as a graphics workstation.

Martin

[zeved]

Thank you for your reply.
I have noticed that when i plug out the AC adapter from the laptop (yes, it's a laptop, i know) the rendering goes smoothly and the processor is no longer at 800 Mhz (I have checked the power settings, it does not lower CPU frequency whether it's plugged in or not).
However, I have also noticed that Keyshot has very low performance only when I'm trying to render Solidworks 2014 projects. With 2013 it all goes smoothly.

Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have any ideas as to how can i go around this? I cannot keep the laptop to render on battery because some projects are too big and my battery would die.  I looked it up and i found i can open the project with SW 2013 but i can't really edit it there to save it and then render it in Keyshot.

[Rex]

Zeved,

Are you using the SolidWorks Plugin to import the geometry or saving and importing the SW files directly into KeyShot 5?

[zeved]

i tried both importing solidworks file and with the plugin, the same thing happens

[Rex]

Would you be able to send one of the SW 2014 files that you are seeing issues with to rex@luxion.com via keyshot.wetransfer.com so I can see how it performs on my machine?

i tried both importing solidworks file and with the plugin, the same thing happens