I just purchased a new PC which contains hyperthreading. Hyperthreading is a new technology in the latest P4 chipset. You also have to have a supporting motherboard and OS (XP or better, Win2000 dosen't support it properly). Hyperthreading changes each processor into 2 processors giving the user time back on their machine (you can render an image while using another instance of Vue creating your next masterpeice and photoshop and poser all at once). My new box is a dual so it makes it into a quad (don't know if these benchmarks will be the same on a single processor PC). I rendered an image with Hyperthreading on and off to check the difference, while not doing any other functions on the PC. My concern was that the average processor speed on performance monitor would not go above 50% while rendering except if I started rendering another render or did photoshop work etc (therefore the extra, above 50%, was from the other process). Hyperthreading On: 235 seconds Hyperthreading Off: 223 seconds Only a 5% gain with it off. My conclusion is that hyperthreading only has minimal hinderance to rendering times but gives greater usability to your system while rendering in the background. Sacada.

You have a Dual Xeon Cool! Whats the MHz of your baby? I have a Dual Athlon MP 2200 and get some pretty good numbers but would love to get my hands on a Dual Xeon 3.06. From your test it looks like Hyperthreading hurts Vues performance, good to know.

Dave

Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate it. - Charles :)

First off, HyperThreading does NOT "turn one processor into two". You still have 2 processors. Second, I get the distinct impression that Vue is not using multithreading to begin with, though I'm uncertain about whether that is due to a limitation of Vue or a setting. That would explain the 50% usage; if it's running single-threaded, then the best case usage it can achieve is 50% of your system. This is further evidenced by the fact that you lost performance with HT on; it can at times hurt single-threaded performance a bit.

Say, a bunch of us hardware techies checked out the new "hyperthreading" P4's and concluded that this was mostly hype on the part of Intel. We did some controlled tests and found no real gain at all, in almost any kind of processes. There are some long-winded and heavily technical papers on the web that go into all this, but the gist is that the only speed gains are for program processes written specifically for this method of pipelining. Mostly a marketing ploy by IBM. And, as Thalaxis says, you definitely don't get "two processors" so your rendering times won't speed up due to the "hyperthreading" capabilities of this new P4. However, Thalaxis, I've got software that looks at the "threading", and it does appear to be that Vue is executing multi-threads. But, there is no way to tell how well it is "managing" them or optimizing without looking at the program code. Everyone should note that multithreading is not the same is making use of dual processors. Vue definitely does a good job of exercising both processors in a dual system - normally to the max.

In Cinema4D, HT almost always improves performance by around 20%. I've heard everything from "it's just marketing bunk" to "it's the greatest thing since sliced bread". In actuality, it's neither. For some applications (especially enterprise- related stuff that is extremely multithreaded) HT improves performance significantly. For some applications, it does not. It has improved with every iteration of the P4, and it will only get better with the next ones. Is there a setting for Vue to enable multithreading, or is that an automatic thing? (I'm asking because it will be relevant to me soon, when I get my P4 + HyperThreading.)

Vue does take advatage of multiprocessing systems. I did a test between my bothers P4 3.06 and my dual Athlon MP 2200. If Vue did not utilize both my CPU's then my bothers P4 would have blew me away but instead my machine beat his soundly. Check out the results yourself.

Elidor

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320 x 116 Final

320 x 116 Preview

P4 3.06 HT

2 hr 3 min 32 sec

15 min 23 sec

P3 800

7 hr 38 min 22 sec

52 min 22 sec

Dual Athlon MP 2200

1 hr 32 min 56 sec

12 min 27 sec

Hyperthreading is not same as Dual CPU system but it does help certain apps. Cinebench did work better with Hyperthreading turned on, however I never did test Vue on my brothers computer with Hyperthreading turned off.

Revisiting the points I was trying to make.

Without HT on, Vue is definately utilising both processes to the max (100% each for the entire job). During this process running other applications becomes clunky and I often give up (save rendering until night).

With HT on I can now use other applications with ease with only a 5% cost to rendering time.

Sacada.

PS. davidrivera: Specs = 2.66 each and its vvvveeeeerrrrryyyy nice. Though I create more complicated scenes now I have more power. My latest image (You Cheated!!!) had a .vue file of 215 megs, included DOF and took over 28 hours to render (with HT off) and both processors at 100%.

Thanks for the info! I was interested in the HT as well, not for increased performance, but rather for the ability to multitask. Thanks again.

Considering that money is no object, what would be the ultimate specs for a machine using vue and other 3d softwares? I would appreciate it if all you tech gurus could come up with a detailed list( to the model number on the mother board for instance..)of all the required components( again, money is no object) for both pentiums and AMDs. Also would you advise getting the machine from the big names( Dell, IBM, Etc...) or buying separate components and making your own? I am due for a new machine soon. Thanks guys,

In this market, there is not a large advantage in building your own machine, as far as cost goes. There is still some, but the margin is lower than ever before. If you are not an experienced system integrator, I would definitely recommend getting a name-brand rig (Boxx, Dell, not IBM -- IBM is overpriced, and the prices that I've seen for IBM machines reflect my mother's employee discount). The most uber-badass workstation rig money can buy is the brand-spanking-new HP Itanium2 box... or at least, it will be when running native software. Since there isn't any native software that is of use for content creation on the Itanium as yet (at least not that you can buy), the next best bet is a dual Xeon rig, using Intel's e7505 (I think) motherboard, and the 3.06 GHz Xeon DP that was just released with a 1 MB cache. If you're a little patient, the 2 GHz Opterons should be available in just a couple of weeks (it's due for launch on August 5th), if there aren't any more delays. At 1.8 GHz it's very fast, but at 2.0 GHz it might well be king of the desktop for a few weeks. Graphics... cost no object, get a FireGL or Quadro, though to be honest I'm sticking to the Radeon and GeForce families myself. The Radeon 9800Pro is the present king of the hill. These cards are getting to be so powerful that it is getting harder and harder to justify the higher price tag for the Quadro and FireGL boards that use the same processors and memory. Still... for a no-holds-barred monster machine, I'd just go to www.boxxtech.com and rig up the highest-end Xeon DP or dual Opteron rig I could finagle with their online configurator. :)

According to Steve Bell, Vue does not take advantage of Hyperthreading. I recently purchased a new Sony Vaio P4 2.5GHZ and it seems that Vue runs SLOWER than on my Athlon 900mHz. It looks like the computer is using only 50 percent of the processor to render. So, you can turn this hyperthreading off? Someone PLEASE tell me how, since all I can get from Sony is "Hyperthreading is a wonderful new performance enhancer that increases...blah blah balh." Do I do it through the bios? Is there a way using XP (I really DON'T like XP) to turn it off? I'd much rather have ONE processor chewing on this program at 2.5 Ghz than having two VIRTUAL processors at 1.25 Ghz... -Dr. Nash

A Vaio P4? Are you sure it's not a P4m? The P4m does not support HyperThreading. It's a BIOS option. It's not two virtual processors running at 1.25 GHz. That is not even vaguely close to what's actually going on. The idea is that while a lot of people refer to the P4 as being "narrow and fast" (mostly this is how the clueless compare the G4 and the P4), the fact is that the P4 has a lot of execution resources. It has in fact nearly as many functional units as teh G4. HT is a method that allows the processor to schedule instructions with greater flexibility when using multiple threads, so that it can find more ways to feed instructions into all of those functional units. In other words, HT is one way that Intel has been working to improve the "IPC" of the P4. Initially, there were some issues with HT and cache aliasing that hampered single-threaded performance (which is why it was initially limited to the Xeon family, where single- threaded performance is not much of an issue since the Xeon's primary market is servers). You're probably running into the P4's biggest weakness: it needs memory bandwidth. Most laptops using P4m's don't have enough to keep it fed, so they can't showcase anywhere near the performance of a desktop P4 with a Springdale or Canterwood chipset, even though they are based on the same core. Also, since HT increases the amount of work the processor is doing, it also makes it hotter. It will not be supported in P4m's until early next year (Prescott variant) according to Intel's roadmaps.

Hey thank you Thalaxis. You are quite knowledgeable. I am a sys builder (among other things) and am planning to build myself a new machine in a month or so. I think I'll take a look at the dual Xeon rig you mentioned. I appreciate your comments - they're useful to more than sacada. Personally, I really do like the nVidia geForece cards for 3D work - much more than the ATI Radeon's. The OpenGL is the nVidia cards always seems more standard/stable and always works well with a wide variety of my software programs(which are MAX and Truespace, Vue, et.al.)

Attached Link: GamePC Xeon review

No problem, forester. That's why I replied :) I've had pretty good luck with Radeons lately, thought it did take ATI a few driver iterations to get their OpenGL implementation in shape. I'm getting myself a Shuttle XPC (SN61G2, the Springdale one) and stuffing a 9800Pro in it shortly. From what I've seen from other people's tests using Cinema4D, it's extremely fast. I did a bit of looking around; E7505 boards aren't easy to find, but they're not outrageously expensive. There is a review up at gamepc.com (linked), that gives a pretty good idea as to how well the P4/XeonDP performs with a fair variety of workstation applications. BTW -- AMD is supposedly going to be releasing the 2 GHz Opterons in a couple of weeks... that might be well worth a look. There are a couple of dual-CPU Opteron boards built for workstations (i.e. that include AGP) in the works that should be available by then, so hopefully the Arima/Rioworks HDAMB won't be the only one by then. BTW, the HDAMB is $299... not bad for a dual Opteron board with AGP and support for 8 GB ram.

Not bad at all, Thalaxis! I'm used to coffing up around $500 for motherboards every few years, so $299 is a good deal. Thanks for the link, too. I'm going to check it out right now.

If you get one and I get one, and we link up, we can build a spaceship, no?

Thalaxis, Thanks for your response, but I think you may have missed the point of my message. The VAIO IS a desktop and it runs the 2.59GHZ p4 and is labeled as using hyperthreading, which, although in a non-technical forum I used a euphamism, I understand reserves system resources by allowing programs which are DESIGNED to take advantage of hyperthreading to run more efficiently by "threading" the instructions through the processor. The euphamism was used since at full burn the system shows only 50 percent processor usage. It also doesn't FEEL 2 and a half times faster than my old Athlon 900Mhz. I am, of course, using the memory which came suplied (512 meg) and the supplied video accelerator. The jist of my message is that Vue, according to Steve Bell of E-ON, is NOT designed to use hyperthreading and therefore I am not getting the full advantage of the processor. Some of the forums on Hyperthreading support this statement if the application was not designed to take advantage of it. (Photoshop is. Vue is not.) I suppose what I was really asking in the last sentence was how to access the BIOS on this computer? On splash/startup I see no "hit F4 for setup" or anything like that. It seems that no matter what keys I touch it still just boots up to XP. Sony, of course, merely says "Not allowing windows access to it's resources can damage the system. We recommend not tampering with the BIOS settings which are designed for maximum performance of your new SONY VAIO system" Sorry for any mixup there. The question remains, how do you access the BIOS on this machine since Sony is not going to be forthcoming on this subject? Dr. Michael R. Nash

Before I forget -- I think I was mistaken about the motherboard; the one at NewEgg was the Asus single-CPU Opteron board based on the nForce3Pro. That one was $299. Anyway... I honestly don't know how to get access to the bios on a Vaio. I was just thinking of my Vaio -- which is a laptop. :-/ Anyway... it sounds like we have some conflicting information here. We have one report that indicates that Vue is multithreaded, and another that says that it cannot use HyperThreading... which implies that it is not multi- threaded. Try rendering the same scene on both machines, and see what you get for rendertimes; what you're seeing is not what you think. When HT is enabled, the OS reports to the user that it has 2 CPUs. So, the task manager shows you two CPUs. If the application that is running is only using one thread, then it will only use one of the virtual CPUs, so it will show you 50% usage. You would see exactly the same thing if you had a dual CPU (w/o HyperThreading) setup, and ran one single-threaded application on it. Without HyperThreading, a 2.6 GHz P4 is not actually going to be 2.5x faster than a 900 MHz Athlon. The relative clock rates are not directly comparable, because of the difference between the two architectures. It SHOULD be considerably faster, though. Give it a try, and see if it's true. Also check your virtual memory settings, and monitor your memory usage... and, being a Vaio, check to see if there's any pre-installed stuff eating up compute cycles (most vendors these days include stuff that is supposed to make your life easier, but has the side effect of wasting processor time).

Here is the cut and pasted e-mail from E-on. I have been using Vue on an Athlon 900MHz machine and have recently purchased a new box. (Sony VAIO PCV-RS 320 P4 2.53 GHz with 'hyperthreading') Vue does not, suprisingly, seem to run faster. In fact sometimes it seems to run slower than on my old machine. Vue has crashed occasionally under the new XP system and when I attempt a Ctrl-Atl-Delete end program the cpu usage shows only 50 percent. Does Vue support 'hyperthreading' technology on a single CPU system? If not, are there any updates in the works to take advantage of it? I understand this is not a high priority, but any users that purchase a new system will undoubtedly have a "Hyperthreaded" system. Any correspondence will be appreciated. Dr. Michael R. Nash Posted by: Steve Bell On: 2003/07/16 12:17:32 Hi Michael, I'm not all that surprised. The Athlon is really good at 3D rendering, while the P4 is not... Vue 4 is not designed to benefit from HyperThreading technology. I don't know if any updates are in the works, but what i do know is that you should at least update to the latest release (currently 4.12). Best regards. Steve Bell I am now running an render test. I'll report on it shortly. Thanks for the reply, Thalaxis MN

Result: Old Athlon 900Mhz- 1 hour 43 minutes P4 Sony Vaio 2.59 GHz- 43 minutes Identical files, quality at broadcast, 1078X782 I guess it's just not as fast as I thought it should be... MN

Nice pic! And thanks for the rendering time data. These posts help all of us.

I agree about the pic! I think that your real mistake was in understimating the Athlon :)

Thanks Thalaxis- I am about to copy and paste your comments and get my thoughts together. I do like the Boxx machines and also like the box design itself. I also like Dell, but never thought HP workstations could be so great as you indicated. So now the issue is which machine!? Any further thoughts would also be appreciated. Thanks again, Nick

Don't get your hopes too far up about the uber-sexy HP rigs just yet... they will run exceedingly poorly with x86 code. Wait and see who's porting stuff when before you jump on them. If the software you want to run is Itanium2 native, however, then the Itanium2 will be quite a screamer, as the rest of the performance measurements indicate. I would price out the Dell Xeon rig and the Boxx Opteron rig. If you compare a 3.06 GHz XeonDP with 1 MB cache (well, a dual I mean) to an (also dual) Opteron 2 GHz machine, you should be able to get comparable performance from either rig, and there is a possibility for better performance from the Opteron if PGI's AMD64 compiler optimizes well for Opteron native code. There are too many ifs and maybes involved to provide a good recommandation right now, because there are too many variables, and two of the three platforms (Itanium2 and Opteron) are too new to be sure about. Both will sink or swim based on software support...