Howdy --

New Mac, New Version of Carrara, New Problems!

So, here's the deal.

If I render a scene in Carrara using multi-core rendering (with "Enable Multi Threading" ticked in the Rendering tab in the Rendering Room), the scene will render significantly slower than it renders with a single core ("Enable Multi Threaing" not ticked in the Rendering tab). 

I say again:  using multi-core rendering is rendering significantly slower than using single core rendering.

AND this is happening in Carrara 5.1 Pro on a G5 quadcore using Tiger, and in Carrara 6.03 Pro, on a BRAND SPANKING NEW MacPro Octo-Core using Leopard.

On the Daz forums I see that Kix has posted a benchmark test and it seems that other folks are having this same issue.

Why would this be?  Is there any way I can get Carrara to actually take advantage of this screaming new machine?  (Or for that matter, the screaming old quadcore?)  Is it just a Mac thing?  Did Eovia (and now Daz) release a substandard build on the Mac?  Or is it something that appears on PCs as well?

Anyone have any ideas? 

Thanks!
Dex

Hope for a 64 bit version?

I believe this has been corrected in the next patch which I understand is very near releasing. This is a subject near and dear to my heart. ;)

Oh, Mark, I SO hope you're right!  That will make me very very happy. 

I haven't heard back from Daz yet (though to be fair, it's still only 8:20 AM in Utah where they're located, and I posted my inquiry last night at around midnight Utah time), but your response gives me hope that they're at least aware of the issue and are hopefully working on it!

Thanks!
Dex

PS:  By the way, if you're interested, you can see the second under-a-minute promotional episode (Promosode) of the project we're working on here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSR_BzNudTc

There's a full resolution (1920x1080x24FPS) version for download at the internet archive here:
http://www.archive.org/details/golden_applesauce_2

Odd, I just ran a quick test and when I had multithreading on it was much quicker. Just a simple set up and a frame when from 10 seconds with multithreading to 23 without it.  Will the patch make it faster than this?

This is a MacIntel specific bug, so if you're running a PC or a PPC Mac, you won't see it. Where the issue really pops up is quad cores and dual quad cores.

if your machine is so "kick ass" you could try running the pc version under wine ( the windows emulator and see if that renders faster. ;)

Nice suggestion about wine, but I don't have the windows version of C6P, and, frankly, am loathe to run windows on my Mac. I switched to mac because I'm not terriblyfond of windows.... Daz has taken the bug report down, saying it's fixed with the next release. Now it seems to be just a matter of waiting for the next release. Any news as to when that might be? Dex

I run C6Pro on a Dual Core Athlon64x2 processor with 2GB Corsair RAM.  I find just the opposite.  It took almost twice as long to render the same scene when all I had was a single core Athlon 64 of about the same speed.  I run Windows XP, so I am not sure if it might be something OS related.  I do know a friend of mine with a system very similar to what you described said that my system seems to run C6 Pro faster than his Mac version.  A lot of folks don't realize this but there is a difference between AMD and Intel double and quad core CPUs.. AMD multi cores have seperate cache for for each core.  The Intel chips share cache between 2 cores which slows down the chip.  This might be the issue since I believe the G5 uses an Intel chip.

Quote - Howdy --

New Mac, New Version of Carrara, New Problems!

So, here's the deal.

If I render a scene in Carrara using multi-core rendering (with "Enable Multi Threading" ticked in the Rendering tab in the Rendering Room), the scene will render significantly slower than it renders with a single core ("Enable Multi Threaing" not ticked in the Rendering tab). 

I say again:  using multi-core rendering is rendering significantly slower than using single core rendering.

AND this is happening in Carrara 5.1 Pro on a G5 quadcore using Tiger, and in Carrara 6.03 Pro, on a BRAND SPANKING NEW MacPro Octo-Core using Leopard.

On the Daz forums I see that Kix has posted a benchmark test and it seems that other folks are having this same issue.

Why would this be?  Is there any way I can get Carrara to actually take advantage of this screaming new machine?  (Or for that matter, the screaming old quadcore?)  Is it just a Mac thing?  Did Eovia (and now Daz) release a substandard build on the Mac?  Or is it something that appears on PCs as well?

Anyone have any ideas? 

Thanks!
Dex

Hi, Sparrownightmare --

Yes, it seems to be a Mac OS issue, but according to the DAZ bug-tracker, it's been fixed and is awaiting the next release.  That release may have happened already, but I dont' know for sure as I've been away for work.

Here's hoping they got it fixed for us Mac users!

:D