Maya software render not using full processor power

[Anonymous]

I'm using a custom built Mac Pro tower;

2x3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon

96 GB 133 MHz DDR3 ECC

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 TI 6144 MB

OSx Yosemite 10.10.5

When I render using the Maya software renderer (2016) it barely uses any of the processor power at all, the bars on the CPU usage struggle to get past 10-20%, and most are not even moving at all. As a result the renders take at least twice as long as they normally would.

When I render the same scene using Mental Ray every processor bar goes up to full 100% and the image gets rendered nice and fast.

I have tried adjusting the numbers for 'use all available processors' both in the batch render options and the Maya software render globals -unchecking the auto box and putting various numbers in there and it's made no difference.

Anyone come across this before?

[Nadja.Bueckmann]

Hi @Anonymous,

is the behavior specific to one scene ? If yes, could you provide me that scene?

Additionally, could you send me a screenshot of your task manager when rendering with Maya Software Renderer? 

Do you use all the available CPUs?

Best, Nadja

[Anonymous]

Hi, no problem, here's some screen grabs of mid-render;

-software with processors set to 24

-software with 'use all available' checked

-Mental ray with default settings, showing all processors up to 100%

I'll also post the test scene I created, it's really basic just to see what happens, although the same happens whatever scene I use. The software render takes about 3 mins, whilst the mental ray render takes seconds. I turned up the max samples to 2 and 4 just to push it in mental ray so that it took long enough for me to actually manage to catch a screen grab!

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Here's the test scene.

[Nadja.Bueckmann]

Hi @Anonymous,

thanks a lot for the scene.

I can reproduce the issue on my machine. It seems to be related to a Mac, as the issue does not occur on my PC.

Could you try to render the image in IPR? With IPR it renders in the expected time on my system.

Best, Nadja

[Anonymous]

It renders really fast but that's because there's no raytracing enabled in IPR. I believe it's a limitation of IPR with Maya software that you can't use raytracing...?

[Nadja.Bueckmann]

Hi @Anonymous,

that´s true raytracing is not supported in IPR.

Can you try to turn off multi threading and see if the rendering is getting faster?

Best, Nadja

[Anonymous]

I don't really know how to turn off multi-threading on a mac!

Plus it wouldn't be an ideal workflow to have to disable multi-threading every time I wanted to use the Maya software renderer and then back on for everything else I do.

I think maybe it's just this particular mac custom build doesn't like the software renderer!

[Nadja.Bueckmann]

Hi @Anonymous,

here you can find an article how to disable HyperThreading on a Mac:

How to disable hyperthreading on mac os x yosemite.

Best, Nadja

[Anonymous]

I had the same problems when using Maya Batch render on Window, and here is my solution:

Change the Maya Batch Render process to higher priority.

1. Running Maya Batch Render
2. Open Windows Tasks Manager (Ctr + Alt + Del)
3. Right click MayaBatch.exe process and select Go to details
4. Right click MayaBatch.exe process again, then Set priority to High or Realtime
5. If you are using Windows 7: Right click MayaBatch.exe process and go down to set priority. Then choose either High or Realtime

Be careful though, this hogs ALOT of RAM.

If these steps can fixed your problem, then each time make Maya Batch Render you should repeat these steps.

OR In case you wanna permanently set priority for MayaBatch process, let us the software like: Process Lasso Pro (buy it or Google for crack)

Hope it helps.

[mspeer]

Hi!

It is not recommended to change the priority of the Maya Batch Render process or any other process in Windows.

It also will not help if a renderer is not optimized for multi-threading. It only helps when an other process blocks CPU resources which means that CPU usage is anyway up to 100%, but then this problem (other process) should be fixed.

[Anonymous]

@mspeer Thanks for clarify. Let me find if there are any other software/process from my computer blocking CPU usage.

[pcuso]

Totally disagree with mspeer, changing priority makes the point, difference of doing this is that render will finish 5 times earlier. Looking into task manager, Maya batch always use 4 of 20 CPUs I got. If I change prio it becomes full core use.