Limiting Iray use of CPU ?

Widdershins Studio

I couldn't find a setting, just wondering if I can limit Iray's CPU use to say 90% CPU or something ?

I just wanted  a litle space to do things like internet that becomes really slow when I render.

Thanks.

Ati

Here's how you do this on WIndows 8.1. XP was sort of the same, maybe a few things at different locations:

Press ctrl+alt+delete. From the big blue screen, select Task Manager. Go to the "Details" tab, and select Daz Studio. RIGHT click, and from the dropdown menu, select "Set affinity". Hopefully you get a couple of CPUs listed here, depending on your hardware. Untick a few of them, amnd click okay. The more you untick, the less overall cpu power DAZ will use.

larsmidnatt

Does Iray run in the daz exe or is it a seprate process? When I used to use 3DL I would just set the daz priority/affinity accordingly.

In task manager you can pull up processes. Right click on the process. You can change the affinity, or the priority. You could lower the priority, and it should leave some room for other apps that run at the Normal prority.

I preferred setting the affinity because I would just disable Daz from using 1 complete core on my system. However if you do this, you will likely be under working one processor, and your render could be using that extra power. I just found that sometimes using priority wasn't very smooth, and sometimes I would use something like photoshop in the background and giving that a full core was better than tinkering with the priority options.

Also depends on how many cores you have. If you have 4 or more, than disabling one from Daz shouldn't be too bad. If you only have 2, then you would only be giving the rendering 50%.

 

Ati2 beat me.

Fishtales

I  do that. I have four cores on an I5 and I set DAZ Studio to use three and then set it back to four if it is rendering overnight or if I will be away from the computer for a while.

Widdershins Studio

I have 6 cores to play with. Thanks all I will try with the cores thing :)

I'm hoping it will be less of an issue when I get my new GPU.

Widdershins Studio

That did the trick - turned of two threads/one core and CPU is giving something to play with now.

Thanks again everyone :)

Morpheon

I'd love for DAZ to build in a render throttle -- been wanting one for a long time now.

mjc1016

Why?

I just  don't get it...everybody complains about slow renders.  Then, when a renderer is included in Studio that can fly, what does everyone want...a damn throttle to slow the renders down! 

Rendering is VERY resource intensive!  Get used to it.  While rendering consider yourself very lucky if you can do ANYTHING!  Rendering should be the primary (or ONLY) thing that's happening.  Live without Youtube, Facebook and Twitter for the time it takes to render...

Hell, when I'm doing a long render I go the other way!  I set the render process to use the most resources it can!

namffuak

Instead of doing 'set affinity' which permanently locks Studio out of some cores, try this.

1) Copy and paste the desktop Studio icon for a second copy (so it won't get whacked when you install the next version of Studio)

2) Right-click on the copied icon and select "properties" and then the "shortcut" tab

3) Change the "target" command to this: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start /belownormal DAZStudio.exe

This will fire up Studio at 'below normal' priority any time you start it with this shortcut. If you're not trying to use the computer for anything else, Studio gets to play with all cores and all threads. Anything you want to do while Studio is running will run at a higher priority so it will get first shot at the cpu.

mikael-aronsson

If you just want to use the computer for other things sometimes a better choice might be to lower the priority on DS, it will normally run just the same as before and use all resources available, but if you use the computer for anything else it will temporary throttle down a little, works very good as long as you have a computer with plenty of juice (if it doesn't it's not a good computer for rendering anyway ;)

 

Ati

namffuak said:

Instead of doing 'set affinity' which permanently locks Studio out of some cores

As soon as you close DS, and start it again, it will use all CPUs again.

larsmidnatt

Ati2 said:

namffuak said:

Instead of doing 'set affinity' which permanently locks Studio out of some cores

As soon as you close DS, and start it again, it will use all CPUs again.

Exactly. And I think as others have mentioned, sometimes priority doesn't work quite as nicely for me. Affinity is more absolute, ensuring you have a core left to do random stuff. However some people prefer prioity, and you can also do that via the task manager as well(so you can change it as needed without relaunching the program).

mjc1016 said:

Why?

Don't be a grinch. But in reality we know people don't have dedicated machines for a single task most of the time. And while I have multiple boxes myself, I'm not going to turn on a second one if I don't have too.

Widdershins Studio

I just turned off one thread and left 11 going. It's enough to browse the net while I am waiting. I doubt it slows it down that much.

fastbike1

Having anNvidia GPU, I uncheck the CPU in the Render Settings>Advanced> devices screen. A typical Photostudio type render has ~38% CPU Utilization on my I7. That includes Excel and IE11 running as well as task manager and a gpu meter. 9GB main memory, 1.7Gb video memory.

FWIW, YMMV, etc

alan bard newcomer

I googled and found a little program called BES...or it may have been in one of these threads...
--- 
it says for xp/2000 but I'm using it with 7... just tell it how much to trim off... start it... limit daz --- I cut daz back by 15 percent... which means I can cancel a render if I want to as well as move my curser...

http://mion.faireal.net/BES/ ;

you can vary the amount of cutback... If I don't need the computer I cut it by 15% otherwise I can set it to as much as 35% and still have cpu cycle for other things...

 

nicstt

mjc1016 said:

Why?

I just  don't get it...everybody complains about slow renders.  Then, when a renderer is included in Studio that can fly, what does everyone want...a damn throttle to slow the renders down! 

Rendering is VERY resource intensive!  Get used to it.  While rendering consider yourself very lucky if you can do ANYTHING!  Rendering should be the primary (or ONLY) thing that's happening.  Live without Youtube, Facebook and Twitter for the time it takes to render...

Hell, when I'm doing a long render I go the other way!  I set the render process to use the most resources it can!

We like to complain I think; especially about what we don't have, and perceive as a need as opposed to a want.

Now I want some more dynamics. :) I may even need them.

mjc1016

nicstt said:

 

Now I want some more dynamics. :) I may even need them.

Now, a full blown physics system...both hard and soft body (which will provide cloth dynamics) with full particle support, is a NEED...an absolute necessity!

 

And the only reason I can think of to legitimately want to throttle the renderer....to give some extra juice to the physics sim.

Kerya

Creating a batch file to run a program at priority belownormal:
Go to the folder where your DAZStudio.exe resides.
Create a new text document with an Editor (txt) (not Word or something like that, that tends to add formatting).
Write:

start /belownormal DAZStudio.exe

save as DS4Low.txt
Rename to .bat (maybe you have to show file extensions first)
Answer with yes to the are you sure question.
Right click on the bat file to create a shortcut on your desktop.

Instead of using the DS icon on the desktop use the DS4Low icon to start DS.

For Poser it's the same procedure with
start /belownormal Poser.exe
or
Poserpro.exe
or ...

Widdershins Studio

Thanks I'll try that