Newly Built Computer Performing Poorly

[sknoch]

Hello everyone.

 

I recently built a new tower and it does not appear to be performing very well for Chief X6, specifically ray tracing. This really sucks as this is one of the reasons I decided to build a desktop unit. I did a test this evening to see how it performed and I am terribly disappointed. It seems to run really slow and it pegs my cpu at 98+ % continually making it impossible to do anything else. I am hoping it is just a matter of setting everything up correctly.

 

Here are the system specs.

Motherboard: MSI Z97 gaming 3

CPU: Intel 4790k 4.0ghz

CPU cooler: Corsair H55

Memory: Patriot Viper 32gb DDR3 PC3-15000 1866mhz

Hard drive: Samsung 512gb SSD 850 Pro

Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4gb GDDR5

Power supply: Antec 850w

 

This system blows away anything I have ever run Chief on and it is providing the worst experience to date, quite a let down. For reference, I have been a Chief user for about 8 years. For the last 6 months I have run chief on a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 I-7 512gb tablet and have been surprisingly pleased with the overall performance. The Surface Pro handled everything for Chief quite easily with the exceptions of ray tracing, which it could do, but it was terribly taxing on the system. I would use my previous laptop for ray tracing duties which is a Samsung series 7 Chronos with a I-7 3635QM CPU clocked @ 2.4ghz, 8 gb of ram and a Nvidia GeForce GT 650m. While not ideal, this laptop performed admirably.  

 

 

Current ray trace is a simple interior garage shot with base settings and it has made 25 passes in 33 minutes and has had the cpu pegged the whole time, does this sound right? pic is attached for reference.

 

I really thought this new system would impress, am I missing something? Any help and or insight would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,
Shawn

[Joe_Carrick]

I don't know the specs on your CPU.  How many cores does it have?  This is critical for RT.  If it has 4 cores then it may be a setting to allow Chief to use more than one that needs to be adjusted.

[Gawdzira]

25 passes in 33 mins does not sound very slow. It all depends on how the raytrace settings are set up, number of lights and the complexity of objects in the scene. I usually render at around 2500p wide and for an interior shot if I can get one pass in 60 seconds that would be screaming fast on interiors.

[jcaffee]

Shawn,

 

Ensure you've set application profiles for Chief Architect Premier X6.exe AND ChiefArchitectRayTracer.exe in the NVIDIA Control Panel.  Try various setting to eliminate conflicts between CA and the NVIDIA drivers.

 

Ray trace will use 100% of CPU resources.  However, I don't have any problems letting the RT cook in the background while doing other, non-CA, stuff.

 

jon

[HumbleChief]

Shawn,

 

The 4790k is a lot of CPU and you should see good RayTrace times but good RT times are never fast enough.

 

Did you try and directly compare RayTrace times between your new rig and your old laptop? If your times with the new rig are slower than your old LT then there's a setting that's wrong or there's another problem. If your new rig is faster than your old, by how much?

 

If your new rig is faster than your old then there is one more, much more difficult, adjustment you have to make - your expectations.

 

I got a rig with dual Xeon's and I think the RT times were halved from my older i7 - still takes forever in my mind. So unless you compare directly, with the same file, same settings, your expectations might be getting in the way. If the new is slower than the old call the tech support guys, they are a great help.

 

Also like the other posters said RayTracing takes 100% of the CPU (mine pegs all 12 cores at 100%) unless you have your preferences/render/raytrace set to "Optimize for Chief Architect" which should use less CPU and leave more resources for Chief. While I'm RayTracing and all 12 corers are pegged I can still use Chief with no problems so that's another thing to look at. Get's me back to the tech support guys.

 

Let us know what you discover.

[KenL-sdd]

Shawn,
If you post your plan here I will ray trace it. Let me know what camera you are using so that I will have the same settings.
I usually stop at 10 passes. The do not get a great deal better. For me 10 passes takes about 2:30 - 3:00 minutes.
 

[KenL-sdd]

Here is an example of a work in progress. 2:52 minutes. 10 passes.

The settings can change the time greatly.

Old xeon dual x5690. Stock no overclocking. Just old

[sknoch]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies, I really appreciate it!

 

I am working through some of the issues I was having. Mouse now works properly (moved the usb dongle from the front panel to a usb spot in the back directly connected to the MOBO). Based on the replies, I have reset my ray trace expectations.

 

I think my biggest issue is currently is my inability to do other things while ray tracing. The most notable is when trying to surf the internet. IE continually freezes and hangs up while running a ray trace. Is there a way to prioritize resources?

I cant attach the file I am currently working on as it is 32mb.

 

Attached is a shot I did this morning it is 10 passes and took about 30 minutes.

 

[HumbleChief]

The shot looks good but no way to tell if it's fast without your settings and the plan to compare times. 10 passes in 30 minutes is really fast - or really slow depending on the lighting, settings, photons, caustics etc.

 

Run the same RT on your older LapTop and see what you get. Also send screen shots of your settings - advanced etc. and that will get you a lot of much better help.

 

BTW the audio on internet video like YouTube takes a cr@p while RayTracing here - should I stop watching cat videos? 

 

You can change the settings as advised above if you want the priority to go to Chief instead of RayTracing. I've never tried it because I want to cook my RT's as fast as possible

[Gawdzira]

How many lights do you have "on" when rendering that exterior?

[Gawdzira]

You can attach that file, zip it and it will shrink smaller than the  25mb max limit.

[RevolutionDB]

FWIW, here's my two cents:

First off, cores are king but frequency is also important. I'm running an i7-3930K OC'd @ 4.4Ghz. It's a six-core (12 with hyperthreading) so at the same frequency theoretically mine would be faster than your quad-core (8 with hyperthreading) assuming Chief can use all available cores, which I think it does. Think more cores and fast clock speed = faster renders.

 

The clock speed and number of cores on the 4790k is greater than the Surface 3 i7-4650U processor, so your new PC should be faster. You should run the exact same raytrace at the same resolution with the same settings on both and see how they compare.

 

Don't expect to use your powerful PC for other tasks when it's rendering. The processor is maxed out on that task, using all cores to their potential. There's no overhead left for other tasks at the same time. Whether your computer is fast or slow, the rendering process uses all of its processing power to the max.

 

Hope this helps.

[TheKitchenAbode]

If multi tasking while Raytracing is the issue then you need to reduce the number of dedicated processor cores by at least one. "Edit" "Preferences" "Rendering" "Raytrace". Never had this issue with X6 but as soon as I upgraded to X7 my system ground to a halt when Raytracing. This solved the issue.

 

 

Graham