2 pc's worth it for network rendering?

[SgWRX]

hi. i use max and mental ray, currently max 9. i have done some network rendering with it and backburner. 1 pc is 1 cpu 3ghz and the other is core 2 duo 2ghz. i've recently tried some network rendering and found that on the core 2, render per frame has doubled vs. just doing it all on the one core 2 machine. in the past, a year or more ago i could have sworn it was much faster. for example, in an older animation project i had in my log files, the core 2 showed 20 second renders per frame and 1 cpu machine 50 seconds per frame. all seemed ok. now the core 2 alone will be 30sec but when network rendering it'll jump to 1min + and the other computer 1min and more per frame. it could be something that has changed, but i'm using standard mental ray materials and lights and no maps anywhere.

 

i got to thinking maybe it's my setup or maybe there just isn't as great an advantage using two machines to render, perhaps 4 machines would be the way to go for example to see a much bigger advantage.

 

so, if i were to upgrade to two new quad core machines identical or nearly identical in specs, would i run into similar problems (assuming i'm not messing something up with my scene files which is causing the problem described above?).

[wannabeartist]

Hi,

 

I don't have much experience in this, only couple of tests, but two things come to mind:

 

1) do you have the "use placeholder objects" option checked? I guess it's pretty vital for network renders

 

2) how fast is your network (router AND cables) - I think it can easily kill the benefit of having more PCs, if the data isn't moving really fast.

[raj_mohan]

hai

 

i read this thread you had mentioned

 

 

do you have the "use placeholder objects" option checked? I guess it's pretty vital for network renders

 

 

how to enable this option

 

rgds

 

raj

[wannabeartist]

It's in your render setup dialog (F10), processing tab, translator options rollout.