Network render on Dual Xeon like AE pro?

sonofmickel wrote on 4/23/2004, 11:02 AM
Is there a way to network render on a dual proc machine like After Effects? A tutorial may make the price of admission a whole lot nicer for some people! Me included. I hear that AE gets a respectable boost using a multi proc machine when setting up virtual machines to render. Will this technique work with Vegas Net? Will it work with a dual Xeon set to hyperthreading for a total of four machines or would a person leave hyperthreading of and just use a two proc machine? Anyone know?
Thanks
Erik

Comments

SonyPJM wrote on 4/23/2004, 11:41 AM
I'm not sure what the deal with AE is but you can run multiple
instances of the Vegas Network Render Service (VegSrv) on a single
machine. Just make sure you have plenty of RAM. Here's a brief
description of how to get the second instance of VegSrv running:

1) Make a copy of the file named 'NetRenderService.config' (located in
the Vegas install dir)... For this example's sake we'll call it
'NetRenderService2.config'

2) Open NetRenderService2.config with a text editor (Notepad) and
change the value of the 'port' attribute in the Xml element named
'channel' to something other than the current value. By default, the
port value is 53704 so, for example, change it to 53705.

3) Open up a command prompt (type 'cmd' from the run dialog in
Windows' Start menu). Then type the following 2 commands:

cd "c:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas 5.0\"
VegSrv50.exe -nosave -config NetRenderService2.config

If needed, replace the default install dir in the first command with
whatever you chose during installation.

4) Now that you have two instances of VegSrv running, you need to add
the second instance to your editing machine's list of Renderers. Run
VegSrv on your editing machine (which may be the same machine that's
running both instances of VegSrv already, in which case go to the
first instance of VegSrv). Click on the Renderers tab and select
'Advanced' in the View combo box. Finally, enter the full url of the
second instance of VegSrv which should be something like this:

tcp://myMachineName:53705/NetRenderService.rem

At this point you should be ready to kick off a distributed network
render job which will be serviced by both instances of VegSrv running
on the same machine.
PAW wrote on 4/23/2004, 11:44 AM

Thanks

This I have got to try.

Paul
sonofmickel wrote on 4/24/2004, 6:20 AM
I am sure it is just a formatting error. I will need a better explanation than the previous one.. My problem is the whole c:\ Program Files etc... sequence of events. I am not entirely stupid but I need to know"EXACTLY" what the command is. I can get to the command prompt then all hell breaks loose. You have a path in quotes and a path not in quotes????? How do I interpret these commands? Help me please.
Thanks
sonofmickel wrote on 4/24/2004, 7:36 AM
I have two instances of NetRenderService runing, set up and recognized by the original NetRenderService. When I try to render, I get the EULA violation. I am running all three instances on a Dual Xeon not across multiple platforms. I have 2 gigs of ram and plenty of HD space.
Any help apreciated.
Thanks
Erik
B_JM wrote on 4/24/2004, 7:57 AM
this works GREAT

i get now 95-100% load on all cpu's

i made a batch file to run in the start up folder to start the second VegSrv -- as only one will start on boot up (even with option checked - start on boot)

your instruction #4 above was confusing - because i didnt have "two instances of VegSrv running" untill i started a second one (the default one)manually. But it went smoothly ..
B_JM wrote on 4/24/2004, 8:02 AM
it's easy -- first you change to the vegas install directory (first command)

cd "c:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas 5.0\"

it has to be in quotes because it's a long file name ...


second command is not a path - it's a command ...

VegSrv50.exe -nosave -config NetRenderService2.config


you can just paste these into the command window (there is cut and paste inside a command prompt window ) and not even worry about what they mean .

i put it into a batch file myself

SVoBa wrote on 4/25/2004, 8:12 AM
I'm glad the feature is now available.

But, this is totally gross! (for a product coming from SONY)

I was expecting to select a check box, or something like that, during installation of Vegas 5 to say whether rendering on both (or multiple) processors is to be allowed.

This does give me pause about upgrading to Vegas 5.

--svb
B_JM wrote on 4/25/2004, 10:51 AM
its always 'allowed' , just follow the directions ..

on several rendering programs we have the lic is per CPU , so this is no big deal ..

SonyPJM wrote on 4/26/2004, 7:35 AM

I just tried it (again) and cannot reproduce the EULA violation
problem when doing a network render with three instances of VegSrv
running on a single machine.

My best guess is that you're not using version 5.0a (the update
that you can download from our web site). If you're running 5.0 (the
version that shipped on the CD), the problem may be caused by
something that was fixed for 5.0a.
sonofmickel wrote on 4/26/2004, 7:57 PM
I am using the demo, 5.0a.
f I can get this to work right and it makes a difference, I will buy Vegas 5. I want to switch from FCP4 to a wintell machine for the faster evreything. Vegas is the only slow thing i have (render wise not working wise). I will keep trying.

Here is the message I get when trying to render:

Label: Beginning Render Job: D:\Render Farm\Untitled.avi
Error: render job 'mycomputername:53704/2' failed: EULA was violated by tcp://mycomputername:53704/NetRenderService.rem
Label: Finished Render Job: D:\Render Farm\Untitled.avi

Thanks
SonyPJM wrote on 4/27/2004, 6:33 AM
It turns out network rendering is not available in the trial version.

I offer my most humble apologies for the misleading posts that I made
last week on this issue. I was not aware of the problems until just a
few minutes ago when I tested the trial version myself.
sonofmickel wrote on 4/27/2004, 9:52 AM
Since I can not demo the render engine, I was wondering if you or anyone could give any benchmark on a single machine with:
2 instances of the Net Render on single Pentium with hyperthreading.
2 instances of the Net Render on a dual xeon with and without hyperthreading enabled.

I really enjoy the vegas interface and can look the other way on some features it is missing. So if you could help I would really appreciate it.

Thanks
Erik
BJ_M wrote on 4/27/2004, 10:04 AM
one weird thing is that with network rendering setup like this (on a dual xeon system) -- 3things seem to happen ...

1. long renders can cause the display to change resolutions on its own after a couple of days of rendering.
2. computer takes forever to shut down (like 20-25 minutes) , took only a minute before.
3. even when "disable rendering" is selected on both cases of network rendering, they are still hogging memory and still running on the network.

1 and 2 above is ONLY with a matrox grahics card installed.


SonyPJM wrote on 4/27/2004, 10:34 AM
Can you be more specific about #3? I'm not quite sure what you're
saying but I will offer a some bits of information just in case they
address the issue:

* The disable rendering option in the network render service app
(VegSrv) is meant to allow you to free your editing machine from
participation in distributed renders so that you can kick off network
render jobs and continue to edit without any heavy processing going on
in the background. I do not think it is useful to disable rendering
when you've set up multiple instances of VegSrv running on your
editing machine. If you want to disable rendering for any instance of
VegSrv other than the main one, it is probably best to just exit it
which will of course free up any memory it is using.

* When you disable rendering, it won't effect any jobs currently in
progress... only new ones. If you want to cancel a job in progress,
you can click the cancel button next to the progress meter in
Vegas. You can also select the appropriate job in the Progress tab of
VegSrv then cancel it from the Action menu.


* If you've deselected the option to "Exit Vegas when idle" in VegSrv,
its instance of Vegas will remain open (and continue to use memory)
until you quit it or VegSrv.



BJ_M wrote on 4/27/2004, 10:58 AM
thankyou SonyPJM - you have answered the question regarding point 3 above ....

i will just leave them enabled in the future ...
BJ_M wrote on 4/27/2004, 12:01 PM
dual xeon with hyperthreading -- do not use .. only VERY rairly will this be of any use (and not in vegas) , i cant really think right now where it is of any use.

single cpu w/ hyperthreading ... slower performace with vegas rendering .. because (i suspect) the way vegas uses memory (and this is not unussual) ...

sony people can confirm or not -- but its what ive seen anyway...

busterkeaton wrote on 4/27/2004, 12:10 PM
BJ_M,

Are talking about hyperthreading in general or hyperthreading with network rendering turned on.

BJ_M wrote on 4/27/2004, 12:37 PM
hyperthreading ONLY as it relates to vegas network rendering on 1 cpu other than straight mpeg2 rendering with NOTHING else done to the timeline..

on a single cpu w/ hyperthreading , there are certainly some apps that work well with it , like the main concept stand alone encoder, CCE and tmpgenc as examples ..


on a dual xeon -- as suggested on a few other sites also -- hyperthreading really doesnt do much for most apps, even if you have gobs of memory ..

maybe on a xeon64 or xeon with 800fsb -- i would sure like to try out!
acappella wrote on 4/27/2004, 1:40 PM
I'm using a Dual Xeon, 2.4GHz. Yes, Vegas by itself doesn't get any benefit from the second processor, or even from the second kernel in one processor. I'm as disappointed as anyone with this fact.

But using the Network rendering, and having 4 rendering engines going at once on the same machine, gives a significant boost in rendering speed. As soon as I'm done with this current project, I'll post some simple benchmarks.
acappella wrote on 4/27/2004, 1:44 PM
Two changes to the setup instructions, especially when creating a batch file:

First, just to be safe, you should set the current drive to be the drive where Vegas is installed.

Second, if you're starting more than one instance of VegSrv, use the START command.

So my batch file looks like this:

: Start four instances of the Vegas Network Render Service.
c:
cd "c:\program files\sony\vegas 5.0\"
start VegSrv50.exe
start VegSrv50.exe -nosave -config NetRenderService2.config
start VegSrv50.exe -nosave -config NetRenderService3.config
start VegSrv50.exe -nosave -config NetRenderService4.config
SonyPJM wrote on 4/27/2004, 1:51 PM
Nice... thanks for those hints!