Digital Art Zone

Trying to render an animation, and want to use less cores on my processor. Does anyone know how to lower the priority, so it’s not using all the resources at the same time on my machine?

Getting crashes and stuff.

I have Win 7, 64 bit sys, 8 core AMD proc. Black Ed.

Thanks, Mike

Same system here 8 cores but with an Intel Processor. When I render in DAZ Studio I always first launch the Task manager then in the processes tab I look for DAZStudio.exe and right click on it to set the Affinity. I always uncheck 2 cores so I can do something else while the rendering is going on. This solution works only for the current DAZ Studio session.

I am looking for a more permanent way to set Studio’s processor affinity. It can obviously be done with a manifest file located in the same directory as the exe. I couldn’t find any documentation yet explaining how to do that. I only found some info for the exe to run on one proc while I want it to run on 6 proc. Stay tuned

Try using WinAFC - http://affinitychanger.sourceforge.net/

Download for the program is under the installation section, second link.

I get great results by dropping DS to just 6 cores, as far as PC use goes. Does Affinity Changer allow you to save a Preset? Or would I be better of writting a script file?

Would it work to make/run a batch file for low priority?
It works on my WindowsXP.

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 ...

Just make an “Affinity” batch file.

The key bit is that you have to understand that the value following the /affinity switch is a hex mask.  It basically boils down to this:
1 = OFF OFF OFF ON
2 = OFF OFF ON OFF
3 = OFF OFF ON ON
4 = OFF ON OFF OFF
5 = OFF ON OFF ON
6 = OFF ON ON OFF
7 = OFF ON ON ON
8 = ON OFF OFF OFF
9 = ON OFF OFF ON
A = ON OFF ON OFF
B = ON OFF ON ON
C = ON ON OFF OFF
D = ON ON OFF ON
E = ON ON ON OFF
F = ON ON ON ON

Another thing to note is that you need an affinity mask for each 4 CPUs (including hyperthreaded CPUs if you have them).  So if you have a 6 CPU machine with hyperthreading (shows as 12 CPUs on the task manager) you’ll need THREE values for affinity.  The values are from the upper end to the lower end of CPUs in order.  So if you wanted everything but CPU0 dedicated to DAZStudio you’d do:

altering the path to your DAZ Studio executable as needed.  Save that code as a “start_ds.bat” and use that to launch DAZ Studio from now on and it’ll always start using all but one CPU.

If you only have 8 cores, you’d just drop the first affinity mask… If you have 24 cores, then lucky you, and you want to use all but 1 of them for DS, again it’d be FFFFFE for the affinity mask.

Hope that helps.

Thx Adam. I am gonna try this. Seams reasonable since it doesn’t require to install some special software and only tweaks (messes?) with the system scheduler. I read something about this solution this afternoon on MSDN. I thought it was only available on SQL or IIS servers though.

Does your knowledge have a limit? LOL

Yeah, it does, but then I go ahead and try things anyway.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn’t and I have to get a bigger hammer…

For those who aren’t following this… Basically what you do (in a more step by step fashion) is:

1) Create a new file, call it “start_ds.bat”.  Make sure you have viewing of file extensions enabled.  (Right click, new text document, “start_ds.bat” and answer yes when it asks you if you’re sure you wish to change the extension).
2) Find where DAZ Studio is installed.  Most likely: c:\program files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\ if you’ve installed things with the default file locations.
3) Know how many CPU cores you have (look at the Task Manager and count!)
4) For every Four CPU cores you have determine how many you want to use.  E.g., You have 8, you want to use 6, You have 12, you want to use 11…
5) Use the chart above to determine each bit of the affinity mask.  E.g., to use 6 of 8, you want F and C, to use 11 of 12, you want FFE.
6) Right click on your new start_ds.bat file and select “edit”.
7) copy and paste the line below into the notepad window

8) Replace the <value5> and <value2> entries with the appropriate answers as determined in steps 2 and 5.
9) Save and close the file.

Try it.

ETA:  For what it is worth…
Answer2: c:\program files\daz 3d\DAZStudio4
Answer3: 8
Answer4: 6
Answer5: FC

Result:

Answer2: e:\daz\studio4.64
Answer3: 12
Answer4: 11
Answer5: FFE

Result:

Thanks all, some interesting stuff, but Erdehel hit it on the head, don’t really need to go into the bowels of the system. Going into Task Mgr. took care of it.
I appreciate everyone’s input. Thanks again.
Mike

Kerya - 29 May 2012 05:08 AM

Would it work to make/run a batch file for low priority?
It works on my WindowsXP.

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 ...

thanks Kerya, going to make life easier this is, i tend to forget otherwise, till I start rendering