Weird issues while rendering
Wonderland
Posts: 7,133
So I finally got DS to work on my new Windows computer with a 1080ti (It wouldn't open before because of a weird bug resolved by a forum member) but while I'm rendering, the curser sometimes freezes and it won't let me move the render window or scroll down on it to see the bottom half. I could do that easily on both my Mac and CPU only Windows laptop. The rendering is not quite as fast as I thought either... A scene with a G8, hair, dress, wings, a small Kobold Woodland Spirit (https://www.daz3d.com/kobold-woodland-spirit) and HDRI is taking longer than an hour. I thought it would be much faster with a 1080ti. Is this normal???
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Comments
The freezing sounds odd, certainly.
How is the scene being lit?
In your Render Settings --> Advanced tab do you have just the Graphics card checked under "photoreal devices"? I've heard that having both the CPU and GPU checked can cause slow renders.
How many graphics cards do you have?
If you are using the display card to render, then you will get freezes etc; rendering will use as much as it can, well beg, borrow and steal too. They do sound a little extreme though, and much slower than expected. But it isn't just what's in the scene but lighting, shaders (how much translucency and opacity there is), and other factors too.
If the same scene performs differently on your laptop (and that difference is better) than there is an issue, although not necessarily the card.
I've just been through a week where Studio would effectively freeze on being told to render. The progress counter kept track of time nicely, but there was no actual render being made. And no way to cancel the abortive render either. The cancel button would go away, but you couldn't close the empty window and had to force quit the program to get out of it.
Have downloaded the most recent update (which is a bit more recent than the one I was using) and would like to think that this will clear the problem. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
HDRI plus lights
Yes, I have both checked. In the middle of a render now but I'll try unchecking CPU...
I've only used bare minimum items before when I was on CPU computers but now that I'm using a 1080ti, I'm surprised the performance isn't better. I wonder if I need more RAM. This only has 16 GB. My Mac has 32GB.
I have a nvidia GTX 1080. I'm not sure if that is different than what you have (1080ti), but my renders are really fast compared to my older computer (which wasn't that old), but then I didn't have this graphics card in it either. I have 16GB of ram in mine. Most of my renders complete in under 30 minutes. Maybe they are not as complex as yours. I've had some renders complete in 5 minutes. I don't usually run more than one application at a time. Not sure if you do and that could have an effect.
I also have an intel graphics card and it has a driver. While you were having your problem in the other thread, I wondered why I would have two graphics adapters. I checked online and it said that the intel would be used for web browsing and looking at pictures and things. And the nvidia would be used for more intensive things and that the pc would know when to switch. I know when I start Daz (or even Cubase - some music software) I will an nvidia panel pop up in the upper right corner that says to press a hot key to invoke some gaming feature. When I start my browser, I don't see that panel, so I would assume that that panel is an indication that the nvidia is being used for DAZ Studio and not for firefox.
My PC is a Dell. They have some Dell update software that came installed. It tells me when there are driver updates. And I think it just updated the intel drivers, along with wifi and the BIOS. Did you buy any support plan for your PC. They should have one for the 1st year regardless. Perhaps you could call them and they could tell you if you need the intel and help you set it up if need be.
I know when I got my PC, the one drive said it was failing. Dell came out and replaced it and then I was suppose to call my support person and he took control and did some stuff, before he turned it over to me. I could see what he was doing so I am sure he didn't that I needed to worry about.
The difficulty & slowness cancelling out of renders, while present in 4.9.x & prior, is like the viewport lagging & jumpiness many have cited much more worse in DS 4.10.x. I hope 4.11.x remedies these new problems.
It may not have anything to do with your issue, but did you add that daz database (I know it starts with a p) to the allowed applications in your anti-virus. I know I had to do that or else the database sometimes seemed to go out to lunch.
You might also check your user control setting isn't set too high(if you haven't shut it off.) On my one PC, it was set too high and Microsoft would keep telling me that the mouse driver update kept failing. I finally found out that the user control was set too high and that was causing the install to fail (and it was a Microsoft driver!) I don't know how the setting got set too high as that was the only time I ever looked at the settings (when I fixed it.)
I just checked and me is set to the second setting from the top. There are four settings.
I got my computer from New Egg and it didn't come with an Intel driver. When I did a Windows update check, it didn't say anything about drivers. Some people say I shouldn't use the Intel driver anyway... As a Mac person, I'm finding Windows overwhelming! I'm still trying to figure out why both my mouse and keyboard become unresponsive during rendering. I thought it could be a RAM issue, but it seems there are all these crazy things in Windows that need adjusting...
What is a user control setting? I'm a Mac person and my head is starting to explode LOL! The move from Poser to DS is still overwhelming my brain and now Windows 10 from Mac! Aaaagh! The main problem is that everything becomes unresponsive while rendering. I thought it was a RAM problem, but apparently there are multiple possibilities for these issues. I haven't gotten any warnings from Windows. How do I check if my user controls are too high? I don't know what a user control is.
i also have all these apps to help for gaming that pop up when I start my computer, I'm not sure what they are, one is something about the fan, in general they are supposed to help for gaming but not sure if they are not helping for DS...
Sorry. I forgot you were a MAC person. User Controls is a setting that helps protect your computer. There are four levels of protection. If it is active, and you go to install something, Windows will ask you if you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer. Occassionally it will tell you that a program you wish to install is unverified and warn you against installing it and you have to decide if you want to continue. When you get a prompt that says you will need administrator privileges to move a folder some place else, that is also user controls. Some people don't like it and turn if off completely. But I always leave it on because I think it provides a layer of protection. There have been a few times that I have gone to a website and it has tried to install something and windows asked if I wanted to allow it.
In any case, to check your user control settings, just go down to the search bar at the bottom left of your screen and type "user." A window will open and there will be some possible hits. The first one for me was change User Account Control Settings. Click on that and a window will open and you can see your settings and change them if you wish.
The attached image shows how mine looks. This setting has been working for me. On one pc, it was set to high and that did cause the mouse driver update to fail. But the other windows updates all were successful.
I sometimes get unresponsive keyboard and mouse during renders with my GTX 1070. From what I understand, since I use the card to render AND drive my monitors, it's due to the render using all of the card's resources.
Before I got the 1070 and used CPU most of the time, rendering would make the computer basically useless since it used so much of the CPU that the computer would queue any keyboard and mouse actions for so long it was not worth waiting.
My renders with the 1070 vary widely depending on the scene and lighting. Bright, fully lit scenes can render in 5 minutes or less (like the City Bus Stop using "sun/sky" set at noon), but more complex scenes (indoor, with lots of shadows or reflective surfaces) can take hours. The reference scene noted above takes about 4 minutes.
In the end, for me, it's a crap shoot as to how responsive the computer will be and how long the render will take, but I will say that since I got the 1070, most scenes, even if they take a long time to render, let me use my PC for other stuff.
You may want to look at the task manager (right-click on the task bar and select it) or a program like GPU-Z to see the CPU/GPU utilization while you render. It could give some insights as to how the system is operating.
..this is why I'm using a 570Ti to run the displays and the Titan exclusively for rendering.
How big is the scene you are rendering? A 2000x2000 render taking an hour is well within acceptable parameters. There is a place to set the affinity to have your computer not use all your cores for rendering, freeing up space for other tasks, but it does make the render take longer. I have that issue myself on a 980 card.
Definatly don't have GPU and CPU checked as it wil allocate all the system resources to the render. Another thing to consider is that if your scene is too big to fit on the GPU, the CPU will kick in. 16GB GPU is a good size, but can easily be overwhlemed by many objects or huge textures. The render will bounce to using the CPU if that happens and then freezing occurs.
I'm so glad you got it functional this far. I was so concerned about you.
Even when rendering GPU only the CPU will be used at first to load everything to the GPU and initially process the scene. Since you have both CPU and GPU checked, it will use as much of both as it needs while rendering. Which would explain your system lag. I bet going to GPU only will help a lot. (If the entire scene fits on your GPU)
Also, as I'm finding out, DS doesn't like to dump scenes from RAM after a render is finished or has been cancelled. I'm working on a scene now that has 1 G8, the woodland cyclorama and the Mediteranean Pool. Almost always after the first render, the rest are dumped to CPU so when I think I'm going to do my final render, I have to close and restart DS first.
and is it an open scene? If it's in a room, or other enclosed space, the HDRI isn't going to help much. If it is open then on the face of it you should have plenty of light.