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Rendering on new iMac 2.1ghz for 2 weeks..

A

atomcoeur

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 9, 2005
18
0
London
Hi, I'm planning to leave the iMac 2.1ghz to render a batch from Cinema4d for 2-3 weeks. I tested it this weekend, leaving to render for around 60 hours and when I came back the temperature had gone up to 69º - everything works fine and the temperature dropped quickly to 64º when i stopped the render.
Do you think it would be safe/sane to do the 2 week render or am I risking blowing the thing to pieces? Also would it be ok to nice Cinema 4d to maximum and have finder at the lowest possible cpu load? I could leave my Powerbook to assist in a NET render but I would really rather prefer to use it for other stuff...
Anybody with experience on rendering in general on an iMac? Thanks.
 
dops7107

dops7107

macrumors 6502a
Mar 19, 2005
995
0
Perth, Oztrailya
:eek:

Sorry, i don't actually have anything useful to tell you ... but wow, leaving a computer to "compute" for 2-3 weeks. I know nothing about Cimema4d. What takes that long to calculate??
 
Lord Blackadder

Lord Blackadder

macrumors P6
May 7, 2004
15,669
5,499
Sod off
The last time I rendered something it was in POV-ray on a Mac IIci. :eek:

My overclocked PowerMac G4 can run under 100% CPU load for weeks with no ill effects, ditto my old CRT iMac.

My guess is that it will be OK, especially if it is in a climate-controlled room that won't become overly hot.
 
bokdol

bokdol

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2002
897
35
VA
you mat want to prop some fans underneath it to get more cooling... there is a vent at the bottom of your imac. that may help.
 
Kobushi

Kobushi

macrumors 6502a
Jun 7, 2005
540
0
Right behind you.
I've left my powermac rendering some Bryce animations for days before with no problems. Although, if you're concerend you can leave your computer in my apartment, it's friggin' freezing in here. ;)
 
fartheststar

fartheststar

macrumors 6502a
Dec 29, 2003
504
2
Toronto
I've rendered for over 2 days straight with a G4 Powermac - 20 minute short with a filter on it to change 30i to 24p.

Just to take no chances, I flushed the PRAM, repaired permissions and rebuilt the prefs and rebooted (and a rain dance ;) )just before - worked slightly better than when I didn't.

Oh - And make sure the HD's are set to sleep - NEVER if you haven't already.:eek:

Edit: Can't you edit in 60 hour chunks - like doing a scene by scene, and then saving after? If it craps out during the 4th set of 60 hours (which it shouldn't), you still have 180 hours of rendered footage saved.
 
G

Gokhan

macrumors 6502a
Oct 7, 2003
703
0
London
k

hi

dont want to hijack thread but i intend also to do some rendering in maya using my powerbook g4 is there anyhting i can within maya to make it save the bits it renders just incase it craps ( i am only rendering one scene by the way just has lots of objects) and anytime i render i get a beachballs my scene will take a few hours so how do i know it is rendering all i see is beachballs until render is completed ??

any help ??
 
generik

generik

macrumors 601
Aug 5, 2005
4,116
1
Minitrue
Gokhan said:
hi

dont want to hijack thread but i intend also to do some rendering in maya using my powerbook g4 is there anyhting i can within maya to make it save the bits it renders just incase it craps ( i am only rendering one scene by the way just has lots of objects) and anytime i render i get a beachballs my scene will take a few hours so how do i know it is rendering all i see is beachballs until render is completed ??

any help ??
Click to expand...

It is not windows, it will never crash.
 
M

Mac Kiwi

macrumors 6502a
Apr 29, 2003
520
10
New Zealand
atomcoeur said:
Hi, I'm planning to leave the iMac 2.1ghz to render a batch from Cinema4d for 2-3 weeks. I tested it this weekend, leaving to render for around 60 hours and when I came back the temperature had gone up to 69º - everything works fine and the temperature dropped quickly to 64º when i stopped the render.
Do you think it would be safe/sane to do the 2 week render or am I risking blowing the thing to pieces? Also would it be ok to nice Cinema 4d to maximum and have finder at the lowest possible cpu load? I could leave my Powerbook to assist in a NET render but I would really rather prefer to use it for other stuff...
Anybody with experience on rendering in general on an iMac? Thanks.
Click to expand...



Whatever you do save out as tifs or even better tga files.If you crash you still have all your frames up to the point of the crash.If you use say .mov youre screwed if you crash.



How many frames are you rendering and what do you have set?...ie GI,AO or area shadow etc,just 2 weeks seems a bit extreme even for an Imac render.If I have an idea I might be able to help you optimize some of the scene.



Cinema 4D is a pretty stable app.The only problem you might run into is open GL related {ATI cards} Better off to run in software shading mode {prefs> veiwport} or hold down shift on starting c4d.
 
BlizzardBomb

BlizzardBomb

macrumors 68030
Jun 15, 2005
2,537
0
England
Eidorian said:
The "F" for Fahrenheit is there. I've tried the degree symbol but the forum doesn't have the right character to display it.
Click to expand...

Your processor is 12C on highest... Errr.... riiiiiiight. Maybe in the north pole.
 
L

Little Endian

macrumors 6502a
Apr 9, 2003
753
204
Honolulu
Your imac will be fine. As stated earlier your computer will shut down if temperatures were to reach a critical level. 2 weeks is nothing while I myself have never had to render anything for that long I have had friends who have done so with renders twice as long. Also think about all the folks who leave their machines up and running 24/7 for months at a time running Seti or Folding at near 100% CPU load.
 
A

atomcoeur

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 9, 2005
18
0
London
Mac Kiwi said:
How many frames are you rendering and what do you have set?...ie GI,AO or area shadow etc,just 2 weeks seems a bit extreme even for an Imac render.If I have an idea I might be able to help you optimize some of the scene.
Click to expand...

well, i have 4 scenes with 900F each.. but with different cameras shots etc it must come up to around 5000 frames and im rendering at 640x360. The antialising is on geometry and im only using shadow maps. The only really intensive thing in my animations is lots of smoke pyrocluster effects although I have the volumetracer at 20 World step and it does not cast or accept shadows so its not really slow. I'm also using lots of volumetric (omni) lights and very luminous/reflective surfaces but thats about it. No AO, no GI, no caustics. The 2 weeks estimate came about by simply multiplying 5 min per frame times 5000 frames = 17 days.

A worrying thing I have noticed is that as the render goes on the slower it gets; for example last night I put on a batch and within say 2 hours it had rendered 20 frames but in 14 hours it had rendered 30! Too much memory saturation perhaps? :S

Mac Kiwi said:
Whatever you do save out as tifs or even better tga files.If you crash you still have all your frames up to the point of the crash.If you use say .mov youre screwed if you crash.
Click to expand...

I've been rendering in .mov until now - do u think rendering in stills would make things faster?

Thanks!
 
Mr. Anderson

Mr. Anderson

Moderator emeritus
Nov 1, 2001
22,568
6
VA
Mac Kiwi said:
Whatever you do save out as tifs or even better tga files.If you crash you still have all your frames up to the point of the crash.If you use say .mov youre screwed if you crash.
Click to expand...


Even with a short render of one day it would be a good idea to save the animation as a series of images. I've had my old Sawtooth 450MHz and dual 1.25 crank away for 100 hours or more at a time running Lightwave and not had any problems.

You should probably look in on it from time to time, just to make sure things are still running smoothly - but I don't see any issues running it straight through. Its no different than if you had Folding going on your machine all the time in terms of cpu usage.

Good luck and I'd be curious to see what you're rendering.

D
 
E

Eithanius

macrumors 68000
Nov 19, 2005
1,541
412
Little Endian said:
Your imac will be fine. As stated earlier your computer will shut down if temperatures were to reach a critical level. 2 weeks is nothing while I myself have never had to render anything for that long I have had friends who have done so with renders twice as long. Also think about all the folks who leave their machines up and running 24/7 for months at a time running Seti or Folding at near 100% CPU load.
Click to expand...

That's me. I use to do Seti on my PC, but after my switched to iMac, Seti client is not optimised to use Altivec, so I went over to Einstein instead, crunching on "Automatic" 24/7 with "Highest" when my room's air-conditioned..... :D
 
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
2,576
Western US
atomcoeur said:
I've been rendering in .mov until now - do u think rendering in stills would make things faster?
Click to expand...
Doubtful it'd be any faster, but as the others have said, it can be a lifesaver when things go wrong. And they will go wrong! You just pick up from where you left off. Or let's say you notice a glitch, you can fix it and just render a few frames and drop them right in. I've had my heart broken before when I've walked away to let a render go for days at a time only to find it got half way through and choked, or the power went out, or there was a texture map missing, or it ran out of memory, or whatever. I learned my lesson (nowadays it's even better because you can examine your renders remotely with net rendering / http support and in some cases fix or restart things).
 
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