INFO: Understanding Rendering Licensing
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1.1 Scenario 1: Interactive and Batch Rendering with Two Master Computers |
Advanced: 12x Rendering Power Explained
The marketing materials for XSI Advanced say that it comes with 12x Rendering Power.
So what does "12x Rendering Power" mean?
It means that with XSI Advanced, you can have two master computers for rendering, and each master computer can use up to 6 CPUs to help render frames (2 * 6 = 12). Each of the master computers can use up to two local CPUs for rendering, and up to four satellite computers to help render frames.
Note that multi-core CPUs (dual-core, quad-core) are considered as a single CPU for licensing purposes, and XSI will use all cores on the CPU.
Here's some scenarios showing what 12x Rendering Power might look like in real life.
Scenario 1: Interactive and Batch Rendering with Two Master Computers
In this scenario, you have two dual-CPU master computers, and each master computer has four single-CPU satellite computers.
Here's a breakdown of the CPUs:
| 2 | CPUs on a master computer for interactive rendering |
| 4 | CPUs on satellite computers to help with interactive rendering |
| 2 | CPUs on a second master computer for batch rendering |
| 4 | CPUs on satellite computers to help with batch rendering |
| 12 | Total CPUs (4 CPUs on masters, 8 satellite CPUs) |
| If a master computer has only a single CPU, then you lose one CPU. For example, if both the master computers were both single-CPU, then you would have 10x Rendering power.
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Scenario 2: Mini-Render Farm -- Batch Rendering on Two Master Computers
To maximise frame throughput, you can use two master computers (and their eight satellites) as a mini renderfarm.
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To use two master computers to render a scene:
Run this xsibatch command on both computers:
xsibatch -render <UNC location of .scn file> -skip
-skip tells xsibatch to skip frames that are already rendered. That way the two xsibatch render jobs don't overwrite each other's output.
| The scene must use a UNC path to specify the output folder for the rendered images; that way, both masters can find the output location.
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If you wanted, you could run an interactive session of XSI while the two xsibatch jobs are running:
On one master, run
- Start XSI.
Open an XSI command prompt and run
xsibatch -nobatch -render <UNC location of .scn file> -skip
On the other computer, run
xsibatch -render <UNC location of .scn file> -skip
-nobatch forces xsibatch to use the interactive license instead of the batch license (which is already taken by the other master). The interactive license can be shared by as many instances of XSI as your computer can handle.
Essentials Rendering
With XSI Essentials, you can have one master computer for rendering, and that master computer can use up to 4 satellite CPUs to help render frames. On the master computer, Essentials will use all local CPUs.
Note that multi-core CPUs (dual-core, quad-core) are considered as a single CPU for licensing purposes, and XSI will use all cores on the CPU.
Here's some scenarios showing what this looks like in real life.
Scenario 1: Interactive Rendering with XSI Essentials
In this scenario, you have a quad core master computer and four single-CPU satellite computers.
Here's a breakdown of the CPUs:
| 4 | CPUs on a master computer for interactive rendering |
| 4 | CPUs on four satellite computers to help with interactive rendering |
| 8 | Total CPUs (4 CPUs on master, 4 satellite CPUs) |
Scenario 2: Batch Rendering with XSI Essentials
In this scenario, you have a dual-CPU master computer and two dual-CPU satellite computers. Using xsi -render or xsibatch -render you can run a batch rendering job.
Here's a breakdown of the CPUs:
| 2 | CPUs on a master computer for batch rendering |
| 4 | CPUs on two satellite computers to help with batch rendering |
| 6 | Total CPUs (2 CPUs on master, 4 satellite CPUs) |
XSI Batch
See Product Package Comparison (http://www.softimage.com/products/pro_ren/product_packaging/Default.aspx)
A Batch license allows you to run a batch render, eg
xsibatch -render <scene file>
and that batch render will use any many CPUs as there are on the local computer. If you have a dual CPU machine, batch will use both CPUs; if you have a quad CPU machine, batch will use all four CPUs. And all cores on each CPU will be used; the licensing counts CPUs, not cores.
So with 10 Batch licenses you could render a scene using all the CPUs on 10 machines. Just run xsibatch -render <scene file> -skip on each machine.
A Batch license also includes the ability to use up to four satellite CPUs.
Frame-Based Rendering
If you want to do frame-based distributed rendering, where multiple machines work to together to render a scene and each machine renders individual frames, then you have two choices:
- Set up what the manuals call "standalone distributed rendering".
- This is a master-slave setup that requires Batch Universal or mental ray standalone licenses for the slaves.
- Run xsibatch -render <scene file> -skip on multiple machines to batch render a scene.
- This is a set of batch jobs working on the same scene. The advantages is that it is cheaper, because you can do this with Batch licenses.
In constrast, satellite rendering is tile-based, which means that multiple machines work together to render a single frame and each machine renders part of a frame.
Multi-Core CPUs
Multi-core CPU helps speed up the multithreaded aspects of XSI such as rendering, render regions, fx compositing, envelopes and lattices, and cage deformations.
For XSI and xsibatch licenses, a multi-core CPU is no different than a regular single-core CPU: they both consume one license only. In fact, XSI and xsibatch licenses do not count the number of CPUs or the number of cores. XSI and xsibatch will use all CPUs and all cores for rendering.
For example, a quad quad-core machine takes a single XSI/xsibatch license.
Note that mental ray standalone licenses are per-CPU licenses.
Hyper-threaded CPUs
A hyper-threaded CPU takes a single render license.
Blade Servers
Blade servers come in the following configurations:
- Standard blade server
- They usually come in 2 socket variety. Locally with current released CPU on the market that means a maximum of 8 threads (a dual Quad core). There are also 4 socket motherboards as well which would allow for a Quad Quad (which is 16 threads). This is more or less identical to the setup of the workstation under your desk. So in effect it would only require 1 XSI license to operate and render on all threads on this system.
- Cluster server
- There are a few variants to this such as 'Load Balancing clusters' If the the correct front-end load balancing software is not used generally these clusters are separate entities within the cluster. The best way to explain it is that they would generally each have their own operating system. As a result XSI would require 1 license per operating system no matter how the group is clustered.
- 'High performance computing (HPC) cluster' with VMWare
- 'High performance computing (HPC) cluster' some type of VMware software as the main layer. This in effect would stitch all the systems together and as far as windows was concerned its all one tower. If this is the case then you could chain a huge number of CPU's via VMware and run off of one license.
Rendering Terminology
Satellite Rendering
Satellite (or distributed tile acceleration) is a rendering technique where each frame is divided into tiles and the tiles are distributed across multiple "satellite" machines.
So, for example, an interactive seat of XSI running on a dual-CPU computer could use up to six CPUs to help render a render region (two local CPUs and up to four satellite CPUs).
