From: Paolo Farinelli (paolo++at++gobbles.engr.sgi.com)
Date: 12/21/2005 08:36:27
Hi Steve,
On a dual cpu 32bit Linux system, Performer will support
multi-process modes as on your Onyx.
As Praveen pointed out, a volume-rendering application is
likely to be DRAW limited, so your best bet would be to run
Performer in APPCULL_DRAW mode.
Also please note that Performer will not make full copies of
your models. Only the scene-graph nodes are duplicated.
pfGeoSets and associated data (vertices, normals, textures,
etc) are referenced by all processes without duplication.
Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Paolo
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Steve Satterfield wrote:
> Hi Praveen,
>
> Thanks for the reply. I hope to hear some thoughts from the Performer
> people.
>
> In general, more processing power is good. But I am concerned exactly
> what Performer does. Based on experience with single CPU 32 bit Linux
> machines as compared to our Onyx, we seem to always be able to display
> larger models on a 1CPU/1GB 32 bit Dell than the 24CPU/24GB Onyx using n32
> addressing. Of the 32bit address space, single threaded Linux Performer
> seems to be able to use most of it for the Performer shared memory. When
> Performer is used in multi-processing mode on the Onyx, the various
> Performer stages make copies of the model, thus dividing up the 32bit
> address space, to effectively halve the model size. Model size is
> important to us.
>
> My question is whether a dual core Linux system would use multi-processing
> Performer and make copies of the model within the 32 bit addressing space.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
>
> On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Praveen Bhaniramka wrote:
>
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > Can more processing power ever be bad for us engineers? :-)
> >
> > Your choice of systems depends on your applications needs. Since you are
> > using Performer, which uses a multi-processing model of execution, you
> > should see some speed-up in your application with multiple CPUs.
> > However, the actual speed-up would really depend on the multi-processing
> > scheme that your application uses (APP, CULL, DRAW) and how much time is
> > spend in executing each process.
> >
> > Typically, volume rendering ends up being a heavily pixel-fill limited
> > operation. Hence, if you are running something like volview, the CPU is
> > sitting idle most of the time, waiting for the GPUs to get done with the
> > rendering. However, if your application is doing more sophisticated
> > processing like UI processing or data manipulation, the CPU load is
> > probably higher.
> >
> > Hth,
> > Praveen
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-info-volumizer++at++els.sgi.com
> > > [mailto:owner-info-volumizer++at++els.sgi.com] On Behalf Of Steve
> > > Satterfield
> > > Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 3:38 AM
> > > To: Volumizer Mailing List
> > > Cc: Steve Satterfield
> > > Subject: [info-volumizer] Volumizer on a Dual Core Dell with SuSe
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I sent the folloiwng message to the performer Email list, but
> > > I have the
> > > same quesiton with regard to Volumizer. Are dual core 32 bit
> > > Linux systems
> > > a good or bad idea for the 32 bit Volumizer distribution?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Steve
> > >
> > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:01:51 -0500
> > > From: Steve Satterfield <steve++at++nist.gov>
> > > To: Performer Mailing List <info-performer++at++sgi.com>
> > > Subject: Performer on a Dual Core Dell with SuSe
> > >
> > > Can anyone provide me with any advice on using 32 Bit
> > > Performer for Linux on
> > > a dual core system? We are looking at buying a few 32 Bit
> > > Linux machines,
> > > probably Dell and running SuSe and Performer.
> > >
> > > Does having 2 CPUs give you any advantage with regard to
> > > Performer. Can the
> > > 32 Bit Linux distribution do any multi-processing?
> > >
> > > If there are no advantages, are than any disadvantages?
> > >
> > > Thanks for any advice, I need to make a buying decision very soon.
> > >
> > > -Steve
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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