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	Wed, 01/Apr/2015 9:56 AM
Nikolay 11 Posts	Hi, We use smedge 2014.3 engine service and rendering with vray for maya and houdini's mantra. Unfortunately the cpu restriction doesn't work and the workstations almost freeze by the intense cpu usage whatever settings we try out. Thanks! Niki
	Wed, 01/Apr/2015 1:45 PM
Robin 1138 Posts	If possible, try updating to Smedge 2015. The new Engine system has a much simpler interface for setting restrictions and works reliably. If you cannot update, please contact me at so I can remote in and take a look at what is going on and see if there is some way to resolve it with the older version. Thanks, -robin
	Mon, 20/Apr/2015 6:55 AM
Nikolay 11 Posts	Hi Robin, Sorry for the late reply but we where very busy by finishing a project. We have updated to smedge 2015 but there's no difference. We have tried without using the engine service, but with and without it's still the same. Whatever values we input for the cpu core restrictions setting on the engine it always render with all cpu cores! The generated mayabatch command line doesn't have a variable for cpu cores in it as well in windows task manager the mayabatch.exe process affinity is showing that the process uses all available cores. Here's a screenshot which may be in help: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwGv9rw1KsD_cFdLa0ZnUEUyOW8/view?usp=sharing Thanks! Niki
	Mon, 20/Apr/2015 10:26 AM
Pedrom 31 Posts	If you need a temp solution, set the affinity of Smedge Engine in Task Manager to however many CPU Threads you want, all your renders will follow. This only resets back to all CPU Threads when you restart Smedge, or you change it back manually. Ped Edited by author on Mon, 20/Apr/2015 12:30 PM
	Mon, 20/Apr/2015 12:36 PM
Nikolay 11 Posts	Thanks for the help Ped! We already have tried what you suggested but it wasn't working. We started SmedgeEngine.exe and set it's affinity to use 4 cores only, the following mayabatch.exe is still running on all cores when we check the affinity. Best, Niki
	Tue, 21/Apr/2015 4:41 AM
Pedrom 31 Posts	Oh, that's strange. I just tried it again myself and it didn't work either. Affinity of SmedgeEngine.exe sticks at all cores even if you try to change it. We used to have to do this all the time before Smedge went 64bit to get nodes with more than 32 Threads to work at 100%. Must have only worked in an older version! Not needed to do it since it went up to 64bit! Sorry about that! :)
	Tue, 21/Apr/2015 8:37 PM
Robin 1138 Posts	The affinity is currently forced by Smedge to all cores for exactly the reason Pedrom mentioned (32 bit version needed to do this to access more than 32 cores correctly). This code is still in the 64 bit build, which is why you cannot adjust the affinity currently. That said, I have just added and am testing disabling that code again. Instead of it always being active, Smedge will now let the OS choose the affinity automatically unless you set an environment variable or command line flag to force the old behavior. This change should resolve the affinity issue and let you do affinity changing at will. That said, the core restrictions should still be respected by Smedge itself. The Maya command line doesn't take the core restrictions directly, because each renderer plugin has a different way of setting the value. Smedge sets the mental ray environment variable that controls the number of active cores. If you are using VRay for Maya and you need core level control, you should use the "VRay for Maya" product in Smedge instead of the generic "Maya" product. This will let you override the cores correctly, and will also give you access to a lot more of the command line flags specific to VRay in the "Render Overrides" tab. I will be posting a link to the build that no longer forces affinity by default shortly, when I finish testing out the changes. Please let me know if using the alternate product helps. Thank you, -robin
	Wed, 22/Apr/2015 1:23 PM
Nikolay 11 Posts	Thanks for the great info! We tried to use vray for maya product and the restriction started working. We were submitting the scenes directly from maya by using the submiter.mel and the job was appearing in smedge with maya product without having the option to change it. But adding the job directly in smedge and choosing to use vray for maya as a product made everything working as expected. Maya batch affinity is using all cores but the produced command line have the appropriate flag for using a certain number of cores. Thanks for the great help! Best, Niki
	Wed, 22/Apr/2015 4:33 PM
Robin 1138 Posts	You can adjust the smedge MEL submitter to use the "VRay for Maya" product instead of Maya by editing the code. On line 251 (with the current version) you will see this line: string $cmd = $submit + " Script -Type Maya"; Change it to this for VRay for Maya: string $cmd = $submit + " Script -Type VRay for Maya";
	Wed, 22/Apr/2015 6:27 PM
Robin 1138 Posts	I have uploaded a build for (64 bit) windows that disables the processor affinity setting. If you want to try it out, here are links to the build: http://www.uberware.net/download/Windows/Smedge2015.1-a1.msi http://www.uberware.net/download/Windows/Smedge2015.1-a1.zip This version is totally compatible with Smedge 2015 Thanks, -robin

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