Hi I just wanted a definitive yeah or nay on this question. I have Vue 5 and mainly do static images (ie NOT animations)If I bought Mover 5 would i be able to render a single image across multiple PCs or will the rendercow only work with Animations? If it is the latter, does anyone know if e-on are planning to enable rendering a static image across multiple PCs or is this a feature fo the Pro version only? Thanks in advance

Good question! I have the same interest as I don't do animations either, but would like to split my HDRI rendering between two machines.

Parallel static image rendering is, and as far as I know will remain, a Vue Pro feature. Another thing : Vue 5 Esprit uses 2 threads maximum for rendering, Vue 4 Pro (and 5 soon) is not limited to 2 threads. For example with a Dual Xeon + hyperthreading, Vue Pro uses 4 threads (4 logical processors), Vue 5 Esprit only 2.

Hi Louguet, Are saying then- that, if I use an Athlon 64 (which I do) that I can open two instances of Vue 5 and start rendering two big scenes overnight- and that both scenes will render at the same approximate speed as just one scene would (not just 2x --making the render time twice as slow?) Or to put it more clearly- if a scene takes 5 hours to render... I can then render 2 copies of the scene- and each will still take only 5 hours (not ten?)

No, an Athlon 64 will use the full CPU power and opening two instances of Vue would more than double the render time, thats if it finished at all due to running out of memory. The use of two threads means more to P4 users as it enables the CPU to be used to the max, ie. normal CPU usage + hyperthreading (basically taking up the slack). Athlon 64s run flat out anyway so it makes far less difference.

HyperThreading (HT) is a useful P4 / Xeon feature when multitasking, as it allows a certain amount of hardware parallelism to occur between tasks. The P4 processor is seen by Windows as two logical CPU. On a Dual Xeon configuration, Windows sees 2 physical + 2 logical CPUs. For this reason, if you do two things at the same time (stupid example : virus checking and rendering), the P4 seems to react more quickly than the Athlon. To simplify, HyperThreading is a very limited way of multiprocessing. That being said, rendering a scene on an Athlon 64 or a P4 is the same : 100% of the CPU will be used, with HT on the P4 or without on the A64, because Vue 5 Esprit will use each processor to the limit. On a Dual Xeon however, or on a Quad-Opteron, a certain amount of processing power is wasted by Esprit (2 threads used instead of 4). Vue Pro does not have this limitation.

good summary :-) Although Windows reports 50/50 for the two virtual processors its not an equal split. Hyperthreading is basically just using the wasted cycles caused by the overly long pipeline of the P4 (and even more for the newer Prescotts) and is more like 20~30%. So on a dual Xeon Vue 5 would still get at least 60% of the available CPU power and the remaining cycles would be used by the system and any other programs you have running, giving you a much more responsive PC. Athlon 64s (or Athlons) don't need hyperthreading as they have much shorter and more efficient pipelines so there would be very little to gain.