Maxwell Render

I requested support about a month ago that went unanswered so I thought I would post here. I am network rendering on two Macs and continue to have network problems.

If I queue up more than one file to be rendered overnight the first file that is queued up (not currently rendering) crashes the render node(s). This happens quite reliably - 100% of the time. I cannot queue multiple files to render overnight as a result. My farm just sits after it gets the first render done. It is as if there needs to be a 2 minute break between renders or the node crashes.

When I send files to the network to render when the farm is not actively rendering a file about 75% of the time the render nodes crashes on one of both machines. When I get the Apple dialogue that asks if I want to retry I find that if I restart the node it sometimes will start the render. It usually takes restarting the node 3 - 10 times before the node stays up and renders without crashing.

About 25 - 50% of the time the results have the little horizontal streaks through the final result. This is something that has been posted about before.

About 25% of the time when a render starts I get a report from the node that the mxs file was corrupt. It usually only happens on the node that the files do not reside on and the node running on the machine that does not have the manager running on. I have to cancel the render and resubmit it (sometimes many times) to get it to transfer properly. Sometimes I have to select "Add" and add a different file, cancel it and the add the one I am interested in rendering to get it to render correctly.

Some of the time a file on one node renders fine but the render on the other node renders with geometry in the totally wrong place. It is as it there is a triangle coordinate that is totally wrong.

At this point I am completely frustrated with cooperative rendering with Maxwell. It seems to me that I am having unreliable network transfers between the two machines. Last post I sent to Maxwell tech support was ignored.

1) Does anybody have any ideas on getting these two Macs stable?
2) Can anyone suggest rendering software that is stable that does a good job with chrome parts? I am becoming convinced that Maxwell is not a stable software package and the organization seems uninterested in supporting the software.

We have found a problem that could explain the errors you are seeing, and that we hope to solve soon. When some of the computers in the network rendering have different network bandwith (e.g. 100Mbit with 1Gb) some of the information flowing between them can be spoiled and can produce crashes in the servers (if the mxs get corrupted) or stripes in the merged image (if what fails is the mxi). Try to connect the computers with the fastest and more direct connection possible while we solve the problem.

Thanks a lot

nachob

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Next Limit Team

Both boxes have 100mb/1gb nic and are connected to a 100mb switch. Both computers were specified at the same time and purchased at the same time and are identical computers.

There IS a mismatch between the nic and the switch. I wouldn't think that this would cause a problem. Do you think this could be the problem?

Have you been on holiday? Why no responses from Next Limit Tech support for a month?

Yes, I am quite sure that's exactly the problem because that is the way we have finally been able to reproduce the problem here. (I know it shouldn't be a problem and we are trying to solve it in the software). If you can change the switch to a 1Gb one or connect both computers directly without switches in between probably you won't have more problems.



No I have not been on holiday, but we have had problems with our mail servers and may be some e-mail got lost. Sorry for that


Best regards,

nachob

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Next Limit Team

We purchased and installed a 1gb switch for $82 and that solved the problems. Thank you very much.