Zeus Network Freezing?

[Dan Neufeldt]

I'm having a problem where zeus comes to a standstill when the network at work slows down.

I work for a computer animation studio and we have as many as 40 computers actively rendering while I'm working. This is a fairly large network hit, since they are not only writing out images, but reading in scene files of 60 Mb or more, and during the render reading in texture files that can be as large as 67 Mb. Those images may be read multiple times during the render, since the machine often needs to remove them from memory due to the high RAM usage that rendering demands.

While the machines are rendering, Zeus will sometimes freeze up for as long as 30 seconds. I'm assuming this is because it's checking for updates to files. I turned off the "Auto-reload changed files" option, but the slowdowns still happen.

Are there any other options I can turn off that will preven this slowdown? Or is this the current expected behavior?

Thanks

[jussij]

Hi Dan,

While the machines are rendering, Zeus will sometimes freeze up for as long as 30 seconds. I'm assuming this is because it's checking for updates to files.

I would guess this is what is causing the problem. Zeus runs a status ever second to see if any of the loaded files have changed.

I turned off the "Auto-reload changed files" option, but the slowdowns still happen.

As you have found this will not help This option does not stop the status check, but rather it determines if Zeus needs to ask you before it reloads any of it's unchanged files that are out of date.

Are there any other options I can turn off that will preven this slowdown?

Unfortunately there is no way of changing the current Zeus behaviour

I will look to add an option to allow this feature to be disabled. Personally I would fine turning off the current behaviour quite dangerous as it does stop accidentally clobbering any third party changes. But I guess if this is the reason for the slow down then there would be little other choice

Or is this the current expected behavior?

Zeus is definitely working as designed.

Cheers Jussi

[Guest]

Ok, thanks.

In my case, third party changes aren't much of a worry as I am the only developer on staff. So the main problem is losing my train of thought as Zeus stops responding to my typing.

Thanks,
dan

[jussij]

The latest Zeus for Windows release contains changes made to this particular feature, so this bug has hopefully been remove or at worst is not quite so bad.

Jussi