Ian and James summed it up. I have the exact same problem.

Ok, this is all I can do from here without getting my hands on a MacPro with 2 network cards. Sry :(

try bypassing the switcher and plugging the Mac directly into the wall… things like that.. to try to isolate exactly what is causing the issue…

Ian - 11 March 2008 11:42 AM

try bypassing the switcher and plugging the Mac directly into the wall… things like that.. to try to isolate exactly what is causing the issue…

Did that. I also tried connecting both cards on the network.

If you leave it plugged into the switcher, but take the internet cable out of the switcher, does it work then??

Ian - 11 March 2008 05:00 PM

If you leave it plugged into the switcher, but take the internet cable out of the switcher, does it work then??

I’ll have to try that tomorrow for I am not at the office right now.

If I got you correctly, I plugged both Macpro ports into my switcher and unplugged the switcher from the Internet wall outlet. I also tried unplugging Internet from switcher (kind of the same thing but you never know...). When I do that, the render slaves do not start but instead of just flashing and die, they keep on jumping in the dock. Pretty to watch but not very useful…

I then tried all kinds of variations: 2 ports connected, port 1 alone, port 2 alone, Internet on and off each time, I also tried different cables, different switcher and 2 others Internet wall outlets. The only way to make it work is with no cable in the Macpro ports.

I tried starting the slaves with empty ports then reconnected the cable and launched Rama. No go. Unplug the cable, restart Rama: perfect.

I which I knew something about Networks, I feel I’m just trying stupid things when I should be of more help.

Hi Ian,

I can confirm 2 things on the mac under 7.0.1. (10.4.10) 8 core mactel
1. Switching the cable to the other plug will help to start the slaves.
2. The Slaves reports bad ip addresses. If i address in renderama to the real ip numbers what system pref reports, regardless what the slaves show, rendering will start with renderama and work fine even with the pcs (i hooked up successfully 40 processors. really neat! i used every people’s computer in the office).

I suspect it’s nothing to do with the firewall at all or any other network settings. It is something to do with the way slaves getting the ip numbers on the big mac towers. since this is the only system it has 2 network ports so i beleive it is something to do with that. People who reports this bug, all of them are using the big power houses.

Mishi

... two more things:

1. I have installed parallels - may be this can make ID confusion?

2. Now I have split the Net.
Instead of one hub with 4 slave macs and 4 PCs to one ethernet card, I have installed two hubs (one to each card with different IDs) with two slave macs in each case. (All slaves also with permanent IDs)
Now it works - hopefully (next I will reconnect the PCs too)

Hans

Hans, I think that doesn’t make the confusion since i don’t have parallels. What is that anyway?

But i have a question. i see you use Pcs to render. When you render a movie, do you get some surfaces flickering? I have this problem and drives me nuts and can’t use the pcs for a big rendering. If not just the Mac renders the frames, all the frames which rendered by the pc, gets lighter and at the end, it flickers. annoying. can you confirm that?

Mishi

Mishi,

That sounds like the infamous Quicktime gamma problem that has been with us for years. The solution is to use only .img textures or to render to only one platform at a time. EI 8 (or perhaps 702) will fix this.

Best,
Ian

I get a similar flickering on my dual core PC (no Macs involved) if I am using global illumination and the level is not set to 1.0. The local camera uses the correct value, but the slave appears to change it to 1.0 for its renderings. If I send out multiple strips to each processor, I end up with banding in the final image.

Hi Mishi,

as Ian says, try to use only .img textures - I do so and I did not have this problem until now.
Parallels is a tool for using windows on a mac, which is using the mac OS ethernet connection extern, but I don´t know, how it handel the IDs intern? - but if you don´t have it, it can´t be the problem

Hans

so, i’m using all the latest versions of everything except the latest security update from apple(which i have heard bad things about.)

i have the firewalls turned off on my G5’s running 10.4.11. my macbookpro and 8-core are set to allow all incoming connections.

my slaves all find their IP’s correctly and renderama sees them. occasionally, some slaves will randomly have a master/slave communication error. usually when i’m on a deadline and not in front of the computer to oversee the rendering (which i shouldn’t have to be doing

have we figured this out yet? is this going to be fixed on the next update?

between this and the various shader errors, i’d like to see an update before a paying upgrade...and soon…