A temporary fix for slow rendering after update 17/17a

I've been having a lot of trouble with renders taking a long time just recently, and I know a few others are having the same problem. There's an unofficial fix favoured by the tech-savvy that involves choosing and downloading a different version of Imagemagick, but I am among the crowd that don't feel comfortable making that choice when I've no idea what anything means.

Anyway...

I was discussing the long hours I've spent waiting for renders to happen just these last couple of weeks with others in whispers on another thread, when quite by chance we realised that the most recent update had inadvertently reversed a manual adjustment I made to the config file under Ralf's direct guidance about a year ago (maybe longer than that, I can't remember now). It was one of those penny-drop moments...

Whether you happen to remember this or not, the adjustment I'm talking about was the addition of a single zero to a number which controls the size of each pass across the map during a render. The bigger that number, the broader the pass, and the shorter the time it takes to render the map. It also greatly reduces artefacts experienced when rendering dungeons with lots of lighting effects.

Once this was realised Joe Slayton was able to give me single line command to fix the missing zero,

It worked like a dream! I'm back to where I was before with nice efficiently fast renders - so if you want to give it a shot yourself, just type this into the command line:

EXPORTSETMPPP 40000000

And that's all there is to it.

***Just remember to be absolutely certain that you have only given that number 7 (SEVEN) zeros before you hit return!***


Thank you soooo much Joe!!!! :D

Comments

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited June 2018
    Note that this is not accomplishing the same as the other fix Sue mentioned by replacing the ImageMagick version.

    Basically, CC3+ does two main things when it renders:
    - In phase one, it renders sheet by sheet and builds up a complete image by layering these sheets on top of each other (You'll see the output window mentiones passes and keeps iterating over the sheets in the drawing)
    - In phase two, it converts the image to the final format, and handles anti-aliasing. (This phase starts when the text 'Converting to final format' appears in the output window)

    This tweak makes CC3+ use larger passes in phase one, so you'll see that the number of passes goes down, which result in slower passes, but still a nice performance gain overall. It does not affect phase two in any way.
    Replacing ImageMagick on the other hand is a phase two fix. it greatly speeds up this final processing, but it does nothing at all for phase one.

    Also note that the value Sue suggest of 40000000 is generally good for most people, but it can be an issue if CC3+ doesn't have enough ram available to it, or on particularly complex maps. I've had issues myself where I needed to cut this value in half or CC3+ would crash when rendering the map, but on other maps I use 60000000

    Personally, I am always using both of these tweaks. They're both discussed in annual 129 (Large Exports) if you have that one, although that was written before the EXPORTSETMPPP command, so that documentation directs you to make changes to the config file instead of just running a simple command.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Also, if you aren't sure what number already exists in that slot, if you just type EXPORTSETMPP and hit return it will tell you in the prompt that appears ;)
  • How long is this setting remembered? i.e. is it only for the next export, the entire session (until CC3+ is closed) or until is it remembered between sessions (i.e. until changed)?
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Its sets the value in the config file until you change it again using the same command (or until someone updates the config file as part of an official update). That's what Monsen was saying - he adjusts it to suit the circumstances, like a tweaking tool.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    All credit for the config file adjustment command line to Joe Slayton. All I did was spread the news a bit ;)
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