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Stephen G.
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Q: Shake not getting along with 12 Core 2010 Mac with the ATI Radeon HD 5870

I've been relying on Shake for years to supplement my film work in Final Cut Pro, and I recently upgraded to a new 12 core with the upgraded 5870 video card, and 24GB of memory. All is well with Final Cut Studio and my other pro apps, but Shake is very unstable and crashes pretty much as soon as I begin working with it.

I don't use Apple's Migration tool; I did a from-scratch "clean install" of all applications from master disks, including Shake 4.1's install disk. Ran Apple's updater until it was happy and said all was current.

Apple's tech support people said it's no longer something they cover, now that it's discontinued, and it hasn't been tested on the new platforms.

It appears at least one user on this forum is having success on a 12 core, which makes me wonder if the issue is related to my graphics card or the driver for it.

Anyone else have experiences to report or suggestions?

Thanks,

Stephen Gagne
Westwood Creek Productions

Mac Pro 2010 12 core, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Nov 9, 2010 9:47 AM

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Stephen G.

Q: Shake not getting along with 12 Core 2010 Mac with the ATI Radeon HD 5870

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  • Helpful answers

  • by stuckfootage,

    stuckfootage stuckfootage Nov 9, 2010 10:31 AM in response to Stephen G.
    Level 4 (3,040 points)
    Nov 9, 2010 10:31 AM in response to Stephen G.
    Try running Shake on 4 cores to see whether the problem persists
    Globals > renderControls > maxThread = 4

  • by Jon Chappell,

    Jon Chappell Jon Chappell Nov 9, 2010 10:43 AM in response to Stephen G.
    Level 5 (4,005 points)
    Nov 9, 2010 10:43 AM in response to Stephen G.
    Remember that the 2010 Mac Pros boot into 64-bit mode by default. It may be worth restarting in 32-bit mode (hold down the 3 and 2 keys at startup) to see if that solves the issue.

  • by Stephen G.,

    Stephen G. Stephen G. Nov 9, 2010 11:30 AM in response to stuckfootage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2010 11:30 AM in response to stuckfootage
    I'd be delighted if I ever got as far as being able to specifiy max thread at render time. The problem is bigger than that -- my crashes tend to be very early on. Thanks for the tip, however. I'll try that if I ever get that far.

  • by Stephen G.,

    Stephen G. Stephen G. Nov 9, 2010 11:31 AM in response to Jon Chappell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2010 11:31 AM in response to Jon Chappell
    As for the 32 bit vs 64 bit tip, thanks for that notion. Haven't tried it yet, but will soon. I'll let you know what happens.

    Stephen

  • by stuckfootage,

    stuckfootage stuckfootage Nov 9, 2010 12:17 PM in response to Stephen G.
    Level 4 (3,040 points)
    Nov 9, 2010 12:17 PM in response to Stephen G.
    Stephen G. wrote:
    I'd be delighted if I ever got as far as being able to specify max thread


    Oh sorry! I didn't read your post carefully enough.
    You can make the change without launching Shake.

    1. Create a plain text file named core_test.h
    2. Make the contents of the file be: *sys.maxThread = 4;*
    3. Save it here: ~/nreal/include/startup/ui/core_test.h

    References:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1101
    Shake manual, page 355.

  • by Stephen G.,

    Stephen G. Stephen G. Nov 9, 2010 1:51 PM in response to stuckfootage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 9, 2010 1:51 PM in response to stuckfootage
    Thanks for this, stuckfootage. Your script seems to create a default render condition of 4 threads, right?

    As I understand it, that would only be applicable during render, and could be manually duplicated by specifying 4 threads at render time. Either way, it's not the issue, far as I can see -- my crashes typically happen well before I get to render time.

    Thanks, though.

    Stephen

  • by Rob Frei,

    Rob Frei Rob Frei Nov 13, 2010 7:08 AM in response to Stephen G.
    Level 1 (105 points)
    Nov 13, 2010 7:08 AM in response to Stephen G.
    For what its worth, I've been using Shake on an 8 core Mac for years and it works great. Currently I'm running 10.6.4. I am using an older graphics card (ATI Radeon X1900).

    I'm planning to get a 12 core Mac for work and I was planning to use Shake for compositing. I was planning to go with the standard graphics card offered by Apple.

    Do you have Shake running yet?

  • by Rob Frei,

    Rob Frei Rob Frei Nov 13, 2010 7:49 AM in response to Rob Frei
    Level 1 (105 points)
    Nov 13, 2010 7:49 AM in response to Rob Frei
    I found a cool Shake render test that you can run from the command line on another forum. Enter the following command into your terminal:

    shake -checker 1600 1600 2 -turbulate 1 1 10 10 10 10 -nocache -cpu 8 -fo /shaketemp.tga -v

    Change the number of CPU's as you like to see how performance varies. On my 8 core Mac, the test ran in 14.05 sec utilizing one core. I ran it again using all eight cores and it dropped to 2.24 sec. All 8 cores are definitely engaged running individual threads.

  • by Stephen G.,

    Stephen G. Stephen G. Dec 4, 2010 9:41 AM in response to Rob Frei
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 4, 2010 9:41 AM in response to Rob Frei
    Sorry to be slow getting back to you all -- other client editing needs took precedent.

    I've now tried running in 32 bit mode. No change -- still crashes before I can do any useful work.

    The suggestion to "Try running Shake on 4 cores" doesn't seem pertinent for two reasons.

    1) I can get a successful 8 core render out of Shake on the new 12 core Mac if I simply bring in a file and hook it directly to a File Out, without any setting changes or intermediate nodes.

    2) The crashes occur before I get to renders otherwise, and I believe they're happening irrespective of the # of cores set -- see below for a description of how I can reliably get Shake to crash before doing much.

    I've had shake working perfectly on two different older 8 core Intel Macs in our suite here -- both a 2008 and a mid-2009 model.

    I've also tried switching the video cards in my 2009 8 core with the 12 core to see if it was a video card conflict, and that didn't help.

    So I'm pretty stuck at this point when it comes to Shake on the 12 core. Yuck! Huge hours spent mastering Shake, and Motion isn't nearly as powerful for some of what we do here.

    Here's all it takes to bring Shake down on the 12 core -- just trying to process a clip using the high quality slo-mo features in the Filein node, which I've found noticeably superior to what's available in Motion's theoretically similar process:

    I Import a DVCPROHD or ProRes clip (in my case, the same clip I'd already successfully rendered out in Shake as long as there were no setting changes or intermediate nodes), and in that clip node's timing tab, change retiming to Speed, Retime mode to Adaptive, quality to Best, and speed to .25.

    Crash. Sometimes I'll get as far as adding the file-out node.

    That's all it takes.

    Here's one crash, showing a thread 0 problem. Actually it's more common for thread 40 to crash; I'll paste the pertinent sections of that report below this one:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Process: shake [1204]
    Path: /Applications/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake
    Identifier: com.apple.shake
    Version: 4.1.1 (4.1.1)
    Build Info: ShakeProject-8000000~4
    Code Type: X86 (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [153]

    Date/Time: 2010-12-04 09:16:10.023 -0800
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.4 (10F2521)
    Report Version: 6

    Interval Since Last Report: 110955 sec
    Crashes Since Last Report: 1
    Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 446 sec
    Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 1
    Anonymous UUID: EC4546CB-1DE0-4356-BED2-7BD857D47C9D

    Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGSEGV)
    Exception Codes: KERNINVALIDADDRESS at 0x0000000019f51000
    Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

    Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0xffff0820 __memcpy + 128

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Process: shake [1306]
    Path: /Applications/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake
    Identifier: com.apple.shake
    Version: 4.1.1 (4.1.1)
    Build Info: ShakeProject-8000000~4
    Code Type: X86 (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [153]

    Date/Time: 2010-12-04 09:35:03.985 -0800
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.4 (10F2521)
    Report Version: 6

    Interval Since Last Report: 112089 sec
    Crashes Since Last Report: 3
    Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1031 sec
    Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 3
    Anonymous UUID: EC4546CB-1DE0-4356-BED2-7BD857D47C9D

    Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGBUS)
    Exception Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE at 0x000000000000000c
    Crashed Thread: 40


    Thread 0: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
    0 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3538d9cd soMResizeKernel(double, int, double, soMContFunc1DFloat*, soMDiscFunc1DInt*) + 145
    1 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3543208a IPResFilter_AFMULTI(soIPImageAF*, soIPImageAF*, soMContFunc1DFloat*, int, int, void*) + 982
    2 com.apple.shake.effects 0x354329ad IP_ResFilter(soIPImage*, soIPImage*, soMContFunc1DFloat*, void*) + 1505
    3 com.apple.shake.effects 0x35432a4f soIPLinearResize(soIPImage*, soIPImage*, int, void*) + 87
    4 com.apple.shake.effects 0x354540dd soMONewEstimator::PDEFlowFast(soIPImageRGB8*, soIPImageRGB8 const*, float, float, int, float) + 967
    5 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3545775b soMONewEstimator::estimateFlow(soIPImageRGBAF*, soIPImageRGBAF*) + 459
    6 com.apple.shake.effects 0x353d9af4 soMONewFrameInterpolator::MorphImagesWithPixelMotion(soIPImageRGBAF*, soIPImageRGBAF*, soIPImageRGBAF*, float, int, int) + 408
    7 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3539e342 ISPRetimerNode::DoProcessRGBAFPPVS() + 538
    8 com.apple.shake.effects 0x353a51fc ISPRetimerNode::DoProcessRGBAF() + 96
    9 com.apple.shake.effects 0x353a529f ISPRetimerNode::RenderArea(int, int, int, int, int) + 85
    10 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3539ad81 ISPProcessNode::RenderP(int) + 145
    11 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3537be09 HSConverter::ConvertFrame(float, void*) + 3687
    12 com.apple.shake.effects 0x35300d35 soRetiming::Render(NRiIBuf*) + 871
    13 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3530256e soRetiming::fillOutputBuffer() + 388
    14 com.apple.shake.effects 0x351246c5 NRiNadic::eval(NRiPlug*) + 291
    15 com.apple.shake.effects 0x353020d7 soRetiming::eval(NRiPlug*) + 929
    16 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    17 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    18 com.apple.shake.core 0x02047763 NRiICache::eval(NRiPlug*) + 451
    19 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    20 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    21 com.apple.shake.core 0x0200a495 NRiCrop::evalCrop(NRiIBuf*, int) + 181
    22 com.apple.shake.core 0x0200b9c5 NRiCrop::eval(NRiPlug*) + 325
    23 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    24 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    25 com.apple.shake.core 0x0200a495 NRiCrop::evalCrop(NRiIBuf*, int) + 181
    26 com.apple.shake.core 0x0200b9c5 NRiCrop::eval(NRiPlug*) + 325
    27 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    28 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    29 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3516e56c NRiResampler::eval(NRiPlug*) + 2594
    30 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    31 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    32 com.apple.shake.core 0x02047763 NRiICache::eval(NRiPlug*) + 451
    33 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    34 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    35 com.apple.shake.core 0x0200a495 NRiCrop::evalCrop(NRiIBuf*, int) + 181
    36 com.apple.shake.core 0x0200b9c5 NRiCrop::eval(NRiPlug*) + 325
    37 com.apple.shake.core 0x0207514a NRiPlug::getVal() + 298
    38 com.apple.shake.core 0x020754e0 NRiPlug::asPtr() + 64
    39 com.apple.shake.effects 0x350c38e4 NRiIInput::eval(NRiPlug*) + 96
    40 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3508eee5 NRiFileIn::eval(NRiPlug*) + 7705
    41 com.apple.shake.effects 0x351b27df NRiSFileIn::eval(NRiPlug*) + 807



    Thread 40 Crashed:
    0 com.apple.shake.effects 0x35431d26 IPResFilter_AFMULTI(soIPImageAF*, soIPImageAF*, soMContFunc1DFloat*, int, int, void*) + 114
    1 com.apple.shake.effects 0x3542c33f task_func + 34
    2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x96a5581d pthreadstart + 345
    3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x96a556a2 thread_start + 34

    Thread 40 crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit):
    eax: 0x355c8d08 ebx: 0x35431cc5 ecx: 0x00000000 edx: 0x355bb068
    edi: 0x00000000 esi: 0x96a556d2 ebp: 0xb146af68 esp: 0xb1469e80
    ss: 0x00000023 efl: 0x00010282 eip: 0x35431d26 cs: 0x0000001b
    ds: 0x00000023 es: 0x00000023 fs: 0x00000023 gs: 0x0000000f
    cr2: 0x0000000c

    Thanks, Stephen Gagne