PI 1.7 under Windows hogs CPU

[Flea77]

When running the BatchPreprocess script the computer becomes almost unresponsive making it impossible to even read a messageboard in a web browser. Juan suggested I change the Maximum Module Thread Priority to Normal which I did and that makes it better, but still when running integration at the start of the script the same thing happens.

i7 quad core, 2.93GHz, 16GB RAM, 256 SATA6 SSD boot, 1TB 7200 Data.

[mschuster]

Try this:

Preferences > Parallel Processing and Threads > Maximum number of processors used:
Turn off Allow using all available processors
Set number to one less than the number of logical cores

This solves the problem on my MacBook Air. The tradeoff is a reasonably small performance degradation in some of PI's multithreaded processes.

Mike

[Flea77]

Mike,

Thanks, that seems to have fixed the problem. Still can get a tiny bit jerky which is fine, I can read forums now at least!

An interesting note, on another thread my issue was attributed to Windows "suckage" as they put it, seems it isn't the OS after all!

Allan

[pfile]

could still be, if you are having to set custom thread parameters for just windows, then yes, i'd say there might be a problem with the windows scheduler.

only juan knows if all the thread priority stuff was equal across platforms until this tweak is applied.

[Flea77]

could still be, if you are having to set custom thread parameters for just windows, then yes, i'd say there might be a problem with the windows scheduler.

only juan knows if all the thread priority stuff was equal across platforms until this tweak is applied.

Really? So Mike having the exact same problem on his Macbook Air is due to Windows "suckage" too? What, he keeps it too close to a Windows box? LOL!

Allan

[pfile]

all i know is my own experience. i've never had lags, etc on either my air or my hack. but i do have a lot of memory in the hack.

[Flea77]

Well I tell you what. Since you said you never had lags on your Mac or Hack (which these days is all Macs anyway) which leads me to believe you don't run Windows, why don't you try to not insult a person's OS of choice by saying it sucks? Then I wont have to go into detail on why we pulled all the Macs and Linux servers out of two school districts and replaced them with Windows boxes. Deal?

Besides, infering that someone's computer sucks because of their choice of OSs is just plain rude.

Allan

[mschuster]

Sorry for my misleading post. I running PI in Win7 on my Air. The issue is Win7.
Allan your attitude is annoying. I hope you get bored soon and go somewhere else.
Mike

[Flea77]

Mike, how convenient.

I would go somewhere else but this is where I was told to report the myriad problems in the software. Not overly fond of most people here myself.

Allan

[Juan Conejero]

This is a well-known issue with PixInsight 1.7 on Windows operating systems. It is already fixed in the incoming version 1.8.0 of the PixInsight core application.

The workaround is decreasing the maximum thread priority allowed for modules with the standard Preferences tool, or with the parallel command:

parallel -t=4

If setting maximum thread priority to normal priority (4) doesn't fix the problem for you, try lowering it even more. You can try with very low priority (2), but this is really odd and has not been reported before. Another solution is limiting the number of processor cores used by PixInsight, as has been indicated. This can be done easily with this command:

parallel -p=n

where n is the maximum number of processor cores allowed for module processing. Use 'help parallel' for information on additional options to control parallel processing in PixInsight.

[Juan Conejero]

As for the rest of 'comments', please drop them *now* or I'll have to lock/delete this topic. And it would be the first time that I have to moderate a thread on this forum.