Macbook Pro mouse issues when rendering

[rritch]

I recently discovered Twilight Render while looking for a better rendering plugin than Visualizer. I am running Twilight Render Hobby v2 (2.11 64bit) on a late 2017 Macbook Pro Specs: 2.9 GHz i7, 16G RAM, Radeon Pro 560 (4GB) + Intel HD Graohics 630 (1GB) OS X Mojave (10.14.1). I absolutely love the quality of the renders that I am now creating with very little experience. I am having one issue that occurs randomly. When I run higher quality renders (easy 6 or higher) that takes a long time to render I randomly have an issue where the mouse clicks stop responding. This occurs with both a Logitech M720 mouse and the Mac touchpad. It also occurs with the M720 using either the built in drivers and the Logitech drivers. Sometimes I can put the Macbook to sleep for a while and then it will start working again, but most times I have to just force power down the Mac. I have tried adjusting the multi-threading in Twilight to only use 4 threads, but I still get the issue. It does not happen every time, but probably at least 75%. I will say that the model I have been using to render is large with a lot of detail. Has anyone else experienced this issue, or have any suggestions on how to fix it? Any tips would be appreciated. I have included one of the renders so you can get an idea of the render complexity. Thank you!

timberframe shop interior 9.jpg (952.56 KiB) Viewed 5185 times

[Chris]

What is the model number of your Intel I7 processor? Some of them have only 4 cores and while they market that as supporting 8 threads, they may not technically be true for the world of rendering. Because rendering uses the cores at 100% and dominates any floating-point processor on the core, any claims of 2x threading due to hyperthreading are not accurate.

So, it is possible that you are maxing out the CPU and that is causing the mouse to stop responding. I don't have much experience with Macs so I have no idea how likely that is.

[Fletch]

rritch,
Try rendering with Easy09 and see if you have the same problem.
In my experience, Easy09 will render quicker than Easy06/07 in cases where there are interior lights.(more direct light)
Easy 09 handles the processor and RAM differently from Easy 06/07.

[rritch]

I am not sure the exact model of i7 processor it is. I cannot seem to find that information. The system information just shows Intel i7. I currently have multi-threading set at 4 cores and still get the same results. i will try the Easy 9 setting to see how that goes. Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I have set the auto save settings to 10 minutes. so it is not really the end of the world, but I would prefer not to have to hard power it after each render.

[Fletch]

save every 10 mins with Easy 06 or Easy 07 is pointless because the image isn't really ready to save until the end of the AA pass which is what will take the longest.
meanwhile, try all 8 threads on Easy 09 it will actually be faster, likely, than Easy 06 on 4 threads for sure.
and saving every 10 mins on Easy 09 makes sense.