How do you render on a laptop?

[pbacot]

I have a new Mac Book Pro. I don't recall this problem. Whatever I do the computer stops rendering unless (I guess) I keep the screen on. I don't recall this problem before. I've disabled all the energy saving defaults.... Somehow I have to keep the computer awake! As I say, this seems like a new problem.

[LedouxM]

Hi there, I have the same problem. Changed the settings so my laptop never shuts down or go's to sleep when plugged in. Turned all the energy saving stuff off. Never had a problem after these changes. Set my screen saver to a black screen and solved the problem of power consumption...

[Chris]

LedouxM, are you also on a Mac?

I have heard of this issue with OSX in years past because of OSX's power management. Without knowing anything more about it, I would guess it is a similar issue (though you mention you have already made changes to those settings).

Does the computer go into hibernation completely, or is it just the screen? If you disable turning off the screen completely, does it still run?
Does the render still run, it just doesn't update the screen, or does the render process itself completely halt? Does it resume when you wake the screen back up?

[pbacot]

It's a laptop Mac Book Pro. I don't think I had much of a problem with this before. Now on a brand new computer and High Sierra OS it's a problem. Now I set all the settings to not sleep-- except the screen has screen saver. And that turns it off as well, it seems. So now I have to leave the screen burning to render?

It seems to run some after I leave it. It starts again right away. I'll keep looking for information if there is any.

[pbacot]

I may have to learn to use this: https://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorial ... -mac-50905

[tuna57]

pbacot, Don't know if this will help or not..... posting a screen shot of how I have Energy Saver set on my MacBook pro. My machine is a little older and running Yosemite but I think the settings pane is the same. Set this way I've let a few renders run for two days or more a few times. Laptop goes to screensaver but SU and Twilight are still running. The biggest problem I have rendering on the laptop is the cpu throttles back due to massive heat buildup. Cooked two motherboards in my previous MacBook Pro. Render times can get kind of long due to the slowing down. Was the main reason I bought the big iMac for my heavy load rendering machine.

[pbacot]

Pretty much how I have it.... Everything to never sleep.

I think I am finding that actually Twilight is not rendering in the background consistently. It seemed like it did it fine before.

May be a moot point. I think I am taking my new Mac back. It may be some things are working faster like SU but I cannot be sure. Certainly underwhelmed for the money I spent and these new problems are vexing me. This could be a High Sierra problem. I'm probably going back to my old Mac with some upgrades. The new Macs cannot be upgraded at all. Battery change is $400+ Hope they take it back (still inside the return window).

[tuna57]

pbacot, I did a quick search on the Apple forums yesterday to no avail. Wonder if you posted there asking about keeping programs running in the background would shed any light on the problem ?

[pbacot]

I did a little and didn't find anything. I haven't had time to look more. I may find than moving to Mojave (which is my ultimate goal) will change this and other things. At present trying to struggle out a few more renders for a presentation tomorrow. I have to keep returning to sketchup to get it to work. No time now to trouble shoot.