Start Frame | startframe – Explicitly sets the Start frame of the Simulation. This can also be a negative number. Only available when Timeline (Start Frame) is disabled.
Timeline | start_from_timeline - When enabled, the Simulation will run from the Timeline Start Frame.
Stop Frame | stopframe – Explicitly sets the End frame of the Simulation. This can also be a negative number. Only available when Timeline (Stop Frame) is disabled.
Timeline | stop_from_timeline - When enabled, the Simulation will run to the end of the Timeline.
Use GPU to Aid Simulation| useGPU – When enabled, runs suitable phases of the simulation on the GPU instead of the CPU, which can help the simulation speed. Currently only the PCG Fluidity (Conservation) method of Fire/Smoke simulations takes advantage of this.
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The PCG fluidity on CPU and the PCG fluidity on GPU will not produce identical results - the fluid will slowly start moving in slightly different directions between the two implementations.
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If the GPU can't be initialized, Phoenix will automatically fall back to CPU and will indicate this in the Phoenix log file. The reason the GPU is not initialized may be that there is no GPU, or the GPU is old, or the GPU drivers need to be updated.
Render On Each Sim Frame | rend_sim_frame – During simulation, after each new frame is simulated, this option will start a render with your currently assigned production renderer and with the render settings you have dialed in your Render Setup 3ds Max dialog. You need to have set a Render Output File in the 3ds Max Render Settings in advance. Phoenix will automatically append the frame number to the file name. You can useRender On Each Sim Framewhen you leave a long simulation overnight, so you will have a ready rendered sequence when you come back to check on it, even if the entire simulation did not have time to finish. If you are doing test iterations and you don't need your fire/smoke to be rendered with production quality, you could enable the GPU Preview extended viewport and use the Save Images During Simoption instead.
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When doing test iterations on your simulation setup, you can also speed up the simulation by enabling Cacheless Simulation from the Output rollout.
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An alternative approach to Render On Each Sim Frame is to automatically start a sequence render after the entire simulation has finished by adding a 'max quick render' command under the OnSimulationEnd() callback of the Use Script option below.
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Use Script | script, use_script – Enables the use of a MAXScript during the simulation. Press Edit... to open a window with sample code and a short description of available commands. For more information, please see the Phoenix MaxScript documentation.
Threads Limit | maxthreads – Specifies an upper limit on the number of threads used for the simulation. When the value is set to 0, the maximum number of threads (cores) will be used.
NUMA Nodes – Specifies which nodes will be used if the simulation is executed by a NUMA machine. Phoenix is very sensitive to the memory transfer and if all the nodes are used, performance might decrease due to low bandwidth between the different nodes.
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NUMA stands for Non-Uniform Memory Access. It can be used to restrict the threads used for simulation based on the physical CPUs available on the system (in a multiprocessor system). In this way, better memory access can be achieved when multiple simulations are run on the same machine.
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This area displays information on the current simulation. Any data from channels that have been loaded into the simulator are shown. This includes the minimum and maximum ranges for each channel. Check the Grid Channel Ranges and Particle Channel Ranges pages for more information.
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Note that the Container Dimensions show the loaded cache size as seen in the scene, in the currently selected units. This size is not multiplied by the Scene Scale parameter from the Grid rollout. If you want to see how big the container is as seen by the Phoenix simulator when the Scene Scale parameter is used, check the X, Y,Zinfo in the Grid rollout.
