Pro-coder encoding on Quad Core PC vs Dual Core

[Dan]

OK I vote that this thread gets deleted before I go into a jealous rage J/K Congrats on your upgrade that is fast.YLB

You aren't the only jealous one BR7, LOL.

That's it, I guess it is time for a new computer. I have to use DVD-RB at night that's how slow my old beast is!

Awesome results Romero, sounds like a great system you have there.

[BR7]

It just sucks on how fast technology moves.It seems every time you get your self a PC upgrade a better one comes along shortly after,it would be nice to see things top off for awhile.Don't get me wrong I am not complaining about my PC it has served me well for the short time I have had it but I sure would like to have those 2 extra cores

[UncasMS]

impressive speed, romero

in case you want to test your oc'ed machine: join our folding team

[asklepios]

Hi All,

Just built out a Quad Core PC for Myself and decided to run a small test on Encoding A Scanner Darkly.
My old setup was a Pentium D 950 (3.4Ghz Stock) overclocked to 4.1Ghz, I gig of Ram, Motherboard Asus P5WD2-Premium, 3 WD HD 7200's with 8mb buffers.

My new setup Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66 Stock) overclocked to 3.09Ghz, 2Gig Ram, Intel BadAxe2 Motherboard 1 Raptor 150gb & 2 Seagate 7200.10 320gb Harddrives.

Used DVD Rebuilder Professional V1.21, Procoder was set to Mastering Quality and Extras was set to 10% Reduction, Multiple Encoder Processes was enabled. Although It only started two instances of Procoder on each machine (I thought it might start 4 instances on the Quad Core but it didn't, although all 4 cores where used but not to 100% Load, it seemed to average around 83%)

Just looking at the Procoder Encoding it took the Pentium D Dual Core 134 Minutes to complete.

On the Quad Core it took 58 Minutes!!!!


So very happy with the results of the upgrade

Rgds

Romero

Hi,
Could you show me how to enable the options for dual core cpu? How do you do the installations and what options are you selected?
I have an opteron 170 and for some reason it encodes very slow.
Thanks

[jdobbs]

Why, oh why am I still dicking around with this Athlon XP 3200+?

I told myself that I had to keep using a low-end computer for my testing so I wouldn't get spoiled and start writing inefficient code... but a couple 38 minute encodes would sure be nice!!!

I can only imagine what times Romero might start seeing when Hank315 releases the final version of HC v0.20 -- whoo, hoo!!

[jdobbs]

Hey guys I'm new to DVDRB pro ! I'm using HCencoder and getting approx.5-6 hr. rebuilds. should I change my Rebuilder ini file from Encode_processes=1 to 2? will that help the time it takes? or not? TIA !!!!!

Only if you have a dual core processor or a fast processor that isn't running at 100% when you are encoding -- and you're not running CCE. Looking at your times I'd guess that isn't the case, even my ancient XP 3200+ finishes most discs in 2 or 3 hours.

[Romero]

Sorry for not posting back, I'm after loading up the 32bit version of Vista so interesting to see what way, if any that will effect encodes, I'll do a scanner Darkly again, might also do a series disc like battlestar Galactica or CSI Las Vegas.

It's not the easiest chip to overclock I have to say, I'm currently running 3.3ghz so it will be a good stability test. I'll use pro-coder first and then use whatever the latest release of HC I can get.

Thanks

Romero
I'll post back here

[Romero]

mmm interesting, first round of tests under XP came in faster then the encode under Vista and I have the Quad Core up to 3.2ghz whereas the test under XP the overclock was 3.1ghz. Anyway results below

Scanner Darkly encode phase 2

Procoder              Hanks
XP         Vista      XP & nbsp;      Vista
41mins   50mins   38 mins  43mins

So looks like something in Vista is slowing down the encoder process compared to XP.

Romero

[jdobbs]

Hi,
Could you show me how to enable the options for dual core cpu? How do you do the installations and what options are you selected?
I have an opteron 170 and for some reason it encodes very slow.
Thanks

For two processors (like the Opteron) you just click on on "SETTINGS" and then select "Multiple Encoder Processes" -- the checkmark tells you whether or not it is selected. When you select it, a value of "2" is set for "Encode_Processes=" in REBUILDER.INI. This tells the ENCODE module to run two instances of the encoder program concurrently. An undocumented feature of DVD-RB is the fact that you can put any value you want for "Encode_Processes=" -- so you could run 20 instances if you want to. You just do it by editing the INI file.

Just remember that generally the number is most effective if it is set to match the number of processors you computer has. On some very fast single core computers you may get improved performance by setting the value to "2" -- only because one instance of encoder may not use all the available CPU time and you can squeeze out extra speed from the unused cycles.

Currently "Multiple Encoder Processes" is not supported for CCE. That's because CCE does not allow more than one instance of the program to run at a time. But -- you also have to consider that CCE is written for multi-threaded operation, meaning that it will (at least partially) utilize more than one processor anyhow.