Buying a new notebook as editing system(need hardware tipps)

[Kariudo]

You will want:

Windows XP Professional (Home can't handle multi-core and Vista just plain sucks)
The fastest dual-core CPU available (XP Pro can only use 2 cores)
A high-resolution screen
DDR2-1066 or faster memory

Not much else matters. You probably won't be using more than 2GB of RAM, nor will you notice any improvements in speed past DDR2-1066. The video card is wholly irrelevant, as it's not where the rendering and encoding are done. You're using an external hard drive, so HD size is irrelevant. Just get that 3.33GHz Wolfdale and a big screen, and you're gold.

I would usually just ignore such a necropost, but when you spread bad information it really gets me going.

XP (any version) can support up to 32 cores* (personally, I have my Core2Quad running XP Pro).
However, Home can only use 1 physical cpu while Pro can use 2 physical cpus** (which is seen primarily on server mobos)

If you do extensive work in AE, 2 GB of ram can run out pretty quickly.

Internal HDD >> external HDD for editing (save for firewire 800 and esata externals, which should still give you enough throughput)

Seeing as rendering and encoding can easily load a processor, you'd want to stay away from integrated graphics (not to mention integrated graphics siphons some of your system ram) if you want to do something besides rendering/encoding while you wait.
You probably won't be playing crysis while rendering, and the gain you'll get from a dedicated card if you play something like solitare is negligable, but it isn't completely irrelevant.

*I get this number from the task manager of XP pro. When you choose processor affinity for a process you see 32 checkboxes.
**If you go according to Microsoft's licensing terms

[the Black Monarch]

XP (any version) can support up to 32 cores*

SRSLY?

Can we get some better sauce for this?

[the Black Monarch]

Internal HDD >> external HDD for editing (save for firewire 800 and esata externals, which should still give you enough throughput)

The author already said that he/she was using an external hard drive.

you'd want to stay away from integrated graphics (not to mention integrated graphics siphons some of your system ram) if you want to do something besides rendering/encoding while you wait.

Only if that something happens to be 3-D gaming... which is unlikely.

You probably won't be playing crysis while rendering

Yeah, exactly.

[Kariudo]

Quote:
you'd want to stay away from integrated graphics (not to mention integrated graphics siphons some of your system ram) if you want to do something besides rendering/encoding while you wait.


Only if that something happens to be 3-D gaming... which is unlikely.

and the gain you'll get from a dedicated card if you play something like solitare is negligable, but it isn't completely irrelevant.

Hurrah for prepositions?

SRSLY?

YA RLY
XP Pro running 4 cores (8 threads)
32 threads it is not, but 8 (per physical cpu) is the maximum for consumer-grade cpu solutions at this time

[the Black Monarch]

Fascinating.

Excuse me while I go somewhere to hang my head in shame.

[the Black Monarch]

*wanders back in, head no longer hung in shame*

Sorry about that. The actual reason why most quad-cores are a waste of money right now is that Virtualdub, which will be your primary consumer of CPU cycles, does not efficiently utilize multiple cores:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=63 ... pert&pid=8

Notice than in SSE4, the Q9650 outperforms the E8500 by only about 10%, despite costing 63% more on Newegg. The i7 chips fare much better, but motherboards for them are much more expensive than their LGA775 counterparts.

[Kariudo]

It has less to do with vdub and more to do with the codec itself.
I'll do some test encodes tomorrow (q8200 @2.33. I'll do runs with 3 cores disabled, 2 cores disabled and no cores disabled)

Q9400 is about $25 more than the E8500, with intel's VT
Q8200 is about $30 cheaper, but no VT

both surpass the e8500 in rendering out of vegas link

It's surprisingly hard to find comparisons on video encoding

[the Black Monarch]

Q9400 is about $25 more than the E8500, with intel's VT
Q8200 is about $30 cheaper, but no VT

And both will be slower than the E8500.

I'll do some test encodes tomorrow (q8200 @2.33. I'll do runs with 3 cores disabled, 2 cores disabled and no cores disabled)

Oh, that should be quite unnecessary. Let's not drag this thread out any more than we need to.

(for the record, I just did a mini-test on my dual-core system, and CPU load stayed consistently between 55% and 65%, with neither core ever experiencing full load. Latest versions of both Vdub and XviD were used.)

[Kariudo]

Q9400 is about $25 more than the E8500, with intel's VT
Q8200 is about $30 cheaper, but no VT

And both will be slower than the E8500.

boy, you just like to pick and choose your information don't ya?

I'll do some test encodes tomorrow (q8200 @2.33. I'll do runs with 3 cores disabled, 2 cores disabled and no cores disabled)

Oh, that should be quite unnecessary. Let's not drag this thread out any more than we need to.

(for the record, I just did a mini-test on my dual-core system, and CPU load stayed consistently between 55% and 65%, with neither core ever experiencing full load. Latest versions of both Vdub and XviD were used.)

Not at all, it is in the name of denouncing the perpetuation of computing myths after all!
Onwards I say.

all encodes were the same 2000 frames from the first episode of Gungrave (960x480)
The most recent versions of each codec (and virtualdub) were used
Defaults for all codecs were used, with the exception of options that allowed multithreading.

Vdub doesn't hand me the CLI parameters it passes to xvid, so the meGUI xvid test was done with parameters as close to Vdub's as I could get. The CLI parameters from meGUI were fed into xvid_encraw CLI

divx didn't like 960 x 480 on the home theater (ie, default) preset, so encoding was done at 720x480 for divx

Divx 6.8

Code: Select all

quad core: 50 seconds
dual core: 62 seconds
single core: 82 seconds

%improved 
64% (single to quad)
32.26% (single to dual) 
24% (dual to quad)

Huffyuv 2.1.1

Code: Select all

quad core: 21 seconds
dual core: 47 seconds
single core: 64 seconds

%improved
204.76% (single to quad)
72.97% (single to dual)
76.19% (dual to quad)

Lagarith 1.2.1

Code: Select all

quad core: 19 seconds
dual core: 48 seconds
single core: 84 seconds

%improved
342.11% (single to quad)
75% (single to dual)
152.63% (dual to quad)

Xvid 1.2.2

Code: Select all

quad core: 41 seconds
dual core: 69 seconds
single core: 122 seconds

%improved
197.56% (single to quad)
76.81% (single to dual)
68.29% (dual to quad)

Xvid 1.2.2 (using meGUI)

Code: Select all

quad core: 43 seconds
dual core: 75 seconds
single core: 102 seconds

%improved
137.21% (single to quad)
36% (single to dual)
74.42% (dual to quad)

Xvid 1.2.2 (using xvid_encraw CLI)

Code: Select all

quad core: 45 seconds
dual core: 69 seconds
single core: 99 seconds

%improved
120% (single to quad)
43.48% (single to dual)
53.33% (dual to quad)

Divx's enhanced multithreading shaved about 4 seconds off the quad core encode and 10 seconds off the dual core encode.

Vdub always utilized more of every core available than the CLI...save for some of the single core tests where even the cli completely loaded the core.

...I'd say vdub handles multithreading just fine, and that a quad core is definitely worth it for encoding

[NeoQuixotic]

Virtualdub also has an option for multithreading, at least in the experimental builds. It is off by default, but I really only use Vdub for processing Lagarith files and Lagarith already is multithreaded itself. And then I use MeGUI for encoding H.264 MP4s and I've been able to max out a dual quad Mac Pro @ 3.0Ghz running Windows XP Pro.