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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

16 or 32 cores w/Windows Server 2003

digitalfx said:
Our Server is Windows Server 2003 and we have an attached Render Farm (IBM Blade Center) w/ 10 quad core blades...would that work?
Click to expand...

That's no joke Greg! I think we can do some business as well!! I'll call you when I am back in the US. Happy Holidays!!
 
I too would be very interested to learn about the capabilities of this. I am having a BOXX APEXX 16 core quoted right now.

Kevin Halverson
 
We have one....no RedCine doesn't take real advantadge of it. It pegs all 16 processors at 37%.
 
Also just a note in a lot of our speed tests and octo core intel machine is nearly just as fast (for about 30 grand less).
 
And I'm going to be annoying and post a third time... the limitation here isn't the processor count, its the fact that this render farm almost has to be SAN attached to be able to render either 2k or 4k tifs or DPX's in realtime. Trying to solve that little problem right now, just got the avid thing licked now onto this.
 
Jeff Brue said:
And I'm going to be annoying and post a third time... the limitation here isn't the processor count, its the fact that this render farm almost has to be SAN attached to be able to render either 2k or 4k tifs or DPX's in realtime. Trying to solve that little problem right now, just got the avid thing licked now onto this.
Click to expand...

Hey Jeff -

So I just to confirm that you are running a SINGLE workstation with 16 cores - Apexx?

rendering to and from what storage?
 
Its SAN attached storage whacked it specs out at 1.2 GB/s. Realistically it can playback 4k dpx's at 20-23 fps, so close. Oh and it is the Appexx box. Storage isn't the issue, I believe at this point its the GPU IO functionality for the color grade. It can render a 4k DPX in 2-4 seconds out of redcine
 
Oh and in regards to Avid, believe me its not an issue of wanting to I much prefer my final cut pipeline. But saying no to avid is saying no to a lot of work, editors have a lot of power.
 
and after checking out and seeing that Boxx does have a new 32 core box...What we're running is the last gen Apexx 8 8 dual core procs for a toral of 16 cores.
 
Jeff Brue said:
Its SAN attached storage whacked it specs out at 1.2 GB/s. Realistically it can playback 4k dpx's at 20-23 fps, so close. Oh and it is the Appexx box. Storage isn't the issue, I believe at this point its the GPU IO functionality for the color grade. It can render a 4k DPX in 2-4 seconds out of redcine
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what SAN? what HBA?

what is the graphics card installed?

can you give me a benchmark on 4K REDCODE to Prores 422 1920x1080 - when you have time - most appreciated!!

Mark
 
It's a PC so no Prores. On our octo macs using compressor 2-3x realtime. Using the quicktime methodolgy.

On the PC running Redcine

ADIC based with preallocattion strategy.
4 GB fibre backbone with ATTO dual channel cards.
Nvidia Quadro 4500 SDI

This is your fairly standard DI setup for any software based DI.


Into the grit of it still trying to figure out the whole film out LUT methodology. Just because Red can shoot it something with the wavlet is giving our film luts an interesting time.
 
Jeff Brue said:
, its the fact that this render farm almost has to be SAN attached to be able to render either 2k or 4k tifs or DPX's in realtime. .
Click to expand...

Jeff Brue said:
Its SAN attached storage whacked it specs out at 1.2 GB/s. . Oh and it is the Appexx box.
Click to expand...

Jeff Brue said:
On the PC running Redcine

ADIC based with preallocattion strategy.
4 GB fibre backbone with ATTO dual channel cards.
Nvidia Quadro 4500 SDI

.
Click to expand...
okay:
1-you have apex 16 core box connected
2-with ATTO dual channel fiber card
3- nvidia ?
my understanding ..:excl: is it correct :excl:
what am i missing ?
 
BASSAM MSSALATIE said:
hi Kevin is this BOXX APEXX 16 core
will coas too much ? do you know its price range .:excl:
Click to expand...


I haven't received the quotation back for the configuration that we are looking at. When I do, I will share the information.

Kevin
 
Not missing anything except that I don't think this kind of a boxx is the answer for Redcine. I would rather put the 40-60 grand that such a machine costs into a renderfarm that can handle many such data conversions. All told the setup costs for such a system are huge and only justified when going for a full DI suite. In reality you need a team of 2 or 3 top end guys to setup and continually support something like this.

The only person that this is an option for is off hollywood. But I think in his case a scripted mac xserve enviroment would be a better choice, you don't want a top end DI machine doing file conversions. Such a renderfarm though has to have a proper data backend. Currently offh I'm investigating iscsi as 80 MB/s is really all thats about needed for that renderfarm per node, then its just a matter of putting together an iscsi storage solution to support attached to the SAN.

In any case, people when looking at a 32 proc single machine solution, we're forgetting about internal RAM write operations and additional machine overhead (another reason I think the 16 core machine is pegged at 37%). Bus architecture into PCI-Express does make a difference.
 
Jeff Brue said:
It's a PC so no Prores. On our octo macs using compressor 2-3x realtime. Using the quicktime methodolgy.

On the PC running Redcine

ADIC based with preallocattion strategy.
4 GB fibre backbone with ATTO dual channel cards.
Nvidia Quadro 4500 SDI

This is your fairly standard DI setup for any software based DI.


Into the grit of it still trying to figure out the whole film out LUT methodology. Just because Red can shoot it something with the wavlet is giving our film luts an interesting time.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jeff -

You should try an eval of the 4G fibre Ellipse HBA from Studio Network Solutions - http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/

This is an OEM product but the drivers are the "secret sauce" - if you email Steve Manella - smanella@studionetworksolutions.com and tell him Offhollywood sent you - he should let you eval their HBA's - we saw a PERFORMANCE INCREASE over Atto and Qlogic HBA's - and as a matter of fact - an expert Xsan installation here in NY swapped their Apple HBA's for the Ellipse and saw a speed/performance increase -

What DI system are you running and what color management tool? Cinespace?

I am scratching my head a bit at 37% on 16 cores with that disc speed and the 4500 card.

Do you know for sure what your sustained read/write is?

Have you done 10-bit RGB 1920 x 1080 from 4K redcode raw on your system yet?

Thanks again for any info - I am trying to find the "overkill" point -
 
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