Red Rocket X/ Sonnet Echo III-D Express Issue

[Danny Finneran]

Hey Guys,

So I am having a problem with the Sonnet Echo III-D/Red Rocket X. It is only operating on 4 lanes as opposed to 16 lanes, and I am only getting 500MB/s. I am not able to playback 5k or 4k Full Res in any where near real time. I can get half res in 5k and 4k but the performance of the card/chassis seems “peaky”/inconsistent…..sometimes it won’t give me real time half res playback and it will have to buffer several times and then out of nowhere it will kick up to real time. It is housed in the 16 lane slot of the Sonnet Echo III-D Thunderbolt 2 enclosure to my fully upgraded 2016 MacBook Pro 15” Touch Bar laptop. My equipment including cables are allowing for a 20Gb/s bus speed.


I have attached 4 screenshots: Redcine X Pro Error Message, Red Player Error Message, General Stats about my laptop, and the PCIE System Info (which shows 8 lanes).


Red Player Examples:

8K Epic-W 24fps Redcode 7:1 : 1/8 Debayer for real time playback
6K Epic Dragon 24fps Redcode 3:1. : 1/2 Debayer Sometimes and 1/4 more consistently for real time playback
5K Scarlet-W 24fps Redcode 5:1: 1/2 Debayer Sometimes and 1/4 more consistently
5K Epic-MX 24fps Redcode 6:1 : 1/2 Debayer for real time playback
4K Scarlet-MX 24fps Redcode 6:1: Full Quality allows real time playback


* Sometimes the performance is better in 1/2 debayer than 1/4 debayer
* I am getting dropped frames on resolutions/debayer qualities that I wasn’t getting prior to the RRX, sometimes as low as 1/4, but mostly at 1/2 and full.

Can you please help me figure out why I am having this problem?

Also I am wondering if the “Thunderbolt 3 Upgrade Card (for Echo Express SE I) is compatible with the Echo III-D? And if not is there a third party option in the market currently?

Additionally, I am interested in adding a eGPU to my workstation…..either the NVIDIA GTX 980 TI or NVIDIA GTX TITAN X (both Maxwell architecture)…..would that work inside the Sonnet Echo III D by it’s lonesome? How about with the Red Rocket X at the same time? If not, is there another chassis that will work with those cards together?

If none of that works then would I be able to daisy chain the Sonnet Echo III-D at the end into a Bizon Box 3 or 2S which would be connected to my MacBook Pro? Or could I reverse the order with the Bizon Box at the end daisy chained into the Echo and then into my MacBook Pro ? If not is there a different company eGPU chassis that will allow me to do this?


My Best,

Danny Finneran

Email: DannyFinneran@gmail.com
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/dannyfinneran
Insta: @DannyFinneran

 

[Danny Finneran]

Also my transcode times in FCPX are exactly the same with and without the RRX running. So I don’t think FCPX is using it at all? Is there a way to check?

 

[Reuben Evans]

Make sure that the settings are on in the RED pane of System Preferences. Plug in the enclosure before you turn your mac on. It is not hot swappable.

Test to see if it is working by exporting a timeline with RED footage and monitor your CPU usage with the rocket plugged in and with it unplugged. I use iStatMenus for this, but the CPU monitor in Activity Monitor can work as well.

(Also, I was able to use the TB3 card that Sonnett makes for another of their enclosures with that enclosure for better performance. However, when I use it with the LG5K display I get audio dropouts.)

 

[Danny Finneran]

Make sure that the settings are on in the RED pane of System Preferences. Plug in the enclosure before you turn your mac on. It is not hot swappable.

Test to see if it is working by exporting a timeline with RED footage and monitor your CPU usage with the rocket plugged in and with it unplugged. I use iStatMenus for this, but the CPU monitor in Activity Monitor can work as well.

(Also, I was able to use the TB3 card that Sonnett makes for another of their enclosures with that enclosure for better performance. However, when I use it with the LG5K display I get audio dropouts.)

Okay that sorts out the FCPX issue because that box definitely wasn't checked in the RedCode widget under Apple System Preferences. I have Istats ...what would you expect the CPU % to be at when RRX is running properly ?

Under FCPX I checked the box "Use Rocket"....does it matter what I select in the drop down menu? I have three options: "Use All Available Rockets", "Use First Available Rocket", "Rocket-X Board 0 (Reduced Speed PCI, Firmware 1.4.22.18)".

There is also an analogous box that says "Color" and gives me the option to Use Red Rocket if installed. What program is "Color" referring to ? That also gives me the option the use first available or Rocket-X Board 0? What should I select?


Any clue as to why I am only operating on 4 lanes/ 500MB/s in RCXP?


How often/long are the drop outs ? I have the same monitor. There is two models of the TB3 card did you try both?

 

[Reuben Evans]

Okay that sorts out the FCPX issue because that box definitely wasn't checked in the RedCode widget under Apple System Preferences. I have Istats ...what would you expect the CPU % to be at when RRX is running properly ?

Maybe 25-30% CPU performance and I know that it working well. Do an export without it and you'll see 90%+

Under FCPX I checked the box "Use Rocket"....does it matter what I select in the drop down menu? I have three options: "Use All Available Rockets", "Use First Available Rocket", "Rocket-X Board 0 (Reduced Speed PCI, Firmware 1.4.22.18)".

I just do "First Available" This is for multiple Rockets

There is also an analogous box that says "Color" and gives me the option to Use Red Rocket if installed. What program is "Color" referring to ? That also gives me the option the use first available or Rocket-X Board 0? What should I select?

This would be like DaVinci Resolve. First Available is fine.

Any clue as to why I am only operating on 4 lanes/ 500MB/s in RCXP?

You are hitting the bandwidth of TB2. This is why I experimented with the TB3 hack.

How often/long are the drop outs ? I have the same monitor.

The audio dropouts are every couple of seconds. It may be because my data is on shared storage (via 10G Fiber) instead of lo

There is two models of the TB3 card did you try both?

I only used this one: https://secure1.sonnettech.com/product_info.php?cPath=100_104&products_id=580 I did have to remove the bracket. I believe they are developing an official one for this enclosure. And the Akitio NODE is on the way. So using this card is a total hack.

 

[Danny Finneran]

You are hitting the bandwidth of TB2. This is why I experimented with the TB3 hack.

I thought the bandwidth limit for Thunderbolt 2 was 20Gbps and I am getting 4Gbps(500MB/s) or at least that is what it says I am getting in the error message? I mean do the playback stats I listed in my original post sound normal given thunderbolt2?

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Reuben Evans]

I thought the bandwidth limit for Thunderbolt 2 was 20Gbps and I am getting 4Gbps(500MB/s) or at least that is what it says I am getting in the error message? I mean do the playback stats I listed in my original post sound normal given thunderbolt2?

Thanks for all the help!

In theory, you should get 20Gbps. But the playback stats you see are similar to mine. For My workflow I use the RRX to transcode to Proxy in FCPX. And I use those throughout the edit.

And before I make any changes to the RAW settings in FCPX I save the RMDs in RCXP. That allows for changes in RCXP to populate back to FCPX. But the proxies need to be recreated if changes to RAW settings are made.