I have just build myself a dual core system (AMD Athlon X2 4200, with 2GB RAM and 3 250GB SATA HDD) . I am disappointed in the resulting performance when encoding high quality MPEG output from DV input. The CPUs usage is only around 50%. Is there any way to tuning MPEG encoding performance on MediaStudio Pro 7 so I can get near to 100% CPU usage?
I have also tride MS8 which appear to have the same issue.
Poor MPEG encoding performance on Dual Core CPU - MS7
This is why I haven't upgraded my own system to dual core yet. To use both processors, the software must be written in a way to split up the rendering process and give half to each processor to chew on and spit out. To date, only Sony Vegas looks like it can handle this multiple processor path. Vegas can also split the rendering over several networked computers.
So, even though you have two cores, the software only knows how to use one. Although, when rendering, you should be able to run other applications much faster, as they would use the other free core to do their processing.
So you will probably only ever have 50% usage as it will only ever use half the processing power (1 core). I get the same on my hyper threaded Pentium 4.
One day we might get a dual core update, I'm hanging out for it!
So, even though you have two cores, the software only knows how to use one. Although, when rendering, you should be able to run other applications much faster, as they would use the other free core to do their processing.
So you will probably only ever have 50% usage as it will only ever use half the processing power (1 core). I get the same on my hyper threaded Pentium 4.
One day we might get a dual core update, I'm hanging out for it!
Firstly, the OP has MSP7, not 8. However MSP7 was written for dualies and HT but dual-core certainly post-dates it.
I have an HT system and have studied how it behaves during rendering. If we take a reference of raw DV1 PAL input rendering to the same with Smart render off, the render speed is about 1.1x with HT off and 1.0x with HT on. IOW, the gain is small. CPU usage is typically 80% and 45-60%/thread resp.
Encoding the rendered DV1 file to MPEG-2 6000 kbit/s CBR/AC-3 2.0 192 kbit/s is typically about 1.2x RT with HT off and 1.1x with HT on.
So, yes, there is an advantage to HYPErthreading, but it is small. I've heard that dualies offer a slightly better better advantage and I presume dual-core would, if the software can take advantage of it. However, to expect 100% CPU usage on both threads/CPUs/cores is utopian, mainly because rendering/encoding involves enormous transfers of data to and fro the memory and the speed of such transfers is much lower than that of the CPUs, of any type, not to mention enforced latency, often of up to three CPU cycles. Where the advantage lies is where the CPU has to perform internal maths, where it uses its buffers for intermediate data storage.
I have an HT system and have studied how it behaves during rendering. If we take a reference of raw DV1 PAL input rendering to the same with Smart render off, the render speed is about 1.1x with HT off and 1.0x with HT on. IOW, the gain is small. CPU usage is typically 80% and 45-60%/thread resp.
Encoding the rendered DV1 file to MPEG-2 6000 kbit/s CBR/AC-3 2.0 192 kbit/s is typically about 1.2x RT with HT off and 1.1x with HT on.
So, yes, there is an advantage to HYPErthreading, but it is small. I've heard that dualies offer a slightly better better advantage and I presume dual-core would, if the software can take advantage of it. However, to expect 100% CPU usage on both threads/CPUs/cores is utopian, mainly because rendering/encoding involves enormous transfers of data to and fro the memory and the speed of such transfers is much lower than that of the CPUs, of any type, not to mention enforced latency, often of up to three CPU cycles. Where the advantage lies is where the CPU has to perform internal maths, where it uses its buffers for intermediate data storage.
[b][i][color=red]Devil[/color][/i][/b]
[size=84]P4 Core 2 Duo 2.6 GHz/Elite NVidia NF650iSLIT-A/2 Gb dual channel FSB 1333 MHz/Gainward NVidia 7300/2 x 80 Gb, 1 x 300 Gb, 1 x 200 Gb/DVCAM DRV-1000P drive/ Pan NV-DX1&-DX100/MSP8/WS2/PI11/C3D etc.[/size]
[size=84]P4 Core 2 Duo 2.6 GHz/Elite NVidia NF650iSLIT-A/2 Gb dual channel FSB 1333 MHz/Gainward NVidia 7300/2 x 80 Gb, 1 x 300 Gb, 1 x 200 Gb/DVCAM DRV-1000P drive/ Pan NV-DX1&-DX100/MSP8/WS2/PI11/C3D etc.[/size]