Core 2 Duo and MSP8

[Devil]

A number of persons on this forum and elsewhere have stated categorically that Core 2 Duo CPUs are not supported by MSP8. This probably was a result of the CPUs appearing on the market after MSP8, so people assumed that they would not be supported.

MSP7 and MSP8 have both supported HyperThreading and Dual CPUs, so I was a little surprised to read that Core 2 Duos didn't. So, I put it to the test! I had an edited DV footage on a complex timeline, with 8 sub-timelines, some going 7 tracks deep. The footage lasted ~23 minutes. I did three renderings with SmartRender off:
1. To new DV file
2. To DVD-compliant MPEG-2 file (6000 kbit/s CBR + AC-3 192 kbit/s)
3. To linear ½ size WMV no interlace.
Each of them rendered in slightly over real time (didn't note the times)

These tests were done with all other applications closed down on the computer.

I had Windows Task Manager|Performance on during the rendering and I resized it so that the two CPU Usage History graphs had 10 vertical spaces, each representing 10% of a core usage.

Most of the time, with all three renders, the aggregate core usage was in the region of 40-60%, usually unbalanced so that typically one core was used to about 70% capacity and the other to 30%, when the aggregate was 50%. On occasion, it rose to an aggregate of well over 70%, with one core running close to 100% and the other about 50%, but it didn't usually last very long at this level. Curiously, I noticed that the dominant core changed every few seconds and this seemed to coincide with scene changes when encoding to MPEG-2. I surmise (guesswork) that it gives the dominance to the cooler of the two cores????

What is sure is that, at no time, did it exceed about 76% aggregate CPU usage, so that there is always some computing capacity in hand when rendering. The RAM also had a reserve in hand. Although I never multitask when rendering, it seems that it is possible.

Conclusion: MSP8 does profit from two cores, at least.

[troppo]

Which is just as well seeing as you cant buy single cores anymore. At least not at the more powerful end of the processor market.
I think the biggest difference in performance was the move from Pentium 4 to the core architecture. The old dual core pentiums (Pentium 'D' NOT Core 2 Duo) ran at a slower clock speed than the single core versions (to keep heat down) and were actually slower than the single cores at rendering.
This tells me that with MSP8 the determining factor for performance is still primarily how many instructions the chip can push through each clock cycle , not the quantity of chips doing the crunching.
Processor tech has come a long way since MSP8 was released, and sadly it doesn't seem we will get an updated version designed to harness the awesome power of today's processor lineup.

[sjj1805]

Thank you Devil. I have placed a link to this in our FAQ.

[robtywlak]

I will add that Devil's results corelate well with my Dual Core Athalon 64 X2 6400+ system - it uses about 40-60% of each CPU with the average about 55%.

Now When I tested Sony vegas movie studio platnum on the same machine it hit near 100% on BOTH cores so the DLL's in MSP are not optimized for dual core usage....Funny thing is both programs use Main Concepts MPEG engine but different builds. Thus why I posted MSP needs a serious MPEG re-compile (new DLL's for dual core machines).

I have other issues for a different thread than this...

Regards,

Rob