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New Watchout Display Computer's hardware Config


Prabs

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Hi All,

 

I will be using Watchout for the first time, these are the hardware specs that my vendor gave me.

 

Please have a look and advise on the same.

 

4U Industrial Cabinet

I7 4770K

Asus or Giga z87/97

16 GB RAM

RAID 0 of SSD 250GB

GPU W5100- 4GB DDR5

 

I will be also using a DATAPATH VisionRGB e2s2 card and

Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K .

 

Please let me know if its OK? or shall I change something.

 

Thanks....

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Praps,

 

Please see my inline comments below,

 

/jonas

 

Hi All,

 

I will be using Watchout for the first time, these are the hardware specs that my vendor gave me.

 

Please have a look and advise on the same.

 

4U Industrial Cabinet

I7 4770K

Asus or Giga z87/97

16 GB RAM

RAID 0 of SSD 250GB

 

I would recommend a 6-core processor, as i7-5820k over a 4-core.
 
CPU and MOTHERBOARD
Pro:           a 6-core (i7-4930K/4960X/5820K/5930K) or a 8-core Core i7 CPU (i7-5930X) and a X79 or X99-based motherboard.
Entrylevel: a 4-core Core i7 CPU (i7-4770K/4970K) and a Z87/Z97-based motherboard
 
16 GB of RAM
 
Always use SSD's, not HDD.
Preferably one for OS and one for MEDIA, where WATCHOUT is installed. (can be RAID 0)
 
More info here also, soon to be updated:

 

 

GPU W5100- 4GB DDR5

 

Don't use AMD FirePro W5100, it's a bit weak for WATCHOUT use.

 

GRAPHICS CARD
Both higher end Consumer (game) and Workstation (professional) graphics cards can be used. 
It all comes down to your application, budget and needs of the project.
 
We usually recommend pro graphics card, like AMD FirePro W7100 or NVidia Quadro K5200
Both can use optional frame-locking/sync cards, if needed, too. 
(Not available on consumer graphics cards)
 
Examples below:
AMD consumer: Radeon R9 series 295X 290/290X 280/280X
AMD pro: FirePro W7100/8100/9100 and to some extent W600
NVidia consumer: GeForce GTX Titan/GTX 970/980
NVidia pro: Quadro K5200/K4200

 

 

 

I will be also using a DATAPATH VisionRGB e2s2 card and

Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K .

 

An alternative to Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K is Datapath VisionSDI2, with 2 3G-SDI inputs.

 

 

Please let me know if its OK? or shall I change something.

 

Thanks....

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Hello,

I need to update my computers and I was looking at some Dell computers. I would like to be able to output 2 1920x1080 HD signals out of one display computers with tweens and other effects/warping involved. Due to tight budgets I will have to keep my production computer and just update the display computers. My production computers are Dell Optiplex 960 3.17 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 gig of ram and 7200 rpm hard drive.

 

Will this computer and card work for the display computer:

Dell Optiplex 9020 Mini Tower

Intel® Core™ i7-4790 Processor (Quad Core, 8MB, 3.60GHz

Windows 7 Professional English/French 64bit

8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Memory

256GB 2.5inch Solid State Drive

AMD Radeon™ R7 250 , 2GB, Full Height, (DP and DVI-I)

 

Here are the details on the graphics cards:

Up to 2GB GDDR5 or DDR3

28nm

DirectX® 12, Mantle, OpenGL 4.3, OpenCL

PCIE 3.0

No Video Codec Engine (VCE) (with H.264, MPEG-4 ASP, MPEG-2, VC-1 & Blu-ray 3D)

Clock speed Up to 1.05GHz

2 AMD CrossFire® Support (Maximum number of GPUs)

Memory Bandwidth-Up to 72 GB/s

 

Thanks,

Brent

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  • Moderator

The question is not will it run the WATCHOUT software - it will.

The question is will your hardware choice perform to your expectations with the content you require.

That content is a variable, and the computer's capabilities are a variable.

Combine those two variables and its anyone's guess.

The only way to know for sure is to test your content on your platform choice. 

 

First off, when you receive the Dell computers, step one is to reformat the hard drives

 and then install Windows, hardware drivers, perform the Windows tweak list,

test and confirm performance, and then create an archive of this state.

Only then is the choice confirmed WATCHOUT ready.

Anything less and your odds for reliable success plummet. 

 

If you are not ready to take all those steps just to determine if you have made the right hardware choice,

there are alternatives. Various WATCHOUT vendors (including Show Sage who I represent)

provide all these services - offering computers tuned, tested and warranted WATCHOUT reliable.

 

A good WATCHOUT hardware provider establishes benchmarks for its offerings.

Still and WATCHOUT animation tween performance (gpu performance)

is for all practical purposes unlimited with the correct offerings.

Show Sage minimum GPUs are selected to ensure that level of performance.

(And if you slide too far down the gpu performance scale

 you will find the thresholds in the form of stuttering tween peformance.)

 

Movie playback capability is typically the limiting factor of a WATCHOUT computer (cpu throughput and performance).

Today's market is still predominantly 1080p60 displays.

A good WATCHOUT hardware vendor establishes a 1080p60 output count for its product.

Movie decoding is tested and warranted smooth playback of

 one 1080p29.97 MPEG2 per output claimed (test movies encoded to Dataton recommendations).

(Show Sage will soon release 3840x2160@60p output with 3840x2160@24p movie decoding per output ratings as well).

Other encoding choices and higher output resolutions often reduce output count per computer accordingly,

that does not rule them out, it simply implies a higher hardware cost (more computers & licenses) to achieve higher performance.

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Thanks Jim for your comprehensive input, it's appreciated! 

 

/jonas

 

PS: I trust you mean "3840x2160@60p output with 3840x2160@24p movie decoding" :)  DS.

 

Yes, it was a typo and is now edited / corrected in the original post - thanks.

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