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System monitoring and testing, something odd, need help


Claude.Rivet

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Hello all,

 

I am trying to figure out the capabilities of an old system we are using. It has been updated to WO5, runs on WinXP sp3 (all configured according to tweak list, not using multiple out anyways). I made several medias I am using to test a few things:

 

1- best codec and codec settings

2- disk read

3- cpu load

4- memory usage

 

Basically I want to give a list of the capabilities of the system and judge if we still have a use for it.

 

I am running "Spotlight on Windows" to obtain the various numbers I need, locally, not via network. Here are the weird stuff I can't figure:

 

- An HD Animation file stutters, skips and basically choke my computer, when looking at SoW it seems that neither CPU or disk is being stressed. The only thing peaking and choking is page file in... page file has been set to 1.5x amount of RAM and to systenm reccomended value, no change, page file in chokes no mather what.

 

- Funny part is if I play back an mpeg2 HD video over this the mpeg2 plays fine, well, barely stutters here and there but nothing big, it would still be usable.

 

- mp4 files also display problems but to much lesser extent, problem is SoW shows nothing wrong, not even page file in peaks.

 

- if I play several file concurently some of them play back very smoothly some stutter, how is that even possible considering not system component get stressed?

 

How can those file stutter then? Where am I going wrong? I want to benchmark those computers for Watchout but the result I get are just plain weird, maybe it is SoW, maybe it,s the way I work, no clue.

 

SO:

1- What software you guys use to evaluate a display computer performance? Any settings I should be aware of?

2- If page file in chokes basically I need more RAM or is there anything else? I always was thaught that Watchout does not store the entire movie in RAM but rather a few frames at a time, a few frames of animation codec does not reach above 2GB or even 1GB, how can page file starts acting up like that?

3- What can make a file stutter and other not while playing back at the same time?

 

Sorry long post but I am at lost and can't figure out a good procedure to test my machines at this point. Usually if a file chokes my system I assume I need to reduce the bit rate or that the CPU works too much or the disk but now that I measure it using a monitoring software I get a whole different picture.

 

Thanks much,

regards

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I think I am correct in saying that WO5 requires Windows 7.

Which doesnt help I know but I remember Jonas saying this elsewhere on the forum.

 

Only for the multiple out feature. I made a post to make sure WinXP was otherwise good, Mike Fahl answered stating the only thing lost is the multiple out, and otherwise it should run fine. They won't be used for crazy stuff anyways, just playback but I still need to know to which extent, hence me testing and benchmarking them.

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The pagefile is stored on the hard-disk, C:\ root unless otherwise specified. Maybe the bus from the harddisk to the CPU to the graphics card is the culprit.

I'd try tests again with the pagefile turned OFF. Should be no real harm done, except that the system is supposed to crash, but if it does not crash, then all is good.

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You leave out an important piece of info:

What are the hardware specs on the PC you are testing??

 

/jonas

 

I can provide specs but it would be irellevant in the sense that I am trying to spec the machine and want to find a good method to do so. For the sake of this exercise let's pretend I am given machines I know nothing of and want to find out how well they can run Watchpoint, what method should I use to determine the machine capabilities? How would you test the machine to determine what bit rate videos it can take, how many HD streams it can playback and so on and so forth? To me running SoW on a local machine while running content in Watchpoint would give me the info I need but it turns out the result are generating more questions than answers.

 

Also, if a video encoded in animation stutters it seems my computer can't handle it, how come the mpeg2 file I play concurently is playing back smoothly then? That makes no sense. The SoW result tell me that somehow the animation file is being loaded in RAM entirelly, since I do not have enough page file in kicks in and chokes as it is also too small, meanwhile the mpeg2 file is being read smoothly...

 

 

anyways, here goes:

 

Intel 6600 cpu

1GB ram

7200rpm WD Hard Drives

ATI 3800 GPU

WinXP

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