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Thomas Leong

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Everything posted by Thomas Leong

  1. I'm going to throw a spanner in the works! Q1. Is such a set up suitable? The W7100 runs hot, so does the i7-4790K unless de-lidded. Moreover, 4U cases ex-factory have only 1 or 2 x 80cm fans at the rear oriented to extract hot air from the case. The 120cm fan(s) in front are oriented to draw in fresh air. This means, ex-factory, the case is setup for positive pressure. Depending on the operating environment (eg. location of air-conditioning) this may not be ideal, and negative pressure may be more suitable because a vacuum cannot exist, so fresh air is naturally drawn in providing there are vents for that...and most 19" cases are notable for absent vents unless the PCIe slot covers are removed or replaced with those that have have ventilation holes. Re the W7100, it draws air into its innards from a fan at its side, and extract the hot air out the top, back into the 4U case. IMO, a W8100 (or the latest AMD WX8200) with its 2-slot mounting where the hot air is extracted out of the case via rear vents would be more suitable for a 10-12 hour daily operation. Add to this the heat generated by an i7-4790K and the cooling system used (air? or AIO Water? - given specs do not say), and perhaps the 2 x 80cm fans at the rear are insufficient. There is likely turbulence inside the 4U and extracting the hot air generated by all components inside are not efficient. I would examine/test a negative pressure setup - 120cm fans extracting air out, 2 x80cm fans drawing air in assisted by natural ventilation (using PCIe slot covers with holes, or use more efficient 80cm fans. Thomas Leong
  2. AFAIK, F11 only applies for that particular bootup. I do not think the BIOS remembers your preference the next time you restart/reboot. Doing it the way I mentioned, the BIOS does remember the preference until you swap OS disk again.
  3. That 'half a mind' would, IMO, be the best option, and use Watchout's Stage Display Outputs to reflect the changes, i.e. 1. Physically connect at the rear of the WX9100 from top down as 1,2,3,4,5,6 2. Order with Displays arrangement or Projectors to Screens from left to right as 1,2,3,4,5,6 3. Same with the naming of the Stage Displays. 4. In the Stage Displays OUTPUT, reassign 3 to 5, 4 to 6, 5 to 3, and 6 to 4. This saves unplugging and plugging, re-detecting, and confusion by staging personnel when on site. Thomas
  4. " I’m on windows 10 with wx9100 +s400 sync. " Are you getting, for example, 1,2,3,4,5,6 with Windows and Radeon Pro, or 1,2,5,6,3,4 even though physical connections at the rear of the WX9100 are from top down 1,2,3,4,5,6?...and this occurs only when more than 4 display are connected. This is occurring with another display pc a client has, also with Win10 +WX9100+s400. We changed to Win7, and the anomaly remains.
  5. Failure to boot from a cloned OS disk (resulting in a Windows installation error message) is likely because the original was installed under UEFI which results in Boot Manager governing the bootup. Putting in a cloned OS disk results in the BIOS listing the new disk as the top priority in the list of disks to boot from, and Boot Manager being demoted to a lower priority. To solve, after inserting cloned OS disk, boot into BIOS with F2 or DEL key. In BIOS, one should be able to click and drag Boot Manager as the first disk to boot from. F10 to save and exit, and Windows in the cloned disk should boot up as expected. You would have to do this everytime you change the OS disk. Hope that works for you, Thomas Leong
  6. Seems like no one has the experience you are asking for, including me. But I found this utility which may help, DXVA Checker, with features to check your graphics card which HAP will use - Features This program is a tool to check about DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA), and it has the following features. Check Decoder Device and Processor Device supported by GPU Check DXVA decode performance and video processing performance Check DXVA API call in other applications by trace log Check DXVA mode supported by DirectShow decoder and Media Foundation decoder Change DXVA setting in some DirectShow decoders and Media Foundation decoders IMO, quad split 4K x 4k is probably easier on existing hardware i.e gpu and 'harddrive' capabilities. By 'harddrive' capabilities, I mean RAID multiple SSD or M.2, or bifurcated RAID M.2's on a PCIe3.0x16 add-on card like the ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Card that could potentially give your over 10GB/s Sequential Read capabilities! Re your unanswered question on another post re M.2 being flash or SSD. M.2 is not really flash. Flash, used by RAM, loses its 'memory' on power loss. M.2, like a hard-drive, does not. But yes, it uses 'special flash type' chips on a small naked PCB board (common is 80mm in length), or integrated in a proprietary PCIe 3.0x4 housing with heat dissipation features inside. There are some M.2's that use the SATA 3.0 interface, so avoid those because you might as well get an SSD instead - cheaper. M.2 that does not use the SATA 3.0 interface overcomes the SATA 6Gbits/s limit by using the PCIe 2.0x2 or PCIe 3.0x4 interface (from 10Gbits/s to 32Gbits/s) . Some M.2 use the new NVM Express (NVMe) protocol (may need a driver install for older motherboards/BIOS) to take advantage of PCIe 3.0's high speed for parallel I/O operations. Some don't and just uses the PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 interface to connect via legacy AHCI with backward compatibility to legacy SATA devices and legacy older operating systems. Some M.2 connect to the cpu direct via the DMA interface. Some connect to the cpu via the motherboard's PCH chipset (X, Z, H or B series). The ones that connect via DMA direct to the cpu are faster but the ones connected via the PCH chipset are no mean performers either if nano-second differences mean anything to you. You will find almost all motherboards these days have at least the first M.2 onboard slot nearest to the cpu's LGA slot connected direct to the cpu via DMA with additional M.2 slots connected via the PCH chipset. Hope that helps! Thomas Leong
  7. Difficult to troubleshoot this. I would start with re-encoding the file to a lower bit-rate. If this works then try a higher one until you reach a point when it freezes again. This means the i7 cpu 6700K has reached its limit. Alternative may lie in the observation clues you made - 1. Pausing playback on the production computer jumps the display forward to the appropriate place in the timeline - playing again from there gives another 15-25 seconds of playback before freezing again; 2. The freezes seem to be correlated with a sudden spike in processor usage (up to %40 from a baseline of %10 or so) and hard-drive read (up to 40 MBps). Seems to be some caching going on here, and catching up when timeline is paused, and then continued from pause mode. Search for Zochri's post re tweaking the BIOS concerning disabling some speed shifting tech. Think they are: Disable CPU C State Support Disable C1E Support Disable BCLK Spread Spectrum Disable Package C State Support Disable Intel Speedshift Technology Basically you want the Display Pc's cpu to run at full 100% speed (whether baseline or factory Turbo mode) all the time. There is also a setting for this in your Hardware Power Options - default being 5%. You want it at 100%. Then monitor the Display PC as it plays for Thermal Throttling of the cpu and other clues. I use HWINFO64 version 5.30 onwards which allows one to monitor many parameters of another PC on the network. It seems like you are using the same or similar software to get the info you got. Good luck! Thomas Leong
  8. With W10 Pro OEM version, stick with update 1607 (Anniversary Update). Watchpoint has startup problems with Update 1709. IMO, Update 1709 does not seem to have any additional advantage for multi-display use. Seems to be more for gaming, VR, netcentric apps, etc....things we do not use. Only anomaly I had with an ASUS X99WS i7-6850K workstation build with Win 10 Update 1607 and a Radeon Pro W9100 was when 5 or more displays are connected. No problems with 4 displays. The Display numbering with both Windows and Watchpoint would jump from 1,2,3,4,5,6 as connected top-down, becoming 1,2,5,6,3,4. Nothing that could not be solved with re-assigning Stage Displays in Watchpoint, but a hassle nonetheless. Can't recall the Radeon Pro driver numbers, but they were both the first Radon Pro driver and the first Radeon Pro Enterprise driver versions released after the WX9100 came to market. Thomas Leong
  9. Additionally - 1. Win7 or Win10? 2. 4K is not possible even with dual-link DVI, so you must be connected to your Display monitor/projector via DP-HDMI Adapters or DP-DP. If DP-HDMI Adapters, are they HDMI 2.0 or 1.4? You need HDMI2.0 for 4K at 60.
  10. In the first place, BEFORE you buy, you should clear up an anomaly with Datapath re their Datapath SC-HD4+. The specs say Ch 1 & 2 support 3840x2160 at 60Hz, but the pdf fact sheet in the description write up states two channels support 3840x2160 at 30Hz. In my own tests recently with a Philips UHD monitor, I could not get 60Hz with HDMI 1.4. Upped the DP-HDMI adapter to HDMI 2.0 and voila!...3840x2160 at 60Hz!!...and action video (a soccer match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid obtained from the internet) was much much smoother.
  11. I know a Watchout 6.x user who has one HD2, and he has not complained about latency. Their company also has one of the VisionAV range, so they seem pretty happy with their Datapath products. Personally, I have the SDI version of the LC range and have not noticed any annoying latency. No software tweaking required to use it. Very important to know is your exact Motherboard model, your cpu model, and exactly which PCIe slots you have occupied with PCIe cards to determine if lane-sharing is affecting your Datapath performance.
  12. Error Facility 34934: Usually occurs with Production PC, and is caused by using the Windows Std VGA graphics Adapter driver (seen in Device Manager>Display Adapters). Solution is to install and/or point Windows to use the 3rd party Graphics Adapter/driver, or if you are using the onboard graphics adapter (i.e. have a motherboard with the 'Intel HD Graphics Family' or 'Intel Basic Display Adapter' range of adapters/drivers), install this from the motherboard CD or from Intel's website. However, with this range of onboard Intel graphics adapters, Watchout itself may give a warning that some features may not display properly.
  13. Instead of MIDI, a DMX Lighting Controller outputting to an Artnet controller set to IN will give you more fader channels than you require.
  14. "6 x 4K at 30Hz" using what output adapters? I found out that DP-HDMI 1.x will max out at 30Hz. One needs DP-HDMI 2.0 (or at a guess DP-DP) to get 4K at 60Hz. My tests were done with a single 4K monitor though, not more, and with the WX4100.
  15. You can install Win 7 with the newest i7's. Basically, the problem is that Win 7 does not have the USB3.0 drivers auto-included in the installation process, so when the install asks for Drivers/harddisks, early in the process, insert the motherboard CD and negotiate to Drivers looking for USB3.0xHC or something like that (memory like my height!). It is one of those low down on a long list. Try each one. If after OK'ing, the install process gives you the next step, you are good to go. Else, it kicks you back to the list so you can try another. I've done it with a i7-7700 in Z270 motherboard before.
  16. "Machines dropping offline randomly, Watchpoint flashing on and off for 5-10 minutes before it comes back connected..." is worrying. Look back to the 'trouble-free day'. Was Live Update on in Watchmaker? Any settings changed in Watchmaker since then? Is it possible to try with Live Update off for a day to see if the machines would behave in a more stable manner? Check Task Scheduler for anything that Windows 10 has auto set to kick in at certain times. Any ASUS Utilities for the motherboard installed? Uninstall them. Check through My Computer > Manage > Services to Stop and Disable Windows Update, and anything that may look suspicious in disrupting network connection between Production and Display. For remote vnc, you could use any laptop with Windows 7 as Production PC, even a cheap netbook. As long as it DOES NOT use the Windows Standard VGA driver, and uses the Intel graphics driver instead, Watchmaker will work, and allow remote access into a Display Windows 10.
  17. Good to hear you are up and running! The message re frequency changing from 60 to 59Hz is, IMO, quite common. I get it too with a particular monitor I use. It is not a show stopper message, and Watchout will happily continue functioning. However, if the freq change occurs during a run, it can disrupt momentarily the playing of a video. To solve, you could put a EDID Manager between the graphics card's output(s) and the monitor/projector, locked to 60Hz, with, say a Gefen DVI Doctor, or HDMI Doctor, one of the cheapest on the market. You will need one DVI/HDMI Doctor for each output that is giving you the message. Or use the software EDID built into FirePro / Radeon Pro Control Centre. Copy and save one of the other monitors/projectors that do not change frequency, and use its EDID as the Emulator.
  18. Mmm... 1. Disabling Firewall on both Production and Display is an obvious step 2. Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Advanced Sharing Settings > All Networks > Default is 'Turn on Password Protected Sharing'. Change this to 'Turn off...' and Save 3. Not sure if this will help, but I usually add 'Everyone' to my Network, and Security settings and give 'Everyone' full read and write access. 4. Try a direct one-to-one connection between Production and Display.
  19. Check with Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > the Update version installed on the PCs. AFAIK, I have not had a problem with Watchpoint 6.1.6 and 6.2.1 starting and working under Update v1607 (Anniversary Update). I have not tried / dare not try the two Creators' Updates - v1709 and one other. The last I tried one of those versions, Watchpoint would not start up, flashing Watchout logo non-stop, etc. So if you can uninstall the updates, and revert to v1607, I am quite confident you will be fine with that version. For a quick up-and-go with v1607, there are not many tweaks necessary. The usual Firewall, Power options and manual IP address should suffice until you have more time to go through the Settings individually and disable/uninstall any that may interfere with the network communication between Prodn and Display. good luck! Thomas Leong
  20. AFAIK, a Watchout Production machine with Window 7 has little to no problems vnc'ing into a Display Machine running Windows 7 or Windows 10 v1607. But a Watchout Production machine with Windows 10 has problems, using v6.2x or even v6.1.6. It works and it does not work. Pot luck. Thomas Leong
  21. Miro, Pray tell some of the hardware specs you were using for the 4x4K decode - cpu - Intel i7 or i9 which specific model? cpu cooler - air or water cooled? If air, which model? I understand the i9 with a TDP of 140W can exceed that under load. harddisks or SSD - in RAID mode? RAID 0, 1 or 5 using motherboard RAID or 3rd party RAID card? How many SSDs in the RAID? Reason I am asking is that I am trying to put together a set of Production and Display unit specifically for 4x4K output. Thanks. Thomas Leong Thanks.
  22. Couple of things to check for - 1. Motherboard Utilities that you really do not want installed. You only need the drivers for on-board devices. 2. If you have a lot of media in the Media Window and a number are not used, take them out. Watchout Production tends to take time caching these, thereby delaying updates to Displays. Good luck! Thomas Leong
  23. Hi Miro, Apologies. Please ignore the above re Corner Tween artifacts in 6.2. Tested on another Production PC today, and it was not there. Then remembered that the first PC had an old graphics card in it. So that was probably the problem. Thomas
  24. Sorry Miro, I seem to have missed your reply. I have since deleted the .watch file and not tested again. It was using a layout preset too and a 3d.obj file, so I can't say what caused my problem then. If you could check another problem I found today with 6.2 using Corner Tween on 3 small video .mp4 files trying to map each file to a basic 3-sided cube. On adding a second video with Corner Tween to the Stage and playing (the two videos - first and second), this second video starts to blink and add artifacts to other areas of the Stage Display. Adding the third video to the other face of the cube does not solve it. Tested only on Production PC, not online to Display PC. I then recreated the scenario with 6.1.6 and all three videos each with Corner Tween mapped nicely to the cube. No blinking, no artifacts. Thomas
  25. After some procedural problems with my local Customs clearance, my GoBox4 units have finally arrived, and works as advertised: https://www.teamsound.nyc Solidly built. No installation required (Windows auto installs it), so I dare say it is suitable for installations of the locked down Watchpax units if one needs simple MIDI Notes to trigger Tasks. No keyboards to contend with. A bit on the expensive side for overseas clients like me, but pricing should be okay for U.S. Thomas Leong
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