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tylerr
11-03-2004, 08:36 PM
How much memory should I have in my shiny new G5's to run Catalyst comfortably?

samsc
11-03-2004, 11:24 PM
Mike was supposed to have started doing some tests.

Ill try and get him to report here.

I only use 512MB in my development machine.

Hard disc speed is the main performance determinant.

mdc1138
11-03-2004, 11:44 PM
How much memory should I have in my shiny new G5's to run Catalyst comfortably?

Plus you shouldn't be running any other apps simultaneously with Catalyst.

The stock 512 MB is fine.

Enjoy your shiny new toy.

Also, to get that last bit of oomph, go into Energy Saver, under Options, turn Processor Performance to Highest instead of the default Automatic. Buys you an extra few percent of hosspower.

-mike

samsc
11-03-2004, 11:45 PM
i already posted on how to set the performance in the energy saver,

http://chaldee1.gotadsl.co.uk/~richardb/upload/showthread.php?t=112

tylerr
12-03-2004, 03:25 PM
So if 512 of ram is enough are the stock Serial drives fast enough? I was going to add a second drive for content perhaps a MAXTOR 250GB SER ATA 7.2K 8MB SATA

Sound good?

Tyler

samsc
12-03-2004, 04:27 PM
no.

you must get a sata raptor drive or go scsi.
no 7200 rpm drives are good enough or fast enough to playback more than 2 layers at 30fps.

http://chaldee1.gotadsl.co.uk/~richardb/upload/showthread.php?t=72&highlight=raptor

tylerr
12-03-2004, 06:28 PM
So if i need 10,000 RPM drives I can only get a 74 GB drive. Can I put an internal SCSI drive inside a G5 or will it need to be external? We currently have over 100 GB of stock material we keep on our catalysts.

Tyler

samsc
12-03-2004, 07:01 PM
So if i need 10,000 RPM drives I can only get a 74 GB drive. Can I put an internal SCSI drive inside a G5 or will it need to be external? We currently have over 100 GB of stock material we keep on our catalysts.

Tyler

Mike you want to answer this?
or danny?

tylerr
12-03-2004, 07:12 PM
If I were to use 10000 rpm SATA drives can I raid them together inside the G5 to make one large drive?

What kind of 2 layer frame rates can I espect with only a 7200 RPM?

Tyler

mdc1138
12-03-2004, 07:29 PM
yes you can stripe two SATA drives together in a RAID using Apple Disk Utility. You can actually stripe 4 SATA drives using wiebetech's G5 Jam...but it doesn't help you run multiple movies any more smoothly. It's more of a seek time issue, how fast the read/write head can whip around reading bits of 3 or 4 movies a bit at a time. Imagine a record player's needle jumping around trying to play 1 snippet of each of 4 songs before it had to go read a snippet of one of the other songs....

then you get an idea of what your hard drive is doing.

samsc
12-03-2004, 11:10 PM
and 2 drives can be slower than 1.
so you have to be careful.
because data has to be read off both drives.

tharding
12-03-2004, 11:29 PM
and 2 drives can be slower than 1.
so you have to be careful.
because data has to be read off both drives.

Is it conceivable that Catalyst could be configured for each layer to use a separate drive?

tylerr
12-03-2004, 11:37 PM
If you configured Catalyst to read each layer from a sep. drive you would need 4 times the storage space and have to maintain 4 copies of the same material. Sounds like a pain to me.

samsc
13-03-2004, 09:57 AM
If you configured Catalyst to read each layer from a sep. drive you would need 4 times the storage space and have to maintain 4 copies of the same material. Sounds like a pain to me.

No.

this just doesnt work - unfortunately. this part of the mac is not multithreaded - quicktime only does one thing at once.

and the slowest drive in the system drags performance down.

if you put content on an internal drive, and on a scsi drive at the same time.
the slowest drive will pull things down.

tylerr
13-03-2004, 04:54 PM
No.

this just doesnt work - unfortunately. this part of the mac is not multithreaded - quicktime only does one thing at once.

and the slowest drive in the system drags performance down.

if you put content on an internal drive, and on a scsi drive at the same time.
the slowest drive will pull things down.


Interesting.

samsc
13-03-2004, 05:59 PM
Interesting.

i wish it worked like this. but it doesnt.

samsc
15-03-2004, 07:18 AM
Enjoy your shiny new toy.


tyler isnt a new user.

samsc
16-03-2004, 09:11 AM
You can actually stripe 4 SATA drives using wiebetech's G5 Jam....

having more drives, may help you play back uncompressed movies.

tylerr
16-03-2004, 02:47 PM
having more drives, may help you play back uncompressed movies.

So if I did that I would have to have some kind of external HD enclosure because if I am thinking correctly there is only room for 2 internaly

Tyler

samsc
16-03-2004, 04:41 PM
So if I did that I would have to have some kind of external HD enclosure because if I am thinking correctly there is only room for 2 internaly

Tyler

wiebetech came up with this thing....
the G5 jam.

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/G5Jam.html

I have been trying to find a rackmount 1u scsi or serial ata solution.
havent found one yet.
There are larger rackmount cases.
granite digital have 4u scsi enclosures. as do others.

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/indx_scsi.htm

samsc
18-03-2004, 06:02 PM
my single 140 gb scsi drive just got delivered.
This is the largest scsi drive size currently available.

Testing results later.

samsc
22-03-2004, 06:20 PM
So if I did that I would have to have some kind of external HD enclosure because if I am thinking correctly there is only room for 2 internaly

Tyler

the glyphtech enclosures look promising for touring type environments.

www.glyphtech.com

They seem to have a little experience of our industries.

tylerr
22-03-2004, 06:31 PM
Correct me if I am wrong but if we go with these 15K RPM SCSI drives will be be able to mount them in the onboard slots in the G5 and just modify the case slightly to get the cables to them? In that case I will not need to provide any external storage at this point.

Tyler

samsc
22-03-2004, 06:38 PM
Correct me if I am wrong but if we go with these 15K RPM SCSI drives will be be able to mount them in the onboard slots in the G5 and just modify the case slightly to get the cables to them? In that case I will not need to provide any external storage at this point.

Tyler

i would hope so.
but the 15000rpm drives get very hot.
i bought a couple of 10k drives last week, and they dont get so hot. ( im investigating any performance differences )
at 25fps it isnt anywhere near as critical.
its running at 30fps which is harder

you really kindof need to keep the operating system on a different disc - to keep things fast.

so im looking into putting 2 scsi drives and one sata drive inside the case.
I would replace the dvd drive with another scsi drive ( or move the sata drive ).

you can get 'enclosures' to mount drives that fit exactly into the dvd drive bay.

richard

samsc
22-03-2004, 06:39 PM
at 25fps it isnt anywhere near as critical.
its running at 30fps which is harder


if you are running everything at 25fps its almost possible to use only a single 15k or 10k drive.

tylerr
22-03-2004, 06:43 PM
Correct but in my opinion if we are going to spend the $$ I would like to spend a little more and get the best. I thought you were saying earlier that the slowest drive would slow the whole system down. So wouldn't a SATA drive slow the system down if I had 2 15k SCSI drives for media?

I also want to keep the CD drive intact. I think I would add one of those internat mounting options for the SATA drive then. However is there anyway to find out if the 15k drives get too hot for the G5's fan setup?

Have you talked to Andy?

samsc
22-03-2004, 06:51 PM
just modify the case slightly to get the cables to them?
Tyler

i think round scsi cables might work.
http://chaldee1.gotadsl.co.uk/~richardb/upload/showthread.php?t=166

so you dont have to modify anything.
but you might.
i have some on order.

samsc
22-03-2004, 06:55 PM
Correct but in my opinion if we are going to spend the $$ I would like to spend a little more and get the best. I thought you were saying earlier that the slowest drive would slow the whole system down.

the os drive has no effect on performance.




I think I would add one of those internat mounting options for the SATA drive then. However is there anyway to find out if the 15k drives get too hot for the G5's fan setup?


testing it. measure the temperature - leave it running for a couple of days - and use you hand to see how hot it gets - or use a thermometer.

samsc
22-03-2004, 06:55 PM
the os drive has no effect on performance.



as long as you dont put any movies on it. it wont affect anything at all.

samsc
22-03-2004, 07:01 PM
someone did a review of the g5 jam.

i may have to get one.

http://www.barefeats.com/hard36.html

there was a rumour that the next mac revision might have more internal drive bays -- but they havent turned up yet.
and one should never rely on rumours - especially apple ones.