Hardware for RealProducer

[Zak Kingston]

Hi there,

we're rebuilding our RealProducer encoder and I wanted to know about the best hardware we could use. So, what about the new dual-core processors? Are there any advantages in speed for Producer? And what about buying a quad opteron compared to a dual xeon or related hardware? Both livestreaming and file encoding.

Thank you!

[Sirber]

IIRC RealVideo can use up to 4 CPUs.

So best get fast ram, 2 or more CPUs with SSE/SSE2/SSE3.

[karl_lillevold]

Yes, it used to be only 2 threads per stream, but I recently added the capability of using 4 threads per stream. A dual CPU, dual core system is ideal :)

If you use SureStream, the encoder also has the capability to encode one stream per processor.

[Zak Kingston]

Yes, it used to be only 2 threads per stream, but I recently added the capability of using 4 threads per stream. A dual CPU, dual core system is ideal :)

Thanks, but you mean the Helix Producer, don't you? We're currently using the RealProducer...

[karl_lillevold]

You can always download the latest Helix Producer from helixcommunity.org in the binary download section (see RealVideo info thread), and replace erv4.dll (the encoder DLL in the codecs folder) with the one from the latest Helix Producer.

(Provided you have a recent RealProducer)

[Zak Kingston]

Sorry, but still one thing:

Wouldn't it be better to buy a quad board for four Opteron processors compared to two dual-core processors? I thought that a dual-core processor isn't as fast as two "real" processors...money isn't an issue here, it's just about speed ;)

But thank you so far, you've already helped me a lot.

[karl_lillevold]

A dual core is just as fast as two individual processors. It is Hyper-Threading that is not quite as effective.

I am afraid I do not know how the Opteron compares to P4 in terms in encoding speed, but if it has SSE2 and SSE3 it should be about the same. If not, P4 is preferred.

[Hiro2k]

Speed really depends on the application (how many threads they can use) and how much information is goiing to be handled. But generrally 2 dual core opterons are faster than 4 single core opterons because there is less latency between 2 cores compared to having to use the HyperTransport bus. Also each core has its own cache.

And as Karl said, the opteron supports SSE2/SSE3 so Intel does not have an advantage anymore.

Here are some reviews, http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2397&p=10
(The 875 is a dual core opteron, and they are using 2 of them in that review)
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/opteron-x75/index.x?pg=5

(It must be embarrassing for Intel to lose, even regular opterons are in the lead)