New Dual Setup no Faster for Encoding DivX?!?!?

Cozzmo · 29th March 2002, 11:12 AM

Hey all,

Just got my New Rig up and running with a fresh Build of Win2K PRO SP2 and tried Running FlaskMPEG 0.594 and XMPEG 4.31a to do some encoding to test out my 2xPIII1Ghz on my MSI-694D PRO, only problem is that the encoding is no faster than my old 1xPIII933Mhz Machine, i have checked the CPU Affininty and it's set to both and bascially the CPU stays at about 50% all the time, so it seems as though the 100% load is equally shared between the 2 processors. Do i need to get a special plugin for FlaskMPEG to get it going ?? it should i change encoders. I dont mind changing encoders if there is a better one out there.

Thanks in Advance!

powella · 29th March 2002, 1:59 PM

In TMPGenc you have to select the dual cpu optios in the menu, not sure about Flask though.

Cheers,
AP.

Cozzmo · 29th March 2002, 2:30 PM

OK sweet i got that done now and CPU usage is now sitting at around 80% all the time .. but shouldn't it be 100% ?? Just as a test i'm converting a DivX to SVCD, i would have thought that it would be at 100% CPU all the time ??? I also enabled all 3 of the "multi-thread" settings relating to pipeline and video prefetch, still not sitting higher than 80% ?? i'm baffled !??!

powella · 29th March 2002, 2:56 PM

The other thing with TMPEnc you probably need to set the task priority up to When Not active - Normal (or High priority).

Cheers,
AP.

Cozzmo · 29th March 2002, 3:27 PM

OK i upgraded to FlaskMPEG V0.6 (from v0.594) which adds SMP support (i should have read the readme first !!) Now going at 85% CPU, just changed thread priority to Highest and it's now sitting at 90% - 93%... which is close enough for .. solid 100% would be good but it's going well at about 13 FPS. Thanks for your help, now i just need to find out how to get it to do more than 1 vob in a row ....

Thanks for your help ...

theone333 · 30th March 2002, 9:32 AM

13fps?

that doesnt sound too fast at all, for a single cpu system let alone dual system.

saba · 30th March 2002, 10:37 AM

Perhaps he is doing twopass encoding? My rig does 16fps when doing twopass encoding...

Cozzmo · 30th March 2002, 10:55 AM

Nope that was with Single Pass encoding, but the quality was pretty high, rez was 720x420, 160kbps audio, and pulling hte data over the network so there's a bit of CPU wastage sucking the data over the network ... just don't have the space at the moment on my main PC. ;-( , i'm doing a 2 pass as i type now and i'm getting about 13 FPS again .. possibly my machine isn't tweaked yet its only been running for 2 days. I can give you some of the specs and i'm open to suggestions to aid the performace, the next job is clearing space on my HDD, which i will do now!

Thanks.

xtreme2k · 30th March 2002, 11:06 AM

Which DivX version are you running?

I believe that is way to slow.

http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/0...cessor_systems

Single Athlon does 34.9fps without audio at 1.67GHz. Audio just brings it down to about 25fps at max.

Cozzmo · 30th March 2002, 11:33 AM

DivX v5.0 Pro... 2 Pass Bi-Directional Encoding (i read somehwere that is better for quality).
I'm using FlaskMPEG 0.6 'coz XMPEG (which has faster conversion due to their use of YUV instead of RGB) crashes on my system all the time, even on my old system it used to crash, but ut was a lot faster than Flask, but it only worked once then crashes each time now! i got 10-11FPS on a Single PIII933Mhz when encoding with XMPEG and down to 7FPS encoding with Flask 0.594, all with Audio. I will read that article you linked to in detail soon. If you have any ideas about XMPEG crashing i'd like to hear them. Possibly it's due to the source being on a network drive ?? (100Mbps Network though). I have Tried both 4.2 and 4.31a

Thanks.

Prosper · 31st March 2002, 2:19 AM

Yechh. Ditch flask, and use the following:

Rip to HDD using Smart Ripper
Convert VOBS to .d2v's and ac3's using DVD2AVI
Generate .avs scripts using GKnot, or by hand
Open the AVS in Virtualdub, and use Fast Recompress, using Divx5 or (preferably) XVid
Use besweet or headac3he to convert ac3 to mp3
Mux mp3 and avi with Nandub.

Using Divx5 w/bframes, I get 90+% utilization and about 20fps, using XVid (which usually produces better results anyways), I get closer to 50fps at resolutions of 640x360

Cozzmo · 31st March 2002, 8:39 AM

Prosper, that's Excellent Stuff mate. I'll give that a go. I just finished a 2 Pass encode and playing the video back the quality was sweet, but randomly it will speed up, not sure what hte go is with that but i think i'll try your way next !! Any tips on the best MP3 Codec? I found Froffehauder or what ever it is and that's what currently installed, but i'm after the best quality available and just wanted to make sure that it was the best, or close to at least.

Thanks.

Scriion · 31st March 2002, 9:51 AM

Just to back up what Prosper said. This method is the best way to do things. I have done probably 30 or so using DivX 5 (and a lot lot more with DivX 4.12) and all have been great.

On my system I get 22 fps on the first pass and 40 fps on the second. (Dual 1.4 MPs on a Tyan Tiger)

I really should give XVid a try and see how that goes.

In regards to the MP3 Codec just use headac3he as Prosper suggested as it uses the latest build of Lame for encoding.

Just go to www.doom9.org for all these tools and the guides.

Cozzmo · 31st March 2002, 9:57 AM

Excellent Guys thank you all for you Help !!
Just one more q'n. How many FPS should i be expecting from A Dual P3 1Ghz 512MB PC150 Kingmax @ Cas2 using the processes outlined on Doom9.org??? Currently i'm getting about 10 FPS for the first pass and 13-14 FPS for the second pass, but that's using FlaskMPEG, XMPEG (when it wants to work...) i get about 20FPS for the second pass.

Thanks.

saba · 31st March 2002, 10:15 AM

My rig does 16fps dual pass, as per my sig.

29th March 2002, 11:12 AM	#1
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	New Dual Setup no Faster for Encoding DivX?!?!? Hey all, Just got my New Rig up and running with a fresh Build of Win2K PRO SP2 and tried Running FlaskMPEG 0.594 and XMPEG 4.31a to do some encoding to test out my 2xPIII1Ghz on my MSI-694D PRO, only problem is that the encoding is no faster than my old 1xPIII933Mhz Machine, i have checked the CPU Affininty and it's set to both and bascially the CPU stays at about 50% all the time, so it seems as though the 100% load is equally shared between the 2 processors. Do i need to get a special plugin for FlaskMPEG to get it going ?? it should i change encoders. I dont mind changing encoders if there is a better one out there. Thanks in Advance!

29th March 2002, 1:59 PM	#2
powella Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney, NSW Posts: 445	In TMPGenc you have to select the dual cpu optios in the menu, not sure about Flask though. Cheers, AP. __________________ Primary PC: UD7, i920CPU, 6GB Ram, 2x5870's, 2x500GB HDD's in Raid 0. W/C: EK and BP parts, controlled by an Aquaero. Display: 3x24" U series Dell Monitors. Racing Motion Cockpit Build In Progress

29th March 2002, 2:56 PM	#4
powella Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney, NSW Posts: 445	The other thing with TMPEnc you probably need to set the task priority up to When Not active - Normal (or High priority). Cheers, AP. __________________ Primary PC: UD7, i920CPU, 6GB Ram, 2x5870's, 2x500GB HDD's in Raid 0. W/C: EK and BP parts, controlled by an Aquaero. Display: 3x24" U series Dell Monitors. Racing Motion Cockpit Build In Progress

30th March 2002, 10:37 AM	#7
saba Evil Vizier Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Melbourne Posts: 2,713	Perhaps he is doing twopass encoding? My rig does 16fps when doing twopass encoding... __________________ i7 3770 ; Intel DH77DF ; 16GB DDR3-1600 ; EVGA GTX 660 Ti powering 2*30" LCDs ; Intel 520 SSD ; Gentoo Linux ; RME Fireface 800 56-channel 24bit/192kHz soundcard

31st March 2002, 2:19 AM	#11
Prosper Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 614	Yechh. Ditch flask, and use the following: Rip to HDD using Smart Ripper Convert VOBS to .d2v's and ac3's using DVD2AVI Generate .avs scripts using GKnot, or by hand Open the AVS in Virtualdub, and use Fast Recompress, using Divx5 or (preferably) XVid Use besweet or headac3he to convert ac3 to mp3 Mux mp3 and avi with Nandub. Using Divx5 w/bframes, I get 90+% utilization and about 20fps, using XVid (which usually produces better results anyways), I get closer to 50fps at resolutions of 640x360

29th March 2002, 2:30 PM	#3
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	OK sweet i got that done now and CPU usage is now sitting at around 80% all the time .. but shouldn't it be 100% ?? Just as a test i'm converting a DivX to SVCD, i would have thought that it would be at 100% CPU all the time ??? I also enabled all 3 of the "multi-thread" settings relating to pipeline and video prefetch, still not sitting higher than 80% ?? i'm baffled !??!

29th March 2002, 3:27 PM	#5
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	OK i upgraded to FlaskMPEG V0.6 (from v0.594) which adds SMP support (i should have read the readme first !!) Now going at 85% CPU, just changed thread priority to Highest and it's now sitting at 90% - 93%... which is close enough for .. solid 100% would be good but it's going well at about 13 FPS. Thanks for your help, now i just need to find out how to get it to do more than 1 vob in a row .... Thanks for your help ...

30th March 2002, 9:32 AM	#6
theone333 Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: melbourne Posts: 1,719	13fps? that doesnt sound too fast at all, for a single cpu system let alone dual system.

30th March 2002, 10:55 AM	#8
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	Nope that was with Single Pass encoding, but the quality was pretty high, rez was 720x420, 160kbps audio, and pulling hte data over the network so there's a bit of CPU wastage sucking the data over the network ... just don't have the space at the moment on my main PC. ;-( , i'm doing a 2 pass as i type now and i'm getting about 13 FPS again .. possibly my machine isn't tweaked yet its only been running for 2 days. I can give you some of the specs and i'm open to suggestions to aid the performace, the next job is clearing space on my HDD, which i will do now! Thanks.

30th March 2002, 11:06 AM	#9
xtreme2k Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 3,225	Which DivX version are you running? I believe that is way to slow. http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/0...cessor_systems Single Athlon does 34.9fps without audio at 1.67GHz. Audio just brings it down to about 25fps at max.

30th March 2002, 11:33 AM	#10
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	DivX v5.0 Pro... 2 Pass Bi-Directional Encoding (i read somehwere that is better for quality). I'm using FlaskMPEG 0.6 'coz XMPEG (which has faster conversion due to their use of YUV instead of RGB) crashes on my system all the time, even on my old system it used to crash, but ut was a lot faster than Flask, but it only worked once then crashes each time now! i got 10-11FPS on a Single PIII933Mhz when encoding with XMPEG and down to 7FPS encoding with Flask 0.594, all with Audio. I will read that article you linked to in detail soon. If you have any ideas about XMPEG crashing i'd like to hear them. Possibly it's due to the source being on a network drive ?? (100Mbps Network though). I have Tried both 4.2 and 4.31a Thanks.

31st March 2002, 8:39 AM	#12
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	Prosper, that's Excellent Stuff mate. I'll give that a go. I just finished a 2 Pass encode and playing the video back the quality was sweet, but randomly it will speed up, not sure what hte go is with that but i think i'll try your way next !! Any tips on the best MP3 Codec? I found Froffehauder or what ever it is and that's what currently installed, but i'm after the best quality available and just wanted to make sure that it was the best, or close to at least. Thanks.

31st March 2002, 9:51 AM	#13
Scriion (Banned or Deleted) Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 119	Just to back up what Prosper said. This method is the best way to do things. I have done probably 30 or so using DivX 5 (and a lot lot more with DivX 4.12) and all have been great. On my system I get 22 fps on the first pass and 40 fps on the second. (Dual 1.4 MPs on a Tyan Tiger) I really should give XVid a try and see how that goes. In regards to the MP3 Codec just use headac3he as Prosper suggested as it uses the latest build of Lame for encoding. Just go to www.doom9.org for all these tools and the guides.

31st March 2002, 9:57 AM	#14
Cozzmo Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Sydney NSW Posts: 465	Excellent Guys thank you all for you Help !! Just one more q'n. How many FPS should i be expecting from A Dual P3 1Ghz 512MB PC150 Kingmax @ Cas2 using the processes outlined on Doom9.org??? Currently i'm getting about 10 FPS for the first pass and 13-14 FPS for the second pass, but that's using FlaskMPEG, XMPEG (when it wants to work...) i get about 20FPS for the second pass. Thanks.

31st March 2002, 10:15 AM	#15
saba Evil Vizier Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Melbourne Posts: 2,713	My rig does 16fps dual pass, as per my sig. __________________ i7 3770 ; Intel DH77DF ; 16GB DDR3-1600 ; EVGA GTX 660 Ti powering 2*30" LCDs ; Intel 520 SSD ; Gentoo Linux ; RME Fireface 800 56-channel 24bit/192kHz soundcard