Latest greatest Vt5 super computer ideas?

[Seti Orion]

I currently have a older Tyan s2895 with dual athlons 2.4ghz (non dualcore) Scsi raid, sata OS drive, 2 gigs ram and windows XP sevice pack 2.

any new rock solid standards yet?

I can add new dual core Athlons, ditch the scsi, get a sata controller and
4 terabyte drives, which should be a decent upgrade for my current system.

Wondering if there some new standard monster machine that would kill this setup?

I need to be able to use 4 gigs of ram, anyone know if XP service pack 3
works with VT 5.2?
What about VT5 and Vista?

Any cool Vt5 super computer threads I missed out on?

If it hasn't been done in awhile, lets do a thread about building the latest
fastest possible rock solid vt5 machine.

ideas anyone?

[ted]

Hi Seti. I haven't gone through this for 1 1/2 years but I remember the anxiety.
Vista 64 has worked fine with VT5.2 for us.
We finally gave up the SCSI prejudice and prices, and went with SATA ll. We've been happy with those as well.
You "might" consider 2-2TB raids. That's what we did on different busses and it can almost double the real time layers VT5 can handle. Plus you get a little more protection without going Raid 5-10 etc. But that's another issue for you to decide. :)

Good idea to re-start a thread about building a system. I got a lot of help from this group. Sometimes too much. :D But that's better than making a mistake.
Best of luck.

[ScorpioProd]

As Ted points out, it's important to realize that EVERY additional drive in a striped set DOUBLES your chance of that set failing.

This summer, after many years of faithful service, and long out of warranty, my 73GB Cheetahs began to die. Instead of buying newer, bigger SCSI drives, Bob Tasa pointed me to a different path that I highly recommend.

You can certainly stripe SATA-2 drives and get great performance and large storage, but I went for even more extreme performance.

I went with a WD VelociRaptor. This 10K RPM, 300GB, SATA-2 drive is absolutely amazing! How good is just ONE of these drives? It's between the performance of two to three 73GB Cheetahs striped together! This is tested performance with Newtek's old disktest and based on actual use experience with XDCAM HD. Really, without question one of them is faster than two Cheetahs striped, and likely to last longer.

If you stripe a pair of them together, and like I said, I wouldn't go beyond a pair to minimize increasing failure probability, I bet you would be totally amazed.

Note that I'm not using VT[5], but in NLE performance my single VelociRaptor blows away what my remaining pair of Cheetahs can do, and I would be very surprised if they aren't great for VT[5] use as well.

[m4a2000]

Personally I would go with XP 64-Bit for the OS. The feel of XP with a 2003 core. Microsoft will still support it for years to come, it hasn't had it's SP3 yet, and I personally find little problems with it.

[nelsonm]

I would disagree with the - go with XP 64 because it will be supported for years - statement.

XP 32 may be supported for a little while longer but I doubt that XP 64 will be as equally supported - not much has happened with it so far and vendors are not going to put money upgrading software/hardware for a platform that is moribund. XP will not be supported to the extent that Vista/Windows 7/Windows x 64bit will be supported.

Now that sp1 is out, Vista x32/x64 - mostly x64 - is a wiser choice.

1 - By turning off User Account Control, you gain a much more pleasant user experience.

2 - For those of you that have experienced Vista starting up unexpectedly, you can go into device manager and uncheck the "Power Management" option that allows a device to wake up the system under the properties for the following devices: (for some reason, some are checked)

a. Batteries
b. Human Interface Devices
- HID
c. Keyboard
c. Mice and other Devices
d. Network Adapters
g. System Devices
- HD Audio Controller
h. Universal Serial Bus Controller
- USB Root Hub

[nelsonm]

Sorry, I had to go baste the turkey!

Have a great Thanksgiving! To everyone who celebrates it:)

[ScorpioProd]

I would personally go with WinXP SP3 for now, and Windows 7 in the future. I really haven't seen a compelling reason to go to a 64-bit OS for VT[5].

[nelsonm]

Actually, I think VT5 would benefit from a x64 system - XP or Vista.

I could be wrong, but, as far as I know... VTx is not one big application. Its a set separate processes or instances of a process that get executed when needed such as the CG, VTEdit's. DDR's, Audio Mixer, VTVision's and such.

Each one getting its own process envelope, memory and resource allocations. On a x32 system with a 2 or 3 gigs of usable memory, that resource gets used up pretty quickly. And the more processes you attempt to load into available memory, the less each process gets. On a x64 system with - say - 8, 16 or 32 gigs of ram, there is more memory to go around so each process gets what it needs up to the maximum allowed by the system for each process envelope.

[ScorpioProd]

Maybe... But...

Newtek makes the VT[5], so it may give some pause to read that a 64-bit OS is NOT what Newtek recommends for it.

http://www.newtek.com/vt/requirements.php

From what I've heard, VT[5] is compatible with 64-bit OSes, but if you think it has been rewritten as a 64-bit program giving all the advantages that a 64-bit OS could give you, that is not the case. If it was, then it wouldn't work with 32-bit OSes, just as Sony has a different version of Vegas for 32-bit and for 64-bit.

[ted]

The way I look at it, if you are going to invest in the "latest greatest VT5 super computer" you should go Vista 64.
I know I overspent for the components I bought 1 1/2 years ago. But I'm still not having to worry about upgrading. That was money well spent.

If you don't mind buying new computers every year or two, save the money and get a fair computer by today's standards. But I'd rather buy once every 4-6 years and not feel like I'm left behind until the last year or so.
:D

There is no right or wrong, it's totally a personal choice.
Best of luck!

[ScorpioProd]

True, and I agree completely for the hardware. But the OS is a drop in the bucket compared to hardware cost, and much more easily changed.

[nelsonm]

The fact that Vegas has a 64bit version should tell you something.

However, most manufactures are going to go mainstream in order to create a price point that will maximize revenues and thats still 32bit at the moment even if 64bit provides better performance.

I have moved to 64bit where i can and i'm not looking back.

I expect Newtek to be around for a long while and I can assure you they well go 64bit as soon as it makes economic and marketing sense for them to do so.

I'm going to be ready for them when they do.

[nelsonm]

Just because an application has not been written for 64bit specifically, does not mean that it can't take advantage of some 64bit features.

[ScorpioProd]

OK, I'll make my prediction. You will never see a true 64-bit version of VT[5].

And you are correct, it would be able to take advantage of some 64-bit features as is, just not all of them.

[nelsonm]

A true 64bit version of VT[5] - no - i would agree.

A true 64bit version of VT[in 3 years] - maybe!

A true 64bit version of VT[after 3+ years] - I hope so!

My point is that I'm not waiting for Newtek to move to 64bit. I'm taking advantage of 64bit right now.

I have already noticed a marked improvement in general performance and in the number on apps i can run at the same time without problems, performance hits and lag time.