Extreme system for TVP?

[CartoonMonkey]

Has TVP or anyone using it, ever ran it on a very extreme pc?
I keep thinking of investing in a motherboard meant for servers, 2 or 4 multi-core cpu's and 24+ GB of ram.
Possible? Would TVP utilize all the power?

Would be interesting to see what kind of performance I would get editing film resolution without previewing in small
segments or exporting to quicktime..
C

[idragosani]

I am running 64-bit TVPaint (Linux) with 8-core i7 and 8 GB of RAM and edit at 1080p HD or 2K film resolution without any real performance issues to speak of. Fast hard drive dedicated for data (separate from system drive) is essential, too (7200 rpm or better). I am sure with 24GB of RAM it would be even better

[slowtiger]

32bit on Mac Quadcore 3 GHz 16 GB Ram. See my signature for specs. I wouldn't profit much from any faster machine since I can't animate faster anyway. Only rendering would be faster, and maybe I could use some even bigger brushes. Everything else is fine.

[Klaus Hoefs]

32Bit, Intel Core 2Duo, 2.4 GHz , 1 Processor
4GB RAM
256 MB GeForce 8600M GT
MacBookPro3.1


That's extreme, - almost. But works.

[ematecki]

The bottleneck for realtime previews which don't fit in memory is the disk speed.

If you're going to a server MB, choose one with integrated RAID capabilities.
I'm not speaking of the cheap striping almost all current MB have, but a real dedicated RAID controller, where you can plug at least 4 drives, 8 is better.
Put it in RAID 5, at least 4 drives (3 data + 1 parity).
RAID 0 is risky unless you have a good backup strategy and actually apply it.
Fast drives, at least 7200RPM, but faster is better.
Always buy one additional drive and keep it for a spare. RAIDs works better when all drives are the same, and when one of your drives dies in a year or two you won't find the same model anymore !
And choose a controller which allows you to add drives to your RAID without having to reformat it. Very important !
Or you'll loose a day or two backing everything up, adding your drive, rebuilding the RAID, and restoring your backup.
Being able to add a drive to a "live" RAID is nice but not essential on a workstation, you can let the computer do it while you sleep.
Hotswap of drives, too, isn't really useful on a workstation, where you'll have to take the case apart anyway to change the failed drive.
(Both are vital on a server...)

As much RAM as can fit on the MB (or in your budget, but RAM is cheap).

For the CPU, a single 8 cores i7 should do it, even if TVPaint can take advantages of multiples CPUs.
Over some number of CPUs/core, you won't gain any more speed because they will be waiting for the data coming from the drives (or even RAM on multi-CPUs) rather than working.

==

Let's assume Film resolution is 4096×2160, RGBA 8 bits.
That's 32 MB/image, 10 layers => 320 MB/frame, 24fps => 7.6 GB/sec.
That's what your RAM must be able to handle...
(Actually a bit less depending on the layer blending modes used, some combinations are optimized, "Color" being the best)

Disk bandwidth is smaller because data is compressed, how much depends on your images.
If you import a "real" movie, you will get almost no compression for that layer.
A layer with only the lines of an animation can get up to 90% compression.
Flat colored layers also get good compression.

Lossless editing takes it toll....

[Sewie]

The bottleneck for realtime previews which don't fit in memory is the disk speed.

If you're going to a server MB, choose one with integrated RAID capabilities.
I'm not speaking of the cheap striping almost all current MB have, but a real dedicated RAID controller, where you can plug at least 4 drives, 8 is better.
Put it in RAID 5, at least 4 drives (3 data + 1 parity).
RAID 0 is risky unless you have a good backup strategy and actually apply it.
Fast drives, at least 7200RPM, but faster is better.
Always buy one additional drive and keep it for a spare. RAIDs works better when all drives are the same, and when one of your drives dies in a year or two you won't find the same model anymore !
And choose a controller which allows you to add drives to your RAID without having to reformat it. Very important !
Or you'll loose a day or two backing everything up, adding your drive, rebuilding the RAID, and restoring your backup.
Being able to add a drive to a "live" RAID is nice but not essential on a workstation, you can let the computer do it while you sleep.
Hotswap of drives, too, isn't really useful on a workstation, where you'll have to take the case apart anyway to change the failed drive.
(Both are vital on a server...)

Would an SSD on SATA600 instead of this do the trick as well?

[ematecki]

You'll have to make the math yourself :)

Take the size (in Mb) of your project, divide by the length (in seconds) of the animation, and you'll get the average bandwidth needed.
Do some average over several projects.
Add some safety factor (say 10 or 20%), and see if the SSD+MB can SUSTAIN this bandwidth (not peak performance, which is the one mostly advertised).

[CartoonMonkey]

Using TVP 32 bit.. (I have to on this project, because I am dealing with a quicktime movie that has to be loaded in the background of my project)
Whenever I go to export the project to AVI or Quicktime, no matter what compression I use, it takes a very long time. A three minute project takes well over a half an hour to export
on my fast PC.

Is my memory getting fuzzy? Shouldn't it take much less time? I suppose the project has many layers.. but they are simple line drawings against video..
Also, I've asked this before, I'm sure..but what are folks using to export to these days? What format and codec for easy viewing of 720p video?

C

[idragosani]

Using TVP 32 bit.. (I have to on this project, because I am dealing with a quicktime movie that has to be loaded in the background of my project)
Whenever I go to export the project to AVI or Quicktime, no matter what compression I use, it takes a very long time. A three minute project takes well over a half an hour to export
on my fast PC.

Is my memory getting fuzzy? Shouldn't it take much less time? I suppose the project has many layers.. but they are simple line drawings against video..
Also, I've asked this before, I'm sure..but what are folks using to export to these days? What format and codec for easy viewing of 720p video?

C

It's probably because it is also rendering the background video. It might be faster to render the animation without the background and then composite the result.

[ematecki]

Just make this test :
- convert the QT movie to uncompressed AVI (either with TVPaint or any other video converter).
- use this as background layer.

If it doesn't solve the speed problem, idragosani suggestion is the next best (or even the only...) choice.