Resolume Media Server Woes

[dijjital]

I'm a designer for a well known DJ. We're about to do our first tour with production and I'm going through my options for what software to use to control the video walls. I'm a longtime Modul8 user, I like how it handles video mapping across multiple cards. It's DMX handling is horrible, however, and one of the stipulations of this tour is that the whole show is controlled via a GrandMA lighting console. I have been testing out Resolume 3 which, on the surface, is a much better app that's really well suited to matching visuals to music. I love how you can create scenes and cues and aren't limited to 8 as you are in Modul8...

My problem is frame rates. When I open up Resolume 3.2 and load the provided demo content I am only able to push 20fps with 2 layers of video.

My System Specs
8 core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
3x Radeon HD 2600 cards with 256mb vRAM each
OSX 10.6.4
RAID5 configuration with 3 eSATA disks and a dedicated hardware RAID controller

My screen configuration is:
2x 1024x768 via DVI (my outputs)
1x 1680x1050 via DVI (my control monitor)

With Modul8 I can use the same clips and pull at least 30fps with the same configuration of screens...
I would like to take Resolume out and show it off on this tour, take advantage it's more advanced interface and really give this DJ a great show. However unless I figure out what's up with the performance issues I'll be using Modul8.
Any ideas?

[bart]

The demo clips are not rendered in the DXV codec, try rendering some of your clips with the DXV codec and you'll get a much better frame rate.

Or you can download some DXV demo files here:
http://resolume.com/gfx/dxv/OrangeStrings_480p_DXV.zip

[dijjital]

nice one Bart. You know, reading through the forums I found a suggestion that the bottleneck in this situation could be the bus and how when you are spanning content across multiple outputs each card has to be fed the same data. Too much data and the bus chokes. I've been playing with Resolume with DXM clips and a single output and the performance is amazing. As soon as I spread video across multiple cards it starts to bog down. I think that this could probably be aleviated with a triple head.
What we are doing for the tour is using a couple of systems and controlling via a lighting desk. That way each machine only has to push a single output.

[dijjital]

BTW, the DJ I'm programming for is Oakenfold. We're going to rock Resolume systems and leave the world of $40,000 media servers behind us

[bart]

BTW, the DJ I'm programming for is Oakenfold. We're going to rock Resolume systems and leave the world of $40,000 media servers behind us

Hurray! That's certainly a trend we support

[dijjital]

so here's how we solved the frame rate problem

in the macpro we're touring with we were using 2 Radon 2600 cards. they are kind of old and tired. we swapped them out for a Radeon HD 4870 w512mb ram and our fps shot up to 60. I noticed that even with the new card if I try to spread content between 2 seperate video cards the performance takes a hit. I'm waiting for a second 4870 card to see if maybe sharing it accross two high end cards vs one 4870 an one 2600 will help.

[chrismac86]

hey mate..

im using resolume avenue with a Grandma ultralight at my club in perth.

Feel like sharing your fixture personality?

I have a resolume personality for both whole hog and chamsys.. and its easy enough to write, its just mapping the attribute to the right encoders is my issue.. there are a few desks that have released resolume specific DMX personality files.. maybe Resolume could release these files when customers purchase the DMX license?!?!?
it would creat a programming standard and make resolume and DMX far less time consuming!

end rant haha but seriously.. any help would be great.. if not im stuck with the mudane task of writing this myself.

[cosmowe]

Hey Folkz,

we also changed a expensive mediaserver system to Resolume Avenue @ Mayday 2011.
It worked fine and stable with constant 60fps.

We've made a controll-combo:... flash, blackout and colours where controlled with a GrandMA fullsize via Artnet...Clips & other VFX via Lemur OSC... and we used a Kaoss Pad 3 o stay clip-beatsync. Wonderfull.

If someone still have framerate probs... try a Matrox trippleHead2Go Digital. It worked fine for us... first we used 3 GraficOuts from the Card... the framerate was between 50 an 60 fps... then we decided to use a Matrox...then it was constantly 60fps. YIHA!

Greets
cosmowe

[svoboda]

my resolume Media server:

[Basic]

Now thats not a bad little media server right there! im still just using my trusty MBP