D800 - speeding up preview rendering?
Hello C1Pro gang...
Let me just say I'm loving most everything about 7.0.2 except some tiny gripes.
I have a very specific issue that is not so tiny. Here's the setup:
12 core MacPro tower - OSX 10.7.4
SSD system drive
24 gigs of RAM
1gig ATI Radeon vid card
Tethering D800 over USB2. Files come in surprisingly fast - 3 seconds or so. Previews seem *very slow* to render. Perhaps 5-7 seconds. Nothing but Capture running. This is a crazy fast machine otherwise. Toggled hardware acceleration on/off for both screen redraws and renders with no noticeable effect.
What made this especially painful - after all previews had been rendered on the job, we naturally went through with the AD and the photographer looking to edit selects - the images lagged for 2-3 seconds to redraw. What's up with that?!
Thanks.
- jim
Let me just say I'm loving most everything about 7.0.2 except some tiny gripes.
I have a very specific issue that is not so tiny. Here's the setup:
12 core MacPro tower - OSX 10.7.4
SSD system drive
24 gigs of RAM
1gig ATI Radeon vid card
Tethering D800 over USB2. Files come in surprisingly fast - 3 seconds or so. Previews seem *very slow* to render. Perhaps 5-7 seconds. Nothing but Capture running. This is a crazy fast machine otherwise. Toggled hardware acceleration on/off for both screen redraws and renders with no noticeable effect.
What made this especially painful - after all previews had been rendered on the job, we naturally went through with the AD and the photographer looking to edit selects - the images lagged for 2-3 seconds to redraw. What's up with that?!
Thanks.
- jim
0
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I have a very similar set up to you and have been having exactly the same issues.. same frustrations !!
It may be worth checking the "Preview Image Size" in prefs, maybe reduce the size and test ?
Also as another work around I shot Raw and med JPEG with my Nikon and then set the Raw files to be hidden in CO7.2
this does make the rendering of previews very quick and on a shoot with models, fast shooting and a AD wanting to review the shots just previewing the JPEG files is an option.
Once your back at your studio you can "show" all the raw files and start editing as normal.
HTH
Cheers Andy0 -
So it seems it's an issue with 7.0.2 and not just the D800's files. I came home and watched my wife ingest a shoot from the D800 - but instead in C1 6.4.4 - and previews snapped clear in under 3 seconds. She's working on an 8 core, 6 gigs of RAM only. OSX 10.7.5. I had read elsewhere on this forum from a Phase rep that 7 introduces "about double the processing" for each image and professed we should expect it to be slower. Yeesh.
I guess I'll be running some comparisons on the monster machine when I get the chance between 6.4.4 and 7.0.2. Hopefully they can tune this up in a future point release.
Thumbs up on the massively improved speed of batch renaming and file moving, but if previews remain this slow 7.0.2 will be a non-starter for me on the D800.0 -
Ditto on suggesting your image preview setting in preferences. What's it at 2560? C1 6.x had it at 1000. It may help some to reduce the lag but I agree that it is very slow for the hardware you have running. I'm tethering the same camera to a 13" 2012 MBP with USB 3 on 10.8.2 and it's faster than that (2-3 sec.) on rendering once it hits the SSD.
Let us know what you did if you solve it.0 -
The problem I'm working against is not about adjusting the preview size. I'm trying to check focus, so it's always about seeing the image at 100%.
As it is, whether I change OpenCL from off to auto makes little difference. Ditto going from 2560 down to 1280 on preview size.
I just launched 7.0.2 and ran through a few images that have already been imported and had their previews rendered - first, there's a perceptible lag simply moving from one image to another while there's a redraw. Then, double-clicking the hand cursor, I count 2 seconds for the image to go from blocks to fuzzy detail, then an additional 3-4 seconds to go from fuzzy detail to sharp detail. It seems like the initial 2 second lag is in loading the rendered preview; the secondary 3-4 second lag is in generating a 100% preview.
Grr, I was holding out hope it was merely a 7 problem. Loaded the same captures in 6.4.4 - averaging about 7 seconds for previews to snap clear at 100%.
- jim0 -
FYI, my vid card is the 5770 series, which supposedly supports OpenCL:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/ ... iew.aspx#20 -
Jim,
Do you have a spare drive / partition on which you could load OSX 10.8.x and C1 7? My only other thought is that it's a graphics card driver issue. I know it will take several hrs to do this test but if it works it'll put an end to the hours of frustration already wasted. I've found 10.8 to be better than 10.7 across the board.0 -
I'll look in to that. Is it possible to just update the card's drivers in 10.7.x or is it just an option acquired by moving to 10.8?
edit: sorry, I misunderstood - you're saying it's either a graphics card driver issue or things might improve with 10.8, correct?
Too bad I'm on a gig with the same setup too soon again to test!0 -
The graphics drivers only get updated with new OSX updates from Apple, so, it's possible that Apple updated the drivers for your video card with 10.7.5 but you'd have to read the release notes to find out. Otherwise, moving to 10.8 would get you new drivers along with new OpenCL and the rest of the improvements to OSX. 0 -
Thank you for being so attentive to this thread and I hope you continue to help.
Since I had a second chance to test out the gear in a real world scenario, I tried some new strategies with little improvement. I moved capture to the solid-state drive that has the boot OS installed, hoping that reducing disk I/O would change things. It didn't. FYI: I also dumped the Application Support Capture folder and all the com.phase prefs before the shoot - wanted to start with as clean a slate as possible.
Here's my question at this point: is it possible that the video card as I have it now, is incapable of or underpowered for the task of running two 24" displays simultaneously? And therefor this is the reason for the preview lagging so badly? Yesterday's gig was 45 minutes for 8 shots - high profile subject under extreme time constraints - and the previews took excruciatingly long under these demands.
My setup is two NEC monitors attached via the mini-display ports on the 5770 card. I'm running the Capture Viewer on one monitor at a 90 degree rotation so the vertical images come in huge.
I haven't had time to test yet, but would Capture's preview renders be sped up if I was running only one monitor? Or using a different cable/port? Or getting an additional card so that one card is used to drive each monitor separately?
I'm just unsure if the problem I'm seeing is a Capture efficiency thing and how it handles NEFs, a disk I/O thing (seems unlikely), or a video rendering thing. Trying to close each exit in turn.
edit: Also, photographer on this gig zeroed out all the noise reduction at the beginning of the shoot and I had hoped this would help. Nothing significantly different. Also - we were running a D3x along with the D800 and even these files seemed to perceptibly lag.0 -
There are 3 things in this:
1:Preview generation. 1 time event. Only uses the CPU. Not GPU enabled.
2: Viewer rendering (when selecting a picture in the browser). Depending on screen size, crop and so on, it might use the the pre-generated preview, or render a new preview. If you zoom to 100%, the crop you see can be GPU rendered.
3: Preview size - the smaller the preview size, the faster the Viewer loads the preview from disk. This can also be GPU accelerated.
So, things not to do:
- Use a preview size of 1024px when you have screen 2500 px wide. This forces a re-render of the image to the Viewer.
- Use 2550 px preview when running a 1300 px wide screen. Large previews affects performance, and if you don't need those nice big previews, you might as well just decrease the resolution.
Also:
- Shadow/Highlight is not openCL supported yet, so if you are using that, GPU acceleration will be disabled for that specific picture.
- Having a very fast GFX adapter helps alot! The 5770 mentioned in this thread is kinda slow nowadays. Look here for comparisons: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html0 -
Thanks for the info. Do any of the nvidia cards support OpenCL? I'm not seeing it on their spec page, specifically for the GeForce GTX 660 Ti.
edit: Found this performance comparison page for OpenCL: http://clbenchmark.com/device-info.jsp?config=13051064
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is listed and compares favorably to the 5770, to say the least. Which of these test factors most closely correlates with a 100% preview render in Capture One?0 -
[quote="jlafferty4" wrote:
Thanks for the info. Do any of the nvidia cards support OpenCL? I'm not seeing it on their spec page, specifically for the GeForce GTX 660 Ti.
edit: Found this performance comparison page for OpenCL: http://clbenchmark.com/device-info.jsp?config=13051064
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is listed and compares favorably to the 5770, to say the least. Which of these test factors most closely correlates with a 100% preview render in Capture One?
You should look for the number of processors on the card. Clock frequencies, amount of RAM and so on also matters, but not as much as the raw processing power.
On Nvidia: Look for the amount of "CUDA cores". The more the better.
On AMD: Look for the amount "Stream Processors". The more the better
Please note that these 2 numbers cannot be numerically compared.0 -
[quote="Christian Gr" wrote:
There are 3 things in this:
1:Preview generation. 1 time event. Only uses the CPU. Not GPU enabled.
Hi Christian,
I've been asking around in other threads about ways to make tethered images come up faster on screen while shooting. Mainly focused on better GPU's (like replacing my Nvidia 120 with a ATI 5870) but your above quote sounds like that the CPU powers the initial on screen preview from capture. Is that correct - I am wasting my time looking for better GPU options if I really only want the tethered preview to be quicker? Then I should be looking at a faster processor with more cores (currently a 2.93 quad core Mac Pro).0 -
That's correct. Previews are generated only by the CPU. 0 -
By previews you mean from tethered shooting - right?
Strange that I've asked this question numerous times and everyone only mentions GPU not CPU - even PO support.
So is clock speed more important or is it the number of cores? Assuming plentiful RAM and SSD or RAID 0 capture disk.
I'd love to see benchmarks of different Mac setups with regards to tethered DSLR shooting somewhere.0 -
Is there a short list of the best cards for Capture One? As in, not just raw processing power but also stability and compatibility? What are you (Phase devs) using and what do you recommend?
As a related question - if my machine currently has an ATI card, should I buy a second ATI card and use the older card to run one monitor, the newer card to run another? Will this be more efficient/responsive than buying one vastly improved card to replace my current card (the 5770)?
Thanks.0 -
[quote="jlafferty4" wrote:
Is there a short list of the best cards for Capture One?
1. NVIDIA Quadro K5000
2. ATI Radeon HD 5870
3. ATI Radeon HD 5770
4. GeForce GTX 285 for Mac0 -
Thanks Drew. Given the comparison chart shared earlier, is there any reason I'd go with the Radeon 5870 over the Radeon HD 7970?
edit: Whoa, down the Google rabbit hole. I see now that the more recent cards from both nVidia and ATI draw more power than the stock PS in a MacPro provides, and/or require different connectors. However... it seems the best card, out of the box, is the GTX-570 line - requires two 6-pin connectors and draws only 220w at peak. Requires a 10.8.x upgrade.0 -
Hi, I have been reading with interest the discussion about whether a new graphics card is the answer to poor preview generation. I am experiencing frequent cases where the preview simply does not generate in 7.02, sometimes this is after I make a simple adjustment. The progress wheel just keeps spinning and all I can do to solve is relaunch CO. This is the case both when I run from a 2009 Mac Pro running 2x Eizo monitors and when I run from a newer Macbook Pro running one Eizo monitor. Both systems are on OS 10.8.2 and have 14GB and 8GB of RAM respectively. I have set the preview resolution to its lowest (640).
Needless to say, this is slowing me down a lot and causing increasing frustration as it disrupts my processing rhythm!
Any advice?
IQ160 on Linhof 679cs0 -
[quote="Andrew22" wrote:
...
I have set the preview resolution to its lowest (640).
Needless to say, this is slowing me down a lot and causing increasing frustration as it disrupts my processing rhythm!
Any advice?
IQ160 on Linhof 679cs
Yes, set your preview size to the resolution of your largest monitor. A setting of 640px is slowing you down.0 -
Thanks, Paul. I will try that. However, I did have the preview resolution set higher previously, only reducing it after reading suggestions elsewhere on the forum. I have also already switched off OpenCL acceleration for both display and processing. Will let you know how I get on...
Andrew0 -
Paul,
Problem still persisting even after following your advice. CO still occasionally gets stuck trying to render an image. Possibly most common after an image is renamed. Does this make sense?
Andrew0 -
Andrew,
Imagining I am sitting behind your system, I ask myself: what would I do (next)?
I would periodically restart Capture One, even restart my system periodically to release memory or other system resources.
I would refresh the session file, preference file; take the OpenCL setting into account again
I would however first and foremost release my Mac Voodoo, that is what Mac users think or feel what makes their system perform best in the long run (repair permissions, verify disk, defrag disk, and so on).0 -
Paul,
You must have a sixth sense! The Mac Voodoo actions you describe are exactly the kind of things that I do regularly (nice to know I am not alone). I run Disk Warrior and Disk Utility frequently and have started using Memory Clean to free up RAM (which Photoshop and CO seem to leave "inactive" but not always "free" when they have finished). Periodic relaunching does seem to help. What I am going to try now is moving my session files to a separate internal HD (they currently sit in my "Pictures" folder) to see if that helps....
I do wonder whether it might be a dual monitor thing. While I am not doing any adjustments or file-renaming in the field, I do not seem to encounter preview problems when in tethered mode on my Macbook Pro, but the problem does occur when I use the same laptop to run an Eizo monitor in my on-the-road studio set-up. And in my main studio I am running 2 Eizos off a Mac Pro. Will let you know of any developments.
Thanks for the advice.
Andrew0 -
Andrew,
The dual monitor aspect is certainly a fact to keep in mind. You could either run the MBP + Eizo with both the MBP open and closed (I run my MBP + Eizo setup with MBP closed creating a single monitor setup) and see whether this affects performance.0 -
[quote="Andrew22" wrote:
have started using Memory Clean to free up RAM (which Photoshop and CO seem to leave "inactive" but not always "free" when they have finished).
Adobe doesn't recommend using memory free-ing utilities.
Here is some back and forth about it:
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop ... _photoshop
I recommend:
1. 16GB minimum for image work
2. set PS RAM usage to 70%, no more no less.
3. limit Flash running in browsers (I'm not a Flash hater at all, it just does interfere sometimes.)0 -
I usually close C1 or PS before freeing up memory. Also, OSX 10.7 and up come with the 'purge' command built in, it works perfectly for me from the terminal.
-N0
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