Datapath x4

I am running some test with the datapath x4.

System is Bto laptop with sli nvidea 560m.

Output is 1920x1080 and is fed to datapath driving 4 1024x768 displays that crop the output to a 4x4 display configuration.

The composition to test is a ramp set to circular at resolution 1024 x 1024 8bit.
The phase is is controlled via constant to speed chop into the phase of the ramp.

When running this system on the laptop screen I get full performance.
On the datapath i get only a mere 25 fps. I disconnected the x4 used a
External Monitor on 1920x1080 everything looked fine again 60 fps.

Any idea’s about this.

What is a good solution to get 4 outputs? Extra graffic Card and two dualheads.
Or a matrox Card with 4 outputs or the new Ati cards with even 6 outputs.

I also found that controlling ramps via the phase or rotating top’s via a transform are very heavy on the system. Is there a reason why ? Or could my system by setup wrong.

Grt michel

There is nothing about the X4 that would tax your system more vs. another monitor of identical resolution, so a Matrox would be the same (and much harder to configure properly in our experience).
How many windows did you have open in TouchDesigner when you were running a test? Having more than one window rendering can impact performance.

Well I did some testing and found in the mixxa forum some settings I did not do before.
That is nvidea vsync off triple buffering on. That gave an inmence speed improvement ofcourse.

I do believe that there is something wrong or i’m doing wrong. Basically I generate content either using ramps that are driven by controlling the phase from a chop. Or use a sop network that is distorted after that I add a texture camera’s lights ect ect. The sop networks all run fine even the more complex ones. But the compositions that use the ramp and or a transform tops have problems. All my compositions with top’s accros different systems experiance a non constant playback speed. Is that because in top’s parameters are not timesliced ? And how can I solve this.

Grt michel

Can you post a small component example of one of your networks? We can tell you if there is anything that might cause it in your network setup.

I attach example file that will look fine at first.
simple phase modulated ramp.
When looking more detailled you will see that the animation is not fluent.
Sometime there is a little delay. You have to play with the speed sometimes to really see it.

grt michel
circle.toe (4.33 KB)

I checked all performance data and they look fine.
frame rates are at 60 fps.
I run the animation on secondary monitor.

after playing with the settings of the nvidea card I switched off vsync and triple buffering I could not get an improvement.

grt michel