RESOLVED: AJA Kona 5 8k output issue

Hardware
#1

I have an AJA Kona 5 SDI card, and am having trouble getting full 8k output (or multiple 4k outputs) in 2020.26630. The card doesn’t show up as a device in the VideoDeviceOut list when the card is in 8k mode.

Note, there are two firmwares for the Kona 5: 4k and 8k. The 4k firmware works fine, however if you try to push more than HD from a single output a message appears saying the 8k firmware need to be installed. When the 8k firmware is installed, the card does not show up as in the VideoDeviceOut “Device” dropdown.

Are there maybe settings in the AJA Control Panel, or other configurations that need to be set up?

#2

Hey, can you tell me what AJA driver you have installed?

#4

Driver Version 15.5.3.5 as reported in the AJA Control Panel.

Firmware that works: KONA 5 (4K) - 2020/03/26
Firmware that does not work: KONA 5 (8K) - 2020/04/05

#5

Can you try the 2020.40000 series experimental build and see if that works? I’ve updated and done lots of fixes to the AJA libraries in that version.

#6

Ah! Yes, I do get 8k out with 2020.41040.

Seeing some interesting performance with this…at 8k 60 Hz output, TouchDesigner slows to 30 fps in GPU Direct mode (30/0.2 ms CPU/GPU cook times), though it runs at 47-48 fps in Asynchronous (balanced 17/17 ms CPU/GPU).

I checked the CPU and it only has 16 PCIe lanes (yikes! it’s a xeon, too). Do you think the lack of PCIe lanes could be the source of this slowdown with GPU Direct?

#7

How many lanes does the PCI slot you have your AJA card in support? I think it needs to be at least 8x for Kona5 (check AJA specs to confirm). Your GPU and this card will be competing for the bandwidth available, but good to confirm this first as I’ve seen sometimes a card installed in the bottom PCI slot which could be only a 4x slot on some motherboards.

Do you have the model of your CPU and motherboard to chare with us.

#8

Yes, I believe PCIe lane count is the issue.

It is a Dell 3930 rack with only 2 PCIe slots. GPU has full 16-lanes, but from what I can tell the second PCIe slot where the Aja sits is physically 8-lane, but electrically 4-lane. On top of that, the CPU is a Xeon E-2288G with support for only 16 PCIe lanes.

Definitely not the ideal equipment.

#9

Yeah, I think you found the answer.