Krawlspace

12th October 2005 21:22 UTC

Building system specifically for AVS
OK....
I work in a night club and we are going to try to use AVS for some screen displays. I have read the posts stating that AVS uses processing speed rather than graphics card RAM.
I have also read about the lag in full screen mode with many AVS plug-ins, and the reduced fps rate. However, most of these posts are a couple years old.
I am going to build this system for AVS only. That being the case, what do the wise members of the board recommend? I understand that there are many opinions out there, and also am aware of the AVS vs Milkdrop debates.
Basically I want to know what would work best for putting interesting graphics on our screens with the smoothest look. Matters not to me what presets or plug-ins I use. As long as I can get the most fluid movement with the ability to change styles that I can have in a full screen mode. Again, I do not have the system built yet, and will buy the components based on the advice given here. My budget is $800 - $1000 for the box itself.
Thanks in advance!

Warrior of the Light

12th October 2005 22:34 UTC

For AVS, the most important things are (1) a fast cpu and (2) fast and much memory. The graphics card only does around ~10% of the work when it comes to framerate.
Since AVS uses a lot of your cpu, I'd also recommend proper cpu cooling.

AVS presets are small, so you could save some money on the HDD. (no need for SATA etc.)

About the OS I'm not too certain, but I think win98se gives the best results, but opinions may vary on that.
Also, some users use linux somehow and seem to get even higher framerates, but I've also heard of some glitches here and there..(?) I'd only recommend it if you know what you're doing. (Jaak, Mattfury, your opinions/comments?)

Boktor

13th October 2005 00:06 UTC

It's easier to have a dual screen setup, where you make the avswindow slightly bigger than your second screen. Drag it over, make sure not to show any edges of the avswindow.
If you're only using t.v.-screens you can select the smallest possible screen size for your second screen. A lot of detail will get lost in t.v.-screens anyhow. Small screen hence small avswindow will obviously also improve framerate.

This way you can also have your editorwindow open and you're ready to nerd the night away.

Where is this club?

PAK-9

13th October 2005 03:10 UTC

I would recommend:

- relatively cheap dual head graphics card so that you can use a multimonitor setup. Minimum I would say GeForce4200, they are usually dual head and dirt cheap now (or a GeForce 3 if you can find one being sold but I'm not sure they are usually dual head) [cost ~£40-60]

- Small HDD, but not old and horribly slow simply because it will dent performance in windows. A 40gb 7200rpm would be fine [cost ~£30-40]

Now for the important stuff, CPU/Memory/Mboard, the performance of AVS will rely almost exclusively on this so really break the bank. The latest big hoopla in CPU's is dual core's but AVS is an intrinsically single threaded application so I'd just go for a single core and pack in the GHz, if it was my money:

- Pentium 4 670 (LGA775 Prescott - 3.8GHz - 800FSB - HT)
(AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego would also be a good choice but the extra bit of cache is nice and Intels typically have stronger APU's which is good for AVS, I think in practice the differences would be pretty negligible. If you had the money I would probably favor an FX55 or FX57 over the Pentium...but you dont) [cost ~£450] if thats a bit too expensive you can drop to a 660 instead (3.6Ghz) which costs more like £300

- Any LGA775 Motherboard you fancy
But I would check the onboard sound because you will want to use it rather than buying a soundcard. Your sound processing requirements are pretty small, all you realistically need is a line in. [cost ~£50-100]

- RAM (512MB DDR PC3200 should suffice)
You dont need to go mental with superfast ram, the amount of main memory access in avs is fairly trivial, and speed is more important than quantity, both winamp and avs have pretty small footprints. [cost ~£40-50]

And thats about it, other than a PSU which is about another £20, you dont need a CD rom or anything provided you are using it just for AVS. In terms of performance I think you will find that perfectly acceptable, if anything you may need to frame rate limit presets because not everybody accounts for very fast PC's.

Tuggummi

13th October 2005 10:05 UTC

I was always under the assumption AMD's cpu's were a lot better for AVS than Intel's. I myself have a Athlon XP +2100 which has served me very well for a couple of years, and when i once tested AVS on a Pentium 4 3ghz (didn't know the type) it was at places even slower than my system! Mostly on trans heavy presets it tended to be very slow and to be more precise Intel's cpu didn't handle un-optimized convo filters well at all, it slowed down to a crawl :igor:

But it was just one experiment, and it could've been because of... well everything, i guess. Though as PAK-9 already pointed, dual cores and "Hyper-Threading" of Intel's cpu's is completly moot when it comes to avs. Also since the recommended system for avs is indeed win98se, you can count out 64 bit cpu's too.

I used win98se for years and only recently switched to win2k and i have to say that win98se is definetly the system, better fps, less crashing, and absolutly no problems with any of the APE's and since you won't be hooking up on the internet you don't even have to install resource hoggin firewall and antivirus programs.
And don't even think about XP, just... don't. There are countless threads in these forums with the words: AVS, XP and PROBLEM!11!11111!!!!eleven!1!11

So all in all, im on the same line with WotL and PAK-9 (except for the cpu part :p) about what you should use.

PAK-9

13th October 2005 14:29 UTC

Meh, like I said the difference in performance I doubt would be particularily great. Also its very difficult to predict something like AVS performance on difference CPU's, look at these for example:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/index....2=115&chart=19
http://www23.tomshardware.com/index....2=115&chart=17

If you cant be bothered to look at them basically they are CPU tests from 3DMark'03 and 3DMark'05, in '03 the AMD's are all top. In '05 its almost the complete opposite, you could cite either as a valid(ish) approximation of AVS performance.

I stick by Intel though simply because of FPU/Co-Processor performance like I said before, because it is very significant in AVS where almost all the number crunching is done in the FPU. Here is a whetstone (basically FPU performance) benchmark chart:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/index....l2=115&chart=5

You can see that Intel pretty much wipes the floor with AMD

Tuggummi

13th October 2005 19:27 UTC

It might be that whereas Intel is good with the code heavy presets you tend to create, AMD is better with the trans-heavy ones.

I have no benchmark's or cpu jargon to prove it though.

PAK-9

13th October 2005 22:01 UTC

Maybe AMD is superior at processing voodoo magic

Tuggummi

14th October 2005 05:03 UTC

Which, not including your presets of course, is just about... everything else.

PAK-9

14th October 2005 11:55 UTC

why would you want to watch anything except my presets?

Tuggummi

14th October 2005 12:08 UTC

Maybe they would want to watch my presets, which at a time were downloaded by millions instead of petty little hundred thousands, Mr. Nobody :p

PAK-9

14th October 2005 13:24 UTC

You sir, have crossed a line

I challenge you to an AVS-off!

Krawlspace

14th October 2005 16:22 UTC

My word.... tempers are flaring!
Thanks all for the imput.
I am slightly confused as to the dual screen soultion however. I understand making one screen larger, then draging the AVS window over to the other monitor, but how will that change the signal going to the monitors and projectors?

^..^

14th October 2005 17:26 UTC

Originally posted by PAK-9
You sir, have crossed a line

I challenge you to an AVS-off!

PAK-9

14th October 2005 17:32 UTC

Originally posted by Krawlspace
My word.... tempers are flaring!
Thanks all for the imput.
I am slightly confused as to the dual screen soultion however. I understand making one screen larger, then draging the AVS window over to the other monitor, but how will that change the signal going to the monitors and projectors?

Tuggummi

14th October 2005 17:54 UTC

Originally posted by PAK-9
You sir, have crossed a line

I challenge you to an AVS-off!

^..^

14th October 2005 18:33 UTC

Well, then Happy Birthday Tuggummi! :D
Enjoy the beer and the girls (if some are present)! ;)

That's funny, cause you're a Libra like me (my birthday was on wednesday). But actually you don't appear to be that balanced most of the time! :p

Originally posted by Tuggummi
I vote ^..^ for being the one to come up with the rules, or if he doesn't want to or wants more help, i vote also for WotL.

Krawlspace

14th October 2005 19:25 UTC

OK... Based on PAK-9's recommendations I have picked the following components. If I have missed anything, or am too much of a n00b not to see a conflict, please let me know.

PNY Verto GeForce FX 5500 / 128MB DDR / AGP 8X / Dual VGA / TV Out / Video Card

Seagate / 40GB / 7200 / 2MB / ATA-100 / Retail / Hard Drive

Asus P5P800 Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard / Audio / AGP 8X/4X / Gigabit LAN / USB 2.0 / Serial ATA

Intel Pentium 4 660 3.6Ghz / 2MB Cache / 800 FSB / Socket 775 / HyperThreading / Processor with Fan

AOpen 52x32x52x CD-RW / 16x DVD-ROM / Nero Software / CD Burner (need a way to get Winamp on the PC)

OCZ EL Platinum 512MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory

Ultra Wizard Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB and Firewire Ports

Coolmax / CX-450B / Black / 450-Watt / ATX / 120mm Fan / SATA-Ready / Power Supply

WIN98 SE I have an existing copy of

Total price: $850 which brings me in right at budget.

All of these components I found at tigerdirect.com, which seems to have good pricing overall.
This will be only the second box I have built, so again, if I missed something please flame away.

Also, Boktor asked where the club is. Here is the url: emeraldtheatre.com

PAK-9

14th October 2005 19:40 UTC

Looks good, a couple of fairly trivial points:

- If you can find the same HDD (or similar) OEM you will save yourself a few bucks

- I still dont really think you need that CD drive, you can take the CD drive out of another PC you own and put it in for the purposes of installing windows and winamp. For everything else you can use a USB mass storage device or networking to get data on to/off of it. Its not a great deal of money though so you may want a CD drive simply for convinience, in which case fair enough.

Hope it all goes well for you, one final note if you really are a total noob you might want someone with a bit of computer knowhow helping you get it all set up. Computers tend to be the sort of thing that you put them all together and they dont go for some inexplicable reason.

Warrior of the Light

14th October 2005 21:51 UTC

^..^, I think you can manage this very well on your own. Two judges can only disagree.
The only advice I'd like to give is to start a new thread for this.

Going back to topic I agree with pak on not having a cd-drive once the sytem has been set-up. It's asking for people messing with it.
You'd need one for installing win98se though. (didn't you mean Windows with the cd-drive?)
See if you have a spare one somewhere that you can put into the system and remove it afterwards. for winamp updates and newer presets, USB flashdrives are the best way to go imo.

^..^

14th October 2005 22:28 UTC

[last offtopic post]
Actually i think this was all just kind of a crackpot idea. But if the two want to have that duel though, they shall start a new thread.
[/last offtopic post]

Tuggummi

14th October 2005 22:31 UTC

Originally posted by ^..^
you don't appear to be that balanced most of the time! :p

Krawlspace

18th October 2005 17:18 UTC

Thanks again all for the advice!
Ordered the parts and I will begin the construction sometime next week. If the AVS appears slow or choppy after the whole thing is set up, I will come back here and post photos of dead llamas every day.

I agree on the cd drive not really being a necessity, but I will need it both for Windows and Winamp, as this box will not be hooked up to the net. I will remove it after install.

I will post back when it's all finished and let you know how it worked out.

Tuggummi

19th October 2005 21:56 UTC

Just as long as you use reasonable resolutions, you should be fine and dandy (although i still disagree on the intel part, to the bitter end :p)

Don't expect AVS to run on 1280x768 with this specific built-system either, just the normal 400x300 and you should be able to enjoy some pretty good framerates :)

Warrior of the Light

19th October 2005 22:10 UTC

640x480 is also a realistic option, if you pick some faster presets. just don't go any higher

@ tuggummi: the 4:3 ratio for 1280 is 960, not 768. That mode is specifically for widescreen laptops, just as 1280x1024 is for the more square-like monitors you rarely see.

Tuggummi

19th October 2005 23:15 UTC

How the hell should i know what the 4:3 ratio for 1280 is!? Gosh, i only recently started using 1024x768, 3 months ago i was still using 800x600 which i've used since... 1994? :igor:

eheiney

19th October 2005 23:46 UTC

@ Tug: 800x600? :igor:, :eek:, and :cry: I feel so sorry for you.

hboy

20th October 2005 07:42 UTC

1280x960 is not widescreen as you mentioned, Wotl, because its 4:3 ;) 1280x768 is wide though. ;)

Warrior of the Light

20th October 2005 11:14 UTC

Originally posted by hboy
1280x960 is not widescreen as you mentioned, Wotl, because its 4:3 ;) 1280x768 is wide though. ;)

Originally posted by Warrior of the Light
tuggummi: the 4:3 ratio for 1280 is 960

eheiney

20th October 2005 18:30 UTC

Personally I like 1280/4*3=960. It has much smaller numbers. ;) And if we're gonna get all fussy about resolution, 2048x1536.

:D PWND LOL KTHXBYE

PAK-9

20th October 2005 22:35 UTC

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...endisplays.jpg

Tuggummi

21st October 2005 11:36 UTC

Nice picture of a hammer PAK-9.

Now if i could only figure out what it has to do with screens...

StevenRoy

22nd October 2005 22:33 UTC

Hotlink prevention strikes again.

I think it was supposed to be this.

PAK-9

24th October 2005 15:14 UTC

yea... that

JFASI

15th November 2005 21:23 UTC

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