[AG-TECH] Hardware news - towards a single machine node

[Todd Needham]

My preference is to always bet on the CPU in instances like this.  We
have yet to see what happens to video when optimized for the P4's new
instruction set in this area.

Stay tuned... :)

Todd Needham
Manager, Research Programs Group
Microsoft Research
http://research.microsoft.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Ramacher [mailto:jeffr at mhpcc.edu] 
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 5:15 PM
To: Todd Needham
Cc: disz at mcs.anl.gov; Ag-Tech at Mcs. Gov
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Hardware news - towards a single machine node

I think it would be really cool (but probably way too expensive to
develop) to move some of the AV processing off of the system CPU to a
special purpose AG pci board or something like that.  Does anyone know
if there's a "vic in a chip" kind of thing already?

Just my thoughts on a Friday afternoon...
--
jeffr

Todd Needham wrote:
> 
> Given discussions regarding CPU requirements for a single machine
node,
> thought you might like to know I saw a pre-production dual P4 (1.7GHz
> Foster) from Dell today: 64 & 32 bit PCI buses, built-in 1394, onboard
> fast Ethernet.  The real news is that they expect to start shipping
> these in May with a reasonable starting configuration under $4K.
> Needless to say, 4 cameras and all those video streams are not going
to
> be an issue.
> 
> 
> 
> We also had discussions with Viewcast/Osprey about getting
P4-optimized
> drivers for their capture cards and we're following up separately with
> their development team next week.  It would still be nice to get all
of
> this running on a single proc P4 to keep the cost down even further.
> 
> 
> 
> Todd Needham
> 
> Manager, Research Programs Group
> 
> Microsoft Research
> 
> http://research.microsoft.com
> 
> 
> 
> 

--
Jeff Ramacher (jeffr at mhpcc.edu)                | (808) 879-5077, x264
Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC) | fax (808) 879-5018
                                               | http://www.mhpcc.edu