[AG-TECH] upgrade questions

[Osland, CD (Chris)]

A late reply, as I've been out of the lab.

We use 3 1.4 GHz AMD single processors each with 512M memory.
4 video inputs, 3 projectors, G450 and G200 video cards on display
machine.

We tend to hit 100% utilization on the Display machine around
21 windows (Medium or Small); we see about 10% utilization per
video capture card on the Capture machine; utilization of the
audio machine is negligible.  I'll upgrade the display machine
to 2.x GHz whenever I can, hopefully then allowing about 30
video windows.  We got all the machines the same to make
swapping easy.

We run the Gentner APware on the Display machine (as it only
runs under Windows) but set its priority to lowest - the above
figures are with APware not running as it uses all available
power in whatever machine you run it!  The software for the XAP
is apparently better (according to Gentner) but they don't seem
to consider what they are doing as terrible programming, just
a feature.  Ho hum.

Cheers

Chris

____________________________________________________________________
Chris Osland                                               Office tel: +44
(0) 1235 446565
Digital Media and Access Grid                          Medialab tel: +44 (0)
1235 446459
BIT Department                                     Access Grid room tel: +44
(0) 1235 445666
e-mail:   C.D.Osland at rl.ac.uk                                       Fax: +44
(0) 1235 445597
CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (Bldg. R18)
Chilton, DIDCOT, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
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-----Original Message-----
From: Darin Oman [mailto:darin at ucar.edu]
Sent: 26 July 2002 19:46
To: ag-tech
Subject: [AG-TECH] upgrade questions


Hi,

We're thinking about upgrading our AG computers soon and any 
documentation I can find discussing requirements is a bit outdated, so 
I'm posting here for some suggestions. Some things I'm wondering:

Is it still necessary to go dual processor, or will a single processor, 
say 2 GHz machine suffice?
Is 4 machines still the recommended way to go?
I'm not very experienced with Linux, so I'm not familiar with 
compatibility issues. If, for example, we bought our machines from Dell 
or Compaq, how difficult would my life be? Is it better to build from 
scratch?
I know some people are using Win XP on their display and/or control 
machines. Is it working OK?

Thanks in advance,

Darin Oman