Interestingly, the best price I could put this together for (after scouring the net) is about 񘲴 or so. I know a guy selling it with this:

...for Ŭk, configured. So, that sounds a bit tempting seeing how I really want those programs and am too busy to build this thing. Okay, lazy.

Question is, is the Tiger + Athlon combo worth it? Or would it be better to go with dual PIIIs? I know that's a heated debate waiting to happen, but I'm curious about legit compatibility problems. I'm not very hardware savvy, so I'm a bit ignorant on this one. If anyone has experience that could be of assistance, I'd really appreciate it if you spilled your beans here.

Thinking about getting a DVD-Rom and swapping out that Asus card for a GeForce3 as well...maybe an Audigy instead of the Live...but then we're reaching "ramen-for-three-months" mode.

p.s. - if you're wondering why it's so much, keep in mind the cheapest I can find that Canopus card for is about ป-1200.

p.p.s. - if anyone has experience/knowledge in the dv systems realm, I'd love to hear from you.

This message has been edited by whiskey@throttle on November 17, 2001 at 02:05 AM

Second, I don't really see any huge conflicts of hardware there... there have been known a few things that the 760mp chipset doesn't like too much, like Netgear NICs. What about swapping that Asus card for a Radeon dual head with 32MB of ram? And I personally don't think it's worth going with an Audigy rather than a SBLive, but then again, I don't like creative anyway

Ok, now to the IMPORTANT PART. If you're going with dual Athlons, DO NOT SKIMP ON THE COOLING! Make sure you go with a good heatsink/fan combo, or else you are setting yourself up for major problems.

Another suggestion: don't buy MP's right now (I'm assuming you don't want to splurge and buy dual XP MP's?), but instead buy two 1gig durons, or 950mhz durons. Yes, they will work on that board (I've heard of quite a few people doing just that), and that way you can save some money, and use it until you can afford 2 1800+ MP's.

Anyway... I hate you

quote:

---

Another suggestion: don't buy MP's right now (I'm assuming you don't want to splurge and buy dual XP MP's?), but instead buy two 1gig durons, or 950mhz durons. Yes, they will work on that board (I've heard of quite a few people doing just that), and that way you can save some money, and use it until you can afford 2 1800+ MP's.

---

It seems like he has enough money already...

Anyway, how much is the CD burner included in that deal? All of a sudden, burners @ 24x's price dropped down to the 贄 range, so maybe you could save a little dough that way.

quote:

---

Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
Thinking about getting a DVD-Rom and swapping out that Asus card for a GeForce3 as well...maybe an Audigy instead of the Live...but then we're reaching "ramen-for-three-months" mode.

---

That's the reason I came up with that idea. Not only would he save money NOW, he would be able to get some really fast processors in the nearish future.

And plextors are, will be, and always have been 'spensive mofos, but they are really good quality.

This message has been edited by just_dave on November 17, 2001 at 07:04 AM

edit: Were those ATA100 drives 7200rpm? 7200 vs 5400 rpm makes a big difference when capturing video.

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When 1337 hax0rs start impaling each other with swords and typing code with a hook on one hand, then they can modify the term "pirate."

This message has been edited by Observer on November 17, 2001 at 09:42 AM

3 words:
Get a mac!

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#define QUESTION (2b)| |!(2b)

quote:

---

Originally posted by just_dave:
We used ata/100 hard drives to capture video and we were still seeing dropped frames. That was a dual 800 with 1 gig ram. Best results we seen are with scsi drives. But, I havn't tried the newer drives of today. But we did see dropped frames with those drives of the first ata/100's. But either way let me know how it works now and I may save some money on the next system and get ata/100's

---

Perhaps you should get 2 100GB drives and RAID 0 them? much fastah then...

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"just pressin y0 butt0ns f00" -- miNus

Are you going to be using this system for DV/miniDV/DVPro or for capturing analog uncompressed/at low compression ratios?

For DV, the system will be fine. If you want to capture high data rate analog, it won't even start to cut it. OTOH, if you were interested in editing video at high data rates, you probably wouldn't be looking at 100GB drives...

quote:

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Originally posted by ASCIIMan:
Important question for drive speed requirements:

Are you going to be using this system for DV/miniDV/DVPro or for capturing analog uncompressed/at low compression ratios?

For DV, the system will be fine. If you want to capture high data rate analog, it won't even start to cut it. OTOH, if you were interested in editing video at high data rates, you probably wouldn't be looking at 100GB drives...

---

Yeah yeah, I know what you mean. When I'm doing my stuff real-time, I just boot up FlaskMPEG / WinXP on my ASCI White. That thing flies, man! Just wish I had better.

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"just pressin y0 butt0ns f00" -- miNus

quote:

---

Originally posted by blanalex:
a digital video workstation???

3 words:
Get a mac!

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HA!

5 words:
Macs suck, pickup an SGI.

quote:

---

Originally posted by MattimeoZ80:
and it works just fine and very fast, but for best performance its better to have the os on its own drive and have the array just for storage.

---

It shouldnt matter what you put on the drive. data or system files all get treated the same way.

You dont really need to raid per se. You just need to disk stripe without parity. Depending on your OS you can do it without any extra hardware.

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AHHHH cobras ahhh ahhhh ahh cooooobraaaass cooobraass ahh -homer

This message has been edited by L33T_h4x0r_d00d on November 17, 2001 at 03:03 PM

But that was a couple years ago.

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~Anztac [ Pertinaciously disconsolate ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by miNus:
Well first of all, I hate you

---

quote:

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Ok, now to the IMPORTANT PART. If you're going with dual Athlons, DO NOT SKIMP ON THE COOLING! Make sure you go with a good heatsink/fan combo, or else you are setting yourself up for major problems.

---

Cool...(no pun intended). Thanks for the advice.

quote:

---

Another suggestion: don't buy MP's right now (I'm assuming you don't want to splurge and buy dual XP MP's?), but instead buy two 1gig durons, or 950mhz durons. Yes, they will work on that board (I've heard of quite a few people doing just that), and that way you can save some money, and use it until you can afford 2 1800+ MP's.

---

Is it that much cheaper? Well, I think I'm going to go with these cpus...just because I've seen 'em paired for pretty good prices with the Tyan mobo (and, that's what's included in the package deal I mentioned). I see your point though. I guess as long as it does the job proper I don't mind spending the money now and not upgrading later, you know?

quote:

---

Originally posted by smart:
Anyway, how much is the CD burner included in that deal? All of a sudden, burners @ 24x's price dropped down to the 贄 range, so maybe you could save a little dough that way.

---

Interesting...I'm not sure about the package price, though. I'll have to look into that.

quote:

---

Originally posted by just_dave:
We used ata/100 hard drives to capture video and we were still seeing dropped frames. That was a dual 800 with 1 gig ram.

---

Are you serious? Jeez...

Did you have a realtime board with that? What card were you using?

quote:

---

Best results we seen are with scsi drives. But, I havn't tried the newer drives of today. But we did see dropped frames with those drives of the first ata/100's. But either way let me know how it works now and I may save some money on the next system and get ata/100's
[/B]

---

I wish I could afford SCSI. But, for the price of a 100gb u/ata drive I can only get like a ~18gb SCSI...

The guy I'm thinking of buying the package from works for a production house and says he uses the same system every day...so I'd imagine it's pretty good about not dropping frames. I'll have to check up on that.

quote:

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Originally posted by Observer:
Were those ATA100 drives 7200rpm? 7200 vs 5400 rpm makes a big difference when capturing video.

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Yeah, definitely 7200rpm.

Oh, how I'd love a 15k SCSI though.

quote:

---

Originally posted by blanalex:
a digital video workstation???

3 words:
Get a mac!

---

Yeah, and spend about a grand more and not be able to run my PC apps...

quote:

---

Originally posted by MattimeoZ80:
raid is awesome, however if you're going to be doing a LOT of dv work, keep the raid array separate from your system; i partitioned 60 gb of raid 0 into two parts for system and files and it works just fine and very fast, but for best performance its better to have the os on its own drive and have the array just for storage.

---

That's what I heard. But, I'm only getting two drives...so I guess RAID is out then. Right? (I'm utterly clueless about RAID). The guy was telling me you can easily upgrade this system to RAID in the future though.

quote:

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Originally posted by ASCIIMan:
Important question for drive speed requirements:

Are you going to be using this system for DV/miniDV/DVPro or for capturing analog uncompressed/at low compression ratios?

---

100\% DV/miniDV.

quote:

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Originally posted by blanalex:

You dont really need to raid per se. You just need to disk stripe without parity. Depending on your OS you can do it without any extra hardware.

---

Please explain.

quote:

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Originally posted by just_dave:
The drives we used were the first ones out. Maybe it was just our card the pinacle dv500 or 5000 i cant remember. But we used 2 9 gig scsi 100000rpms it was nice and flew on video.

But that was a couple years ago.

---

Must have been the Pinnacle DV500 (there is no 5000...cept maybe the "Targa," which is about ฟ,000...)

Anyway, sounds cool. 'Cept 9gb for a storage file is pretty skimpy. 4gb = 20min of raw footage. Oh, and this is going to also be my gaming/office PC as well.

Just found out this guy has a GeForce3 in stock. heheh. Going to the store to stock up Nissin.

BTW, you guys are going to have to teach me some of this shit, because I'm clueless about most of the hardware details you guys talk about.

quote:

---

Originally posted by DeadAnztac:
I might suggest Dv.Now. My dad made up his own DV system, and I must say, it is damned awesome (He used 1.2 Ghz T-brid (not MP) and lot's off DDR RAM, with ATA/100 7,200 RPM drives and it works really really well. The DV card I suggested comes with some cool software (Premiere with it).
< http://www.dazzle.com/products/dvnow.html >

---

Thanks for the rec, but the DV.now card is a bit less than what I'm looking for. I have a similar card now by Pinnacle and it's just not doing the job. < Here's the specs on the DV Storm (Real time, all rendering done with hardware) >

By the way, when you say "not MP," you mean he only had one processor, right?

And also, the Athlon MP is just the Palomino, right? (IIRC, MP is just short for SMP = symmetric multi-processing)

Do you guys think the XP's higher calculations are really worth all the extra $$$?

But I hear the XP isn't approved by AMD to work in dual. I'm not sure, though...

Oh, and Just_Dave:

quote:

---

We used ata/100 hard drives to capture video and we were still seeing dropped frames. That was a dual 800 with 1 gig ram.

---

I was talking with some people about this and got to thinking...were you running win98?

That setup shouldn't be dropping frames at all. Perhaps you had an irq conflict...some sort of config issue. My friend here is mentioning that if it was win98, it may have something to do with acpi being partially manual as opposed to entirely auto in win2k pro.

quote:

---

Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by L33T_h4x0r_d00d not blanalex:
You dont really need to raid per se. You just need to disk stripe without parity. Depending on your OS you can do it without any extra hardware.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please explain.

---

Let me first correct one little thing up top. That being done.

Most of the time when someone says they are going to run a raid its a superbadass scsi card that acts as a mini-cpu for disk accessing. Its usually very expensive and a pain in the ass to setup, BUT once done you can have either super high speed data access, quintuple data redundancy or somewhere in between. Some of the new mobos come with it on the board and I have had only limited performance gain over straight ata with it. If your mother board comes with it good, if not, dont let that be a deciding factor. For the average person, including you, you dont need hardware raid.

A. Because your only using 2 drives.
B. Because your using IDE drives.
C. Cost is an issue.

If you wanted to run say 25 drives (no you cannot hot-glue more connectors on an IDE cable) or wanted scsi then it may intrest you. Next question.

What os are you going to run?
In NT4 you created a volume set from disk administrator. The only problem was that to get to DA you had to already have NT installed on a drive, and you cannot add a partition with data to a volume set. This was corrected with 2k. For ease it probably would behoove you to have an extra HD aside from your strip set just for your OS. Its not required, just a good idea.

And the last part.
Stripe set: This is what you want most likly. Lets say you have 2 50 gig drives that youve created a stripe set with. The OS sees both drives as 1 100 gig drive. When you go to write say 10 megs of data to your strip set drive, the file is broken in half and each part is written to one of the drives, in effect doubling the speed of your data read/write.

Now if your gonna be running something besides windows Im sure one of the local j00n1x ninjas around here can help setup you up.

If anyone is inclined to setup a hardware raid might I recommend Mylex as your brand of choice. (24 hour tech support and they will replace a defective card in 2 business days.)
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AHHHH cobras ahhh ahhhh ahh cooooobraaaass cooobraass ahh -homer

This message has been edited by L33T_h4x0r_d00d on November 17, 2001 at 07:33 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
Must have been the Pinnacle DV500 (there is no 5000...cept maybe the "Targa," which is about ฟ,000...)

Anyway, sounds cool. 'Cept 9gb for a storage file is pretty skimpy. 4gb = 20min of raw footage. Oh, and this is going to also be my gaming/office PC as well.

---

Now that I think about it, it was the 500 realtime board by Pinniacle (sp?) but we ran windows off a ata/100 and used the 2 9 gigs for capture and work. But with the phillips mpeg chips that were on that board.. 30 minutes ends up to be about 3 gigs.. if I remember right but I was working on that a couple years ago when the 800's made their debut. The dv500 if I remember right had an onboard controller for a scsi drive.

When I went through a crash course video school we had a Mac running AVID with a 200 gig scsi raid. That was a beast with two 21" monitors. But anywho..

quote:

---

Originally posted by whiskey@throttle:
Oh, and Just_Dave:

I was talking with some people about this and got to thinking...were you running win98?

That setup shouldn't be dropping frames at all. Perhaps you had an irq conflict...some sort of config issue. My friend here is mentioning that if it was win98, it may have something to do with acpi being partially manual as opposed to entirely auto in win2k pro.

---

Come to think about it, I think it was win98, well crap that was the problem all along I feel totally stupid. Maybe I will call him up and see if he is still using that system. I moved and have not worked there in about two years. I used the system for three weeks then it was off to college and moved outta town. Thanks for the info Whiskey!

This message has been edited by just_dave on November 17, 2001 at 08:45 PM

Edit: oh yeah you dont have to use athlon MP's with the board all other athlons are capable of working with it but seeing as it was designed for MP's AMD are trying to get a reason for people to buy them and also make sure you use registered ram otherwise it wont work.

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Oh and by the way, if you see your mum this weekend, be sure to tell her SATAN!!! - Orbital

This message has been edited by Dark Knight Bob on November 18, 2001 at 07:08 AM

quote:

---

Dual Athlon 1.2GHz MP Processors

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quote:

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512MB DDR RAM

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quote:

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40GB IBM 40GB 7200RPM Sys HD

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quote:

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NEC Multisync FE950+ 19” Flat Screen CRT Monitor

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quote:

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Sony PVM 1341Q 13" NTSC Production Monitor

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quote:

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p.s. - if you're wondering why it's so much, keep in mind the cheapest I can find that Canopus card for is about ป-1200.

---

(I'm currently building a DV system for myself, but it's all Linux based. I've written a driver for one kind of IEEE-1394 card and I'm writing the editing software now =)

BTW about dropping frames... The datarate of DV is 3.6 MB/sec, which is like 10\% of what a modern drive can do. If you are dropping frames then you are having interrupt or scheduling latency problems; try running stuff at real-time priority, or switch to Linux =)

This message has been edited by CaptainEO on November 18, 2001 at 10:27 PM

I guess, if it's a purely DV machine, build it as such. You'll probably come off cheaper in per-performance if you make a DV machine and a workstation/gaming machine. Whenever you try to hybrid a special use computer with a general use computer, you end up spending more money and sacrificing one of the two. That's not the way they're designed.

quote:

---

Originally posted by CaptainEO:
Watch out, it's the infamous IBM DeathStar GXP! (search the web and you'll see what I mean =)

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Wrong. The 75GXP is the drive of death (although mine is still going fine). 40GB = 60GXP.

quote:

---

Originally posted by CaptainEO:
That flat screen will probably add 񘈨 to the price (vs a CRT); I still prefer CRTs but it's up to you...

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Wrong. That's a monitor w/ a flat surface. Notice "CRT". Or look it up.

quote:

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Originally posted by CaptainEO:
You don't really need this for DV editing, since you can edit the video on your system monitor. (I have one of these for my DPS PVR editing system; it's a very nice display, but I prefer to just watch the stuff on my system monitor...)

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You wanna see what it's going to look like on a real television? Gotta have one.

quote:

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Originally posted by CaptainEO:
For DV editing all you *really* need is a commodity IEEE-1394 (FireWire) card.

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Not if you want to be productive...

quote:

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Originally posted by CaptainEO:
The more expensive "DV" cards are just IEEE-1394 cards together with some editing software.

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Wrong. RT = Real Time = expensive real time effects chips.

quote:

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Originally posted by CaptainEO:
(I'm currently building a DV system for myself, but it's all Linux based. I've written a driver for one kind of IEEE-1394 card and I'm writing the editing software now =)

---

Read up some more before you get into DV editing.

quote:

---

Originally posted by CaptainEO:
BTW about dropping frames... The datarate of DV is 3.6 MB/sec, which is like 10\% of what a modern drive can do. If you are dropping frames then you are having interrupt or scheduling latency problems; try running stuff at real-time priority, or switch to Linux =)

---

Not if you're capturing analog at some of the higher datarates.

This message has been edited by ASCIIMan on November 18, 2001 at 11:16 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by CaptainEO:
Get the fastest Athlon XPs you can afford; MPs are the same hardware, just marked up

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Yeah, but I keep reading things like this:

quote:

---

from ace's hardware
Note however that AMD guarantees that only the Athlon MP works in SMP.

---

Then again, DKB may have a point:

quote:

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you dont have to use athlon MP's with the board. all other athlons are capable of working with it, but seeing as it was designed for MP's AMD [is] trying to get a reason for people to buy them

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I don’t know. You guys know more about this than me. Still, I'm kinda sketchy about taking a chance. The last thing I want is this system hanging or otherwise fucking up.

Perhaps the 1.2 MPs will be good for now, and I can just drop in two news chips when AMD releases a 2ghz+ version next year… (assuming I need it/have the $$$)

quote:

---

You should probably get ECC RAM, for extra safety. (and make sure it's registered RAM- the Tyan boards require it)

---

Yeah, but ECC RAM costs more than double, IIRC. Approx. 贡 for 512mb DDR, and about 跋 for ECC. I'm not sure if I can afford that right now. Besides, do I really need it? I'm doing anything mission critical, running a file server, etc.

Interestingly, though, in my research I came across this:

quote:

---

The Berlekamp-Massey algorithm, on which ECC RAM is based, is a variation of an ancient Egyptian algorithm discovered by Euclid in 300 BC-- the extended algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two polynomials.

---

Very interesting.

quote:

---

Watch out, it's the infamous IBM DeathStar GXP! (search the web and you'll see what I mean =)

---

Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve read about nightmares with the 75GXP, but not the 60. Still…I’m kinda worried now that you mention it.

Anyone else have input on this?

quote:

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For DV editing all you *really* need is a commodity IEEE-1394 (FireWire) card. These are available for ฤ-๠. The more expensive "DV" cards are just IEEE-1394 cards together with some editing software.

---

Um, no. You are grossly mistaken.

First of all, no respectable DV capture board is ฤ. I have a ๳ StudioDV (all rendering -> software) and it sucks major ass. I should mention that the StudioDV is about as cheap as they come.

An RT board (like the Canopus Storm) completes a normally lengthy render in mere milliseconds: by the time you select a complex 3d transition, type in scrolling titling, or use a intricate after-effect, an RT card is ready for output. All hardware, no waiting. You can forget about this should you choose to use a “commodity” card, as you call it.

quote:

---

You don't really need [a production monitor] for DV editing...

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Of course you do…how else are you going to know what it will look like on a television? Remember, your monitor is showing millions and millions of colors…an NTSC television is only what? 256? 1000? Also, your tv is running 640X800 – another thing to keep in mind. Don’t forget that while things may look in frame on your system monitor, they may be cropped differently on a tv screen.

quote:

---

heaves
I guess, if it's a purely DV machine, build it as such. You'll probably come off cheaper in per-performance if you make a DV machine and a workstation/gaming machine. Whenever you try to hybrid a special use computer with a general use computer, you end up spending more money and sacrificing one of the two. That's not the way they're designed.

---

Yeah, I agree. But are the indented uses of this system (DV, graphics, music, games, office) really that far off?

The DV is the primary usage, granted. But due to the fact that it's got major cpu horsepower, a nice amount of RAM, etc...it seems already qualified to do many other things as well. I mean, if your tractor looks like a Porsche and can do 90 down the highway, why not take it for a spin?

The music and graphic applications I plan to use (Acid, Fruity Loops, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc) go hand in hand with with the DV thing. That's all part of the DV process.

As for games, we’re just talking about the addition of a GeForce3 instead of that Asus 32mb dual head (I plan to only have one monitor anyway)…and I don’t plan to mess with analog video at all. So, I think it’ll be all right.

Right?

BTW, I see what you’re saying about SCSI, though. You have a good point. But I like the idea of having 100gb over 18.2, you know?

Decisions, decisions...

Any Socket A chip WILL WORK (as far as I have heard, as in, people DOING it) on the Tiger. Durons, Athlons, MP's (earlier MP's, palomino core, but marked at CPU speed), XP's, MP XP's (later MP's, palomino core but marked at PR speed).

On to the ECC RAM issue.

You _NEED_ ECC RAM. Although... I cannot recall if it's on the tiger or not, but on some DDR boards, you only need ECC if you plan on using the last two slots... You're better off going all ECC though, that way if you want to upgrade, you don't have to buy all new ram. I.E. if you have two sticks of ECC and you want to upgrade, put two more in... if you have two non ECC sticks and you want to upgrade, throw those away and buy more.

But I'm pretty sure you just NEED ECC for the Tiger, period.

Last time I did DV editing was on a PII 300 w/ 392MB RAM. Beefy by the standards of the day. I think the only reason we didn't drop frames right and left was the SCSI disk.

If I were to build a DV workstation today, I would seriously consider a G4 Cube. Then I would remember that its nice to buy things like food, and I'd go with an Intel setup w/ twin 10K RPM Ultra160 disks running striped (hardware RAID). This is the important part. Every god-damned memory benchmark I've seen on AMD setups has been absolutely horrible. Now, maybe my understanding of what goes on during video editing is flawed, but it seems to me that you want a lot of RAM, but more importantly, you want to use it quickly. I would even go so far as to suggest that you invest in one of those cards that lets you create giant virtual disks out of sticks of SDRAM. It's cheap, and would make extremely fast scratch space for editing, then commit to disk when you're done.

quote:

---

Originally posted by ASCIIMan:
Actually, you just need registered SDRAM, but good luck finding registered RAM that doesn't have an extra chip or two for ECC.

---

Oh yeah, *slaps forehead* that's what I meant the whole time. DDR SDRAM, though

quote:

---

Originally posted by cr0bar:
I would even go so far as to suggest that you invest in one of those cards that lets you create giant virtual disks out of sticks of SDRAM. It's cheap, and would make extremely fast scratch space for editing, then commit to disk when you're done.

---

One problem you run into is that you need superbeef CPU to accomplish that. Simply, RAM read/writes are more closely monitored by the CPU, whereas disk hits are farmed off to DMA controllers and notify the CPU when they're done. Ramdisks went out a while ago for this reason.

AMD wanted to get hold of the desktop market before they branched out into the dual processor market. a while back tyan who are the guys who suck AMD big fat cock made a business tiger prototype dual mobo. this was approx 2-3 times the price of the current commercial version. cos tyan have been best buddies with amd for so long they could take advantage of full support from amd and seeing as they are currently the only ones to be allowed to make a dual mobo for amd they made a goodun. AMD brought out the AMD MP which was updated from the thunderbird for more efficient use in a dual mobo. the xp i think has this tech as well as it use that palamino thingy. tyan and amd states u should only use MP's because thats what they were made for that ONE motherboard. of course because they're all socket a chips all socket a's will work in it. however now that theres the beefy 1900's out theres no reason why you cant take advantage of the increase in power. just dont tell amd you did it

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Oh and by the way, if you see your mum this weekend, be sure to tell her SATAN!!! - Orbital