cpu

[systrum]

i am currently running a stream via mac g4 powerbook (400mhz) processor with 768 mb ram.

have been told that this may not be sufficient even for mac. could anyone make a recommendation for what i would require to run a relatively sound stream without major issues

eg. would 800 mhz be enough?

[DJ AmPs]

If 400mhz barely cuts it, 800mhz should be fine.

A PC needs to be at least 300mhz or so for smooth encoding at higher bitrates. I suspect Nullsoft didn't optimize the OS-X compile of sc_trans at all... hey this works, ok we're done =). 400mhz should be enough for a PPC running a properly compiled LAME encoder.

[systrum]

i've stopped using sc_trans. am now using audion.
all my files are encoded at 44100khz, stereo. 320 kbps
when u say properly compliled lame encoder, is this what u mean?

[DJ Killer]

hrmm, i was running the sc_trans on linux on a 200mhz and it was almost a perfect run. Just when it hit the other hard drive to read more of the MP3 it jogged, so 400mhz should be more than fine, then again i am unsure of the performance of a PPC processor architecture. I thought PPC's were supposed to perform slightly better than the x86 architecture processors?

[DJ AmPs]

In theory they will, but if the software isn't built (compiled) correctly the performance canbe worse... which I suspect is the case for sc_trans os-x

if nullsoft allowed custom lame config, the cpu usage could easily be chiseled down.

[Jay]

actually tweaking quality will help tremendously.

Probably a good setting for a computer of that speed would be 5 or lower that should give you enough CPU left over to do other things

[systrum]

when using sc_trans i did the renice thing and it ran smooth. now am using audion. it's a nice program so i assume that there should be no software issues of the sort dj amps is talking anout. but when krxm mentions tweaking quality does he mean renice?

[Jay]

no the quality setting will tell the encoder how detailed it should be, if you set this high the encoder tries it's best to optimize the CPU usage for higher sound quality. Setting the quality is done in the sc_trans.conf file.

Here are some observations on a Celeron 1.3 Ghz

code:


Quality --- CPU%

   1    ---  40%

   3    ---  25%

   5    ---  16%

   10   ---  5%

so as you can see changing the quality makes a difference, however it does effect the final output, I found 5 to be an ok line between CPU and Quality. 10 makes the stream sound distorted. 1 just seemed to be a tiny bit better then 5 but not enough to justify more then double the CPU consumption.

[DJ AmPs]

Originally posted by KXRM
actually tweaking quality will help tremendously.

Probably a good setting for a computer of that speed would be 5 or lower that should give you enough CPU left over to do other things

That's exactly what I was getting at XRM.

But the problem is nullsoft always locks in high quality settings that eat tremendous CPU. Would be nice if they allowed tweaking of the Lame config.

<edit> I didn't know that they allowd configging it in sc_trans -- good work nullsoft! </edit>

[Jay]

you can tweak it djamps, it's right there in the config.

[systrum]

thanx guys...got it working tops