Building the MONSTER CCE encoder.

It's time to upgrade my CCE encoding machine. I usually dedicate a machine just for this purpose. I'd like some input on what I might want to consider for this upgrade. First, what is the best 'path' arrangement for CCE? What I mean is, since I have multiple high speed SCSI drives in my machine, where should I be putting the files so that I eliminate the HD bottleneck? I usually keep the VOBS on one drive and do my encoding to another. BUT, should I be splitting the encoding across drives, (meaning the paths in CCE?) I'd like to 'optimize' my present system (1.7mhz P4) to get benchmarks. Right now I get around 1.3 on CCE encoding. Next, the monster system. Assuming that I'll move my multi-drive SCSI system to the new system, I'm considering getting a DUAL CPU system. I've read about a few CCE 3.x rated systems using Dual Athlons. Anyone want to share their tips here. Finally, What's the fastest DUAL Intel CPU MB's? I'd actually consider Dual 2.4ghz P4's, but I don't think there is a MB that supports it. Any ideas? I'm a Intel guy, but would consider Dual Athlons to build the ultimate encoding machine. Look forward to a lively discussion. Roveer...

Because you are specifically building this for CCE usage, then I would agree that building an SMP rig is a great idea. If you haven't already done so, check out the forums at: w*w.2cpu.com I would suggest, though, that, owing to the cutting-edge nature of SMP MoBos, you err on the side of caution and choose a more established model, even if it is marginally slower on paper. Also, have you conisdered e-mailing CinemaCraft/Custom Technology directly, to ask THEM for their hardware configuration recommendations? I have found them quite helpful in the past. Arky ;o)

the dual P4 is called XEON, but now with Hyperthreading, the P4 can appear to the OS and the apps as two processors. of course that doesnt mean its faster, there is only 1 physical processor still ;) the 2cpu site has a hyperthreading article and benches (actually on XEON's, but they are the same as P4s anyway. Enf...

I would go for a P4 2.4 running on the latest 845PE MoBo's with DDR333 memory. I get 2.2 with CCE running on a P4 2.4ghz overclocked to 2.8ghz. Ofcource you got to make sure your system is stable after overclocking by running prime95 and 3D Mark 2001

must be CCE 2.66 for a P4 to be that fast? Enf...

Using a 2.26ghz P4, and encoding directly from a firewire-captured DVcam AVI file (720x576) to 720x576 .m2v, I get about 1.05 from CCE 2.66 I have a gig of DDR 3000, so I can't see that being a bottleneck. However, I use the safe default settings for both processor (i.e. default FSB, on the Pentium 4s), and RAM, since Overclocking, or using Turbo DRAM timings seems only to upset my system stability. Nevertheless, I am amazed that you are getting DOUBLE the speed, even though you are encoding a marginally smaller framesize, and have a moderately faster processor. Is your P4 a 533, or older 400mhz FSB, prior to overclocking? The older 400mhz FSB series seem to be much more amenable to overclocking. With proper cooling, I've read of people O-Cing 1.7ghz (400mhz default FSB) P4s to past the 3.2Ghz mark. Obviously, we're not talking air cooling here, but nevertheless, it's pretty impressive. My 2.26ghz (533mhz FSB) P4 is an absolute PIG if you try to overclock it even slightly, and that has been a big disappointment to me because I bought a very respectable (air) cooler for it, and deliberately bought an EPoX MoBo because they are supposed to be good for O-Cing. Arky ;o)

Arky, I am using CCE 2.5. Are you encoding on the fly or encoding after the avi is captured and saved? Because if you are encoding on the fly, it can be only as fast as the incoming frame rate. I am sure you are probably aware of this, but I can think of two things that contributes to encoding speed. CPU speed and more importantly memory bandwidth. CCE is a very memory intensive application. I have'nt seen another application using as much system memory as CCE. And I think a fast hard drive may also help. My system config is 533 FSB P4 2.4, Abit BG7 Mobo, 512MB of original Samsung DDR333. FSB is overclocked to 153Mhz running at 4:5 ratio. So memmory is also overclocked to DDR382 and this increased memory bandwidth is surely contributing a lot towards the CCE encoding speed in adition to the increased CPU speed. And it is all air cooled. I am sorry about your dissapointment. I have learned that to overclock successfully, CPU and memory burnin is important. I ran prime95 and memtest continuously for 2 days before I attempted overclocking. And I repeated this at every step of overclocking. Hope this was helpful.

What would you choose? Remember, I'm doing mostly CCE encoding. OK, I've put together 3 systems. Which would you want if you could have: Dual Athlon MP 2200 with a MSI K7D system board and 1gb DDR ($1044) or Dual Xeon 2.4ghz with MSI 860D Pro system board and 1gb RDRAM ($1579) or Single Intel P4 2.8ghz with Asus P4G-V system board and 1gb DDR ($1055) I've been reading for a few days and I'm more confused than ever about the 'Dual-CPU' capability of CCE. Some say yes, some say no, some say if you are frameserving, then it won't matter. Well, I'm frameserving using AVISynth or VFAPI, so I'm wondering if the Dual CPU options will actually be of any value. As always, input is welcome. Roveer...