new HD x264 video encoding benchmark

[graysky]

@SiM - got it, thanks. Which flavor of vista?
@moogle - got it, thanks... if you have 4 gigs of memory why not run XP 64-bit? XP 32-bit can only use 3 of them
@Biscuit - is bootcamp a boot manager or a virtual machine?

[Biscuit]

no bootcamp lets you run windows as if it was a normal windows PC as far as i know

[Webby]

@moogle - got it, thanks... if you have 4 gigs of memory why not run XP 64-bit? XP 32-bit can only use 3 of them

Because XP 64 is not XP it is workstation 2003 or something equally bizarre, either way not well supported driver wise and some software doesn't like it either. If you want 64bit Windows Vista is the only real option.

[SiM]

@SiM - got it, thanks. Which flavor of vista?

Vista Home x64

[moogle]

@moogle - got it, thanks... if you have 4 gigs of memory why not run XP 64-bit? XP 32-bit can only use 3 of them

I get 3.25!
But yea I've read xp-64 has bad driver support and stuff. Vista would be my next upgrade, but seeing as the newer Windows 7 is in the works iirc I might hold back till that one arrives

[Webby]

Results, running XP Professional SP2


---------- RUN1PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 39.83 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN2PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 39.73 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN3PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 39.81 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN4PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 39.81 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN1PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 9.91 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

---------- RUN2PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 9.90 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

---------- RUN3PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 9.90 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

---------- RUN4PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 9.89 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

[SiM]

but seeing as the newer Windows 7 is in the works iirc I might hold back till that one arrives

no point waiting until after 2012! It took vista at least 5 years to be finished after the first longhorn alpha came out. AFAIK window 7 isn't even at alpha stage yet!

[Biscuit]

nice background webby

[kalniel]

---------- RUN1PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 26.01 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN2PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 25.96 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN3PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 25.97 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN4PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 25.82 fps, 3905.08 kb/s

---------- RUN1PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 6.04 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

---------- RUN2PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 6.05 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

---------- RUN3PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 6.04 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

---------- RUN4PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 6.04 fps, 3942.92 kb/s

X2 4400@2.48ghz

Doing a similar encode on my graphics card takes seconds rather than minutes though...

[graysky]

Because XP 64 is not XP it is workstation 2003 or something equally bizarre, either way not well supported driver wise and some software doesn't like it either. If you want 64bit Windows Vista is the only real option.

I dunno man, from what I've seen Vista is a resource hog and a slow-down depressing O/S. I've used it on a overclocked quad system and found it to be very laggy in comparison to XP. As an example, XP on that machine boots up using about 200 megs of memory in contrast to Vista which boots up using 750 megs. That's unacceptable.

EDIT: Thanks for the new data, all. Will update shortly.

[SiM]

Well Vista intentionally uses more RAM when there is loads of free ram to make stuff quicker. AFAIK it uses less ram itself once you open ram hungry applications

[directhex]

"free" RAM is wasted RAM

[graysky]

@SiM - interesting, I didn't know that.
@directhex - dunno about that.... since Vista is a aggressive pagefile user, it will page out everything in RAM which meas more pagefile usage. Since the page file is on the HD, that's more disk activity. I have 4 gigs on my system and it floors me when the system is only using 500 megs that my page file is also used... that's just inefficient coding.

My Debian LINUX system I use for my PVR has 512 megs by comparison and in the 4 years I've owned it, it rarely writes stuff to the swap partition.

[directhex]

@SiM - interesting, I didn't know that.
@directhex - dunno about that.... since Vista is a aggressive pagefile user, it will page out everything in RAM which meas more pagefile usage. Since the page file is on the HD, that's more disk activity. I have 4 gigs on my system and it floors me when the system is only using 500 megs that my page file is also used... that's just inefficient coding.

My Debian LINUX system I use for my PVR has 512 megs by comparison and in the 4 years I've owned it, it rarely writes stuff to the swap partition.

it won't page the "wasted" RAM - it does the same thing linux has been doing for years (and is even a little smarter about it) and uses RAM as disk cache

paging out "used" RAM... well, windows has always done that, and it's unrelated to the cache use case

[moogle]

"free" RAM is wasted RAM

filling the ram on startup is longer startup time

[Spud1]

---------- RUN1PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 66.99 fps, 3904.94 kb/s

---------- RUN2PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 68.05 fps, 3904.94 kb/s

---------- RUN3PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 67.83 fps, 3904.94 kb/s

---------- RUN4PASS1.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 67.95 fps, 3904.94 kb/s

---------- RUN1PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 32.14 fps, 3974.08 kb/s

---------- RUN2PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 32.00 fps, 3974.08 kb/s

---------- RUN3PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 32.18 fps, 3974.08 kb/s

---------- RUN4PASS2.LOG
encoded 1442 frames, 32.10 fps, 3974.08 kb/s


Vista Business x64, Mac pro, 2x Xeon E5462 (harpertown) @ 2.8ghz, 6xmultiplier, 1600FSB, Intel 5400B Chipset, 6321ESB Southbridge, 2GB 800mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM 5-5-5-18

CPU-z has issues with this system (latest 'stable' edition BSODs because of the EFI, and the supposed fix reports incorrect core speed and very strange numbers for FSB) but should be all the details you need above