Entering either BI 4 or BI 5 license raises CPU utilization

[hdtvjeff]

Happy Thanksgiving day


I have conducted tests on two high end pcs with top of the ;line i7 cpus ssd hard drives 32 gig ram and 400 down/ 50 up internet

2o cameras (dahua 3, 4 or 8 mp)

With purchased BI 4 and 5 licenses here is my anomoly

In trial mode I am always under 60% CPU utilization with all cameras ( from my local site and remote site broadcasting) ocassionally I will spike to 70 % but that is it and under task manager It is only BI drawing CPU usage mainly.

On both of my PCs if I enter the BI product keys my CPU utilization rises to around 80% and then spikes to 100% which has NEVER occurred on the unregistered trials.

I have repeated these tests several times on both highly speced PCs with reigistered vs non registered versions.

Is there a reason?

Does registration trigger an internal BI process unique only to the registered version whiich raises CPU utilization and can be defeated if needed?


Thank you in advance !

 

[fenderman]

Happy Thanksgiving day


I have conducted tests on two high end pcs with top of the ;line i7 cpus ssd hard drives 32 gig ram and 400 down/ 50 up internet

2o cameras (dahua 3, 4 or 8 mp)

With purchased BI 4 and 5 licenses here is my anomoly

In trial mode I am always under 60% CPU utilization with all cameras ( from my local site and remote site broadcasting) ocassionally I will spike to 70 % but that is it and under task manager It is only BI drawing CPU usage mainly.

On both of my PCs if I enter the BI product keys my CPU utilization rises to around 80% and then spikes to 100% which has NEVER occurred on the unregistered trials.

I have repeated these tests several times on both highly speced PCs with reigistered vs non registered versions.

Is there a reason?

Does registration trigger an internal BI process unique only to the registered version?


Thank you in advance !

You should be seeing the opposite effect as entering the key removes the overlays and allows for true direct to disk recording. What may be happening is that in demo mode the fps is bi is displaying and processing is lower than in the registered version.
i7 is a meaningless term. You need to specify the model as well as the frame rates and resolutions of each camera. See Wiki on optimizing blue iris.

 

[hdtvjeff]

You should be seeing the opposite effect as entering the key removes the overlays and allows for true direct to disk recording. What may be happening is that in demo mode the fps is bi is displaying and processing is lower than in the registered version.
i7 is a meaningless term. You need to specify the model as well as the frame rates and resolutions of each camera. See Wiki on optimizing blue iris.

ALL the cpus are i7 7800 or i7 5960. . The only PC which does not complain no matter what is thrown at it is the i9 7940 $1,500 cpu 14 cores/ 28 threads. CPU utilization never goes past 23% in registered or non registered mode

The dahua camera internal server settings are set to maximum FPS and resolutions,. I realize BI canot change the internal Dahua camera settings.

I did not realize that FPS in demo vs registered could be different


EDIT Turning off motion detection on my cams has brought down cpu spikes to 100% but defeats the purpose of BI

 

[mech]

Here's info from the BI5 help file which may be relevant:

Drawing onto the video

By default the software draws the date and time to each frame, which will use typically a
nominal amount of CPU time. If this has been made more complex, possibly adding
shading or transparency or graphic images, the CPU usage may ramp up, potentially
saturating the thread. You can identify this situation when the frames/second throughput
for the camera begins to decline from its expected value as you increase overlay complexity.
For ultimate CPU performance, you can completely eliminate video overlays via an option
on the Video page in camera settings.

Note that when in demonstration mode, a banner is
drawn to each video frame to this effect, which may contribute to initial CPU utilization
before license activation. If you counter-intuitively see CPU usage go UP when the software
is licensed, this may indicate a higher frame throughput when the overlay is removed.

Here are some thoughts:

1. None of your three Intel CPUs have QuickSync hardware acceleration, which would offload a very large amount of video processing work from the CPU, leaving more power for motion detection and other work. If you're open to changing things up, consider a i9-9900K platform. 8 cores, 16 threads, QuickSync, US$500 plus a suitable motherboard. Make sure the motherboard has the onboard GPU enabled in the UEFI settings so BI can actually use the Intel GPU and QuickSync.

2. if you get an i9-9900K and it's still not quite enough, consider adding one or more nVidia GPUs to offload some of your cams. My own i9-9900K gets a substantial assist from a GTX1660; it would be swamped at 1x playback on even a sub-set of my cams without the nVidia card offloading some of the higher-bitrate cams. One Forum member recommended Quadro P-series cards for a good performance-per-watt ratio.

3. consider reducing framerate on your cameras to something less than maximum. Maybe 15FPS will do the job if your objective is to ID thieves.

 

[hdtvjeff]

Here's info from the BI5 help file which may be relevant:



Here are some thoughts:

1. None of your three Intel CPUs have QuickSync hardware acceleration, which would offload a very large amount of video processing work from the CPU, leaving more power for motion detection and other work. If you're open to changing things up, consider a i9-9900K platform. 8 cores, 16 threads, QuickSync, US$500 plus a suitable motherboard. Make sure the motherboard has the onboard GPU enabled in the UEFI settings so BI can actually use the Intel GPU and QuickSync.

2. if you get an i9-9900K and it's still not quite enough, consider adding one or more nVidia GPUs to offload some of your cams. My own i9-9900K gets a substantial assist from a GTX1660; it would be swamped at 1x playback on even a sub-set of my cams without the nVidia card offloading some of the higher-bitrate cams. One Forum member recommended Quadro P-series cards for a good performance-per-watt ratio.

3. consider reducing framerate on your cameras to something less than maximum. Maybe 15FPS will do the job if your objective is to ID thieves.

Thank you..So by lowering fps you are referring to camera server setup not BI settings?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[mech]

That's right, in a Dahua camera's configuration menu, it would be here, as you probably know. The cam shown below has framerates available up to 60fps, definitely excessive for a normal exterior security camera.

 

[hdtvjeff]

Have to ask this : What browser are you viewing the dahua setup page in? If indeed that is your image.

What do most people use these days to open the dahua setup page?

Chrome will not
open it without a 3rd party extention and Int explorer is risky these days

Thanks !

 

[mech]

Internet Explorer there. If you're concerned about risk, enable Enhanced Protected Mode and 64-bit Tab Processes in the Internet Options > Advanced tab. That puts every tab in its own AppContainer super-sandbox, same security as Microsoft Edge.

Actually I probably jumped to an incorrect conclusion about your i7 7800. Is it the version with a GPU integrated? Like this: Intel® Core™ i7-8700K Processor (12M Cache, up to 4.70 GHz) Product Specifications If so, check your Task Manager to verify that the Intel UHD Graphics 630 is showing, like shown below. If so, try enabling the Intel acceleration in each camera's BlueIris properties panel and verify the GPU is picking up some of the load in Task Manager's view.

If you find that the Intel GPU is not showing up, but you've verified the CPU has one, then go into the motherboard's firmware menu and make sure Integrated Graphics (or whatever yours calls the onboard GPU) is explicitly Enabled. My own system had it at AUTO and the motherboard decided not to show it to Windows since there was also a video card installed.

 

[hdtvjeff]

I don't think so just the radeon r7 250

 

[mech]

Darn. I was hoping the i7-7800 was a typo and it was really the i7-8700k, but I see you really do have an i7-7800X. Sweet CPU, but no GPU and therefore no QuickSync acceleration.

 

[hdtvjeff]

Darn. I was hoping the i7-7800 was a typo and it was really the i7-8700k, but I see you really do have an i7-7800X. Sweet CPU, but no GPU and therefore no QuickSync acceleration.

Let me see if I understand this, if I had a second video card, even if it was not connected to a monitor it would take away strain on CPU?

 

[mech]

Let me see if I understand this, if I had a second video card, even if it was not connected to a monitor it would take away strain on CPU?

If the second video card is compatible with Blue Iris hardware acceleration, then that is correct. Consult this list (second table on the page): Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix For my system, I picked one of the GTX16xx series, which can also decode H265 in addition to H264 if desired. It calls for a substantial power supply and is a full-height dual-slot card, so it's not going to work with just any system.

To use the GPU, you would open each camera's Camera Settings, and do this:



In general, my system idles around 35% CPU, 35% Intel GPU and 50% nVidia GPU usage. It sounds great on paper, but when the system has to carry on with non-stop recording of 20+ cameras AND roll playback on even half of them, "stuff gets real" and the headroom vanishes. So my rule of thumb is, when in doubt, give it a real-world playback test and see if your system has the power to replay when it counts.

Also, do make sure your system's using Direct To Disk recording mode.

 

[fenderman]

If you would state your actual load we can determine if your usage is high or not. No need to put a power hungry video card in.

 

[mech]

And also make sure each cam is using Direct-To-Disk recording as shown below.

 

[hdtvjeff]

And also make sure each cam is using Direct-To-Disk recording as shown below.

View attachment 51401

Will try that, thank you !

 

[hdtvjeff]

Brand new reinstall of BI4

20+ cameras averaging 60% cpu utilization for hours, enter license 100 %


Got rid of overlays, enabled direct to disk. ALL OF IT LOL


Everything just goes batty when license is entered !

Can't figure this out despite the tips here

 

[mech]

Could you post a screenshot of your system load like fenderman suggested, perhaps we will get insight on what can get it optimized.

Start with the little icon circled in green below, then show us the Cameras tab in the Blue Iris Status panel that opens. In my example, you can see a couple of cams running 30FPS, where I could reduce load by dropping to 15FPS. I could also consider having the cams themselves do the motion detection, to leave more CPU power for the video decoding.

 

[hdtvjeff]

IP addresses cut out

 

[mech]

What's the MP/sec total at the bottom? Also, you mentioned the system has a SSD, and your Task Manager screenshot didn't show any other drive besides C:, so what are they being recorded to?

 

[hdtvjeff]

They are being recorded to same drive as BI is installed to. I have always done it that way, should it be a separate drive?

Here is the data from bottom of screen