New AMD Ryzen

You were right guys. The rule (shutter = 2xfps) applies to general film making situations and it gives you pleasent effect for human brain and eyes when you watch the movie. Please in terms of motion blur :) but in some situations its better to use different approach, although you can get a "stacatto" effect, but in surveillance other things matters. So it seems that if I use less fps then kaby lake 7700k should be enough :)
 
amd is a terrible idea for a blue iris servers..both because of power consumption and the lack of quicksync..

If the reported Ryzen numbers are close to true, then power consumption will NOT be a factor any longer. AMD may have an advantage over Intel.

Hardware acceleration - we need a Ryzen-based APU and appropriate hardware acceleration support for that to work. Neither are immediately available.

One other thing to note for this thread - for current CPUs and Blue Iris functionality, ONLY buy something with an Intel IGP. Hardware-acceleration via QuickSync is the only way to go. No Xeon is worth it, or the i7-extreme CPUs - they don't have an IGP. We're stuck with max of a 4 core, 8 thread CPU. Other than maxing out the frequency (i7-7700k can hit 5GHz - mine does), we're stuck with the 4-core options, and with little difference between the i5 and i7 offerings. With hyperthreading, once you hit 50% CPU usage, it quickly spikes up to 90-100% - the extra 4 hyper-threads in an i7 don't provide much.

I hope Ryzen can make 8-core CPUs more mainstream - this can mean great things moving forward for surveillance camera systems. Whether it's Intel or some future AMD APU with its own hardware acceleration added to BI, I would welcome more than 4-cores with video stream hardware-acceleration.
 
Many of the Xeon E3 CPUs have an IGP and support Quick Sync. But I think for a dual socket server you have to move up to the Xeon E5 range and those don't have IGP anymore.

Overclocking is not very energy-efficient. As I understand it, each MHz you add costs more energy than the previous one. So it really should be a last resort for a server with a 24/7 load.
 
I do think Ryzen is going to make 8 core CPUs more mainstream. The cheapest one right now costs about the same as an i7-7700K. It is slower at single threaded tasks, but faster at multi-threaded tasks. Quick Sync Video is the only reason i7-7700K is still the better choice for Blue Iris.
 
I have a core i7-7700K but it does not have Quick Sync, is that something that I can enable or did it have to have the option with the chip?
 
Agree, that's why it was my original idea to go with 8 core Ryzen. I just didn't know that the only option for hardware acceleration is intel quick sync :/
Is there any alternative for BI with hadrware acceleration of nvidia cuda GPU for instance? I am very tempted by those Ryzen's.
 
Many of the Xeon E3 CPUs have an IGP and support Quick Sync. But I think for a dual socket server you have to move up to the Xeon E5 range and those don't have IGP anymore.

Ah, yeah - I never pay attention for Xeon CPUs other than ones that are intended for larger datacenter workloads (2 sockets or more). Some of the small-server E3 chips do have IGPs, but there's little point over the i7. ECC would be an advantage, but also at higher power consumption.


Overclocking is not very energy-efficient. As I understand it, each MHz you add costs more energy than the previous one. So it really should be a last resort for a server with a 24/7 load.

MHz adds a small amount of power consumption. Voltage adds a lot more. In the case of my 7700k though, 4.5Ghz across all cores is possible with the max -100mV undervolt that my motherboard supports. Stock - 98W CPU power consumption under stress test. 4.5Ghz at 1.1V (undervolted) - 89W CPU power consumption under stress test. 5Ghz 1.38V - 126W CPU power consumption under stress test.

These numbers are lower when running typical workloads, and not IntelBurnTest. For the best power consumption, you want the lowest Voltage. In most cases, I'd go for lower Voltage, and the highest stable frequency at that Voltage. If you need an extra 10% more processing power, expect the CPU to need 50% more power.

For an overclocked BI workload, you may see 25W more power consumption. 24/7, this extra cost for 10% more processing power would come out to $26/year at 12-cents per kWh. 4.5GHz and the quieter system may be more ideal for most users.

I still run my BI on a 3.7GHz base-frequency, so a 20% (plus IPC gains) processing gain would be possible with a 7700K undervolted at 4.5Ghz. The factory-rated TDP is also higher on a 7700K, so overall it is up in power consumption a bit. Power consumption has increased with frequency since Ivy Bridge.

As I've seen though - other peripherals in the system seem to have more of an impact on CPU usage and power consumption than the CPU. My Lenovo i7-4770 system has a higher CPU load than my Lenovo i7-3770 system did. I haven't spent enough time to narrow down which thing is causing it. Nothing was obvious by disabling devices or changing drivers. Those Interrupts and other "System process" tasks are consuming half a CPU core - these didn't exist on the older workstation. CPU alone isn't enough to go by!

Attached shows the non-BI CPU time my Lenovo i7-4770 workstation has. My Lenovo i7-3770 system only listed 1% "System" time, and listed 0% "Interrupt" time. The older system gave me over 90% idle time. Both were fresh installs of Windows, and BI was simply moved over. These only appear with BI running - it's 99% idle with BI stopped. This is a much bigger issue than Intel-CPU generation choice. I still want to add a separate NIC and see if the issue resolves - the integrated NIC could be having trouble with all the network i/o.
 

Attachments

  • BI_CPU.png
    BI_CPU.png
    17.5 KB · Views: 29
Last edited:
I have a core i7-7700K but it does not have Quick Sync, is that something that I can enable or did it have to have the option with the chip?

7700K supports Quicksync...

I haven't tried it to see if BI has any problem with the CPU's IGP. The 7700K is in my main workstation.
 
Agree, that's why it was my original idea to go with 8 core Ryzen. I just didn't know that the only option for hardware acceleration is intel quick sync :/
Is there any alternative for BI with hadrware acceleration of nvidia cuda GPU for instance? I am very tempted by those Ryzen's.

Just get an older Intel system to run your cameras. My htpc was changed to an i5-3570 USFF PC that only cost me $110 shipped. That thing only has two SATA ports, but it's more CPU power than most people need for BI. It came with a Windows 7 Pro license.

Fine to run as-is with a single mechanical drive, or you can change out to a SSD. Intel's DC-labeled (enterprise) SSDs are getting cheaper, especially some of the low-wear used ones. They can handle more workload than you'd need in a camera server, especially the s3610 and up rated for a lot of NAND writes.
 
7700K supports Quicksync...

I haven't tried it to see if BI has any problem with the CPU's IGP. The 7700K is in my main workstation.

I see, is there a way to enable it on a CPU that didn't come with it - looked at device manager and not seeing quick sync anywhere.

I never had issues running BI on the I7 without quick sync but cannot hurt to add it if I have the ability.
 
If your using onboard intel gfx its enabled, just turn on HW acceleration in BI
 
  • Like
Reactions: TL1096r
Agree, that's why it was my original idea to go with 8 core Ryzen. I just didn't know that the only option for hardware acceleration is intel quick sync :/
Is there any alternative for BI with hadrware acceleration of nvidia cuda GPU for instance? I am very tempted by those Ryzen's.

Not currently. Nvidia GPUs were mentioned by the developer as a future possibility, but we never know if that means next week or next decade or never.

Attached shows the non-BI CPU time my Lenovo i7-4770 workstation has. My Lenovo i7-3770 system only listed 1% "System" time, and listed 0% "Interrupt" time. The older system gave me over 90% idle time. Both were fresh installs of Windows, and BI was simply moved over. These only appear with BI running - it's 99% idle with BI stopped. This is a much bigger issue than Intel-CPU generation choice. I still want to add a separate NIC and see if the issue resolves - the integrated NIC could be having trouble with all the network i/o.

I've noticed that using Quick Sync causes System and Interrupts to both show some usage like that. Disabling hardware acceleration would make that usage go away, but of course then blueiris.exe usage goes way way up. Could it be that your old system didn't use hardware acceleration?

I see, is there a way to enable it on a CPU that didn't come with it - looked at device manager and not seeing quick sync anywhere.

I never had issues running BI on the I7 without quick sync but cannot hurt to add it if I have the ability.

You won't see it in device manager. Just try enabling hardware accelerated H.264 decoding in Blue Iris (Options > Cameras tab) and see if it works. Note you do have to restart the Blue Iris process for it to take effect, but you should see a significant drop in CPU usage.

If you use a 3rd party video card, find the option in your motherboard's BIOS that forces the integrated graphics to be enabled. You may (or may not) also need to force enable the VGA output if there is no monitor connected to the motherboard's video outputs in order to fully activate the integrated graphics chip. If you don't use a 3rd party video card, then you shouldn't have to worry about it and it should just work.
 
I've noticed that using Quick Sync causes System and Interrupts to both show some usage like that. Disabling hardware acceleration would make that usage go away, but of course then blueiris.exe usage goes way way up. Could it be that your old system didn't use hardware acceleration?

Interesting. No, my 3770 system had HA enabled also. It ran at the same BI process CPU usage, but also higher idle. The 4770 shows no obvious advantage over the 3770, even in power consumption and IPC for BI workloads. I was hoping some better Quicksync performance would lower my overall CPU load, but that wasn't the case. Main thing I saw with the "upgrade" was less headroom due to more overall system CPU usage.

As I get more lighting on the property controlled by my home-automation and security system, I want to start swapping cameras out for UHD resolution. That is where I see a need for more than 4 cores. If I swapped everything today, one system wouldn't have enough CPU power.
 
Interesting. No, my 3770 system had HA enabled also. It ran at the same BI process CPU usage, but also higher idle. The 4770 shows no obvious advantage over the 3770, even in power consumption and IPC for BI workloads. I was hoping some better Quicksync performance would lower my overall CPU load, but that wasn't the case. Main thing I saw with the "upgrade" was less headroom due to more overall system CPU usage.

As I get more lighting on the property controlled by my home-automation and security system, I want to start swapping cameras out for UHD resolution. That is where I see a need for more than 4 cores. If I swapped everything today, one system wouldn't have enough CPU power.

Well that is irritating not being able to nail down what makes it different. I have two i7-3770K Blue Iris boxes at home. The primary has all the cameras connected, motion triggered recording, and some remote viewers connected. The backup box has a subset of the cameras and does continuous recording. The primary runs blueiris.exe at 25-38% while System is 2-4% and System interrupts is 1-2%. The backup box has blueiris.exe at 13-15% while System is 1-2% and System interrupts is 1-2%. I sometimes connect to the backup box with Multiplicity KVM and that causes System to increase to 6-8%. I suspect Multiplicity KVM may be using Quick Sync for H.264 encoding the remote desktop stream... but that is only based on my theory that Quick Sync causes usage in System and System interrupts.
 
Well that is irritating not being able to nail down what makes it different. I have two i7-3770K Blue Iris boxes at home. The primary has all the cameras connected, motion triggered recording, and some remote viewers connected. The backup box has a subset of the cameras and does continuous recording. The primary runs blueiris.exe at 25-38% while System is 2-4% and System interrupts is 1-2%. The backup box has blueiris.exe at 13-15% while System is 1-2% and System interrupts is 1-2%. I sometimes connect to the backup box with Multiplicity KVM and that causes System to increase to 6-8%. I suspect Multiplicity KVM may be using Quick Sync for H.264 encoding the remote desktop stream... but that is only based on my theory that Quick Sync causes usage in System and System interrupts.

Eh, I figure some future system will have different percentages again. Eventually I'll have an i7-6700 system for a reasonable price. There are a lot of components on a motherboard. It only takes one poorly performing device in an interrupt-based system to do this type of thing. Until then, I'll live with it. Just wish I knew which part was the cause of higher CPU time - I like to know about those things.

The i7-4770 system takes about 6W more from the wall with the same BI configuration, HDD and RAM (swapped over). They're physically close otherwise. Lenovo M93 vs M92. Both the SFF chassis.
 
Last edited:
Back in the day when i built my BI server, there was no support for Intel Quick Sync, its very interesting that it has been implemented.

ZNblmu.png


Should i enable the VideoPostProc?
 
Last edited:
Back in the day when i built my BI server, there was no support for Intel Quick Sync, its very interesting that it has been implemented.

ZNblmu.png


Should i enable the VideoPostProc?
This was implemented quite a while back... read the release notes unless you're running a few cams out at a low bit rate don't use VPP
 
I disagree with what many users have posted. A 1800x will be able to run more MP/s than a 7700K with HW acceleration at stock speeds. Also the cpu usage without hw acceleration seems to be more stable than without when camera feed has motion. the Post proc option is the one with least cpu usage but it cannot handle more than 600MP/s

Take a look a this test. Running 9 Dahua 4MP cameras at 30fps with live view at 30FPS. Max observed CPU usage for 3 seconds on task manager with nothing else running on the Win10 6700K computer. Further testing needs to be done at lower live view FPS since there is a dramatic reduction in CPU with lower FPS. Maybe later when I have time i can repeat the test at 15 FPS live view.



Based on these results, 1080 MP/s is the most I would run on an 6700K cpu with no acceleration. Using cpubenchmark scores compared to the 6700K I calculated the max MP/s for each of the following CPUs asuming the same headroom as the 6700K.

6700K - 1080 MP/s
6700K - 1250 MP/s w/hwa
7700K - 1190 MP/s
7700K - 1370 MP/s w/hwa
7700K - 1600 MP/s w/hwa @4.9Ghz
6900K - 1750 MP/s
6950X - 1990 MP/s
1700X - 1270 MP/s
1800X - 1510 MP/s