N3 and Dual Dual Core no go

[jcschild]

Hey Guys,

well looks like a few naysayers were correct.

Nuendo will not run very well on Dual Dual Cores (AMD 275s)
at least on the Tyan 2885.
have yet to try the 2895 but i dont see it making any differance.

i can open the THonex test but at 24ms it hovers around 85%
anything less no go.
so far worse performance than single core.

the standard fare of windows benchmarks seem to work fine and have no issues.
XP has no issues. (although i did have to reload windows after putting in the dual cores)

considering the issues i had with the bios it may be due to that, that i had to reload windows.

i reflashed the bios twice, still sees the 4gig of ram as 5G.

i have tried about all i can think of, at this point it is in Steinbergs hands to make it work.

i will but have not tried win 64, Server 2003 and also a single dual core
_________________
Scott
ADK

Home of the "Kentucky Fried DAW"

[Thonex]

Thanks for spending the time on this. I'm guessing something must be amiss. Why would AMD release a dual core knowing that tech-heads are going to do exactly what you did. did you put a call into the AMD people?

Thanks for all the hard work,

T
_________________
Nuendo 5, Mac Pro 8 Core 2.33 Mhz, OS 10.6, 16 gigs of Ram, MOL , RME 9652, 2xSamsung 21.3" LCDs (1600x1200 DVI), 2 X-Keys.

[jcschild]

well as far as AMD and Dual core
they work and work very well.
the issue is that its not supported by the software. what i find odd is it performs worse. so it kinda makes me think something else is going on
however look at HT enabled Xeons.
i had hoped it would be differant.

i could understand the same or only a slight improvement but worse is odd.


before i change the OS or anything else we are going to put Lightwave, Maya, 3D studio Max
Softimage on it.
we will also try a standard render of a large video file we have here.

by now you have read the reviews of the dual cores so you know we will see a nice improvement there.

for giggles i am going to try Sonar and Samplitude.

yes of course i called AMD. maybe they can nudge Steiny a little to see what the problem is.
i am sure they have more pull than a hill billy computer builder.
_________________
Scott
ADK

Home of the "Kentucky Fried DAW"

[Tiger Style]

it doesn't make sense that steinberg wouldn't already have this worked out, since they are supposed to have built their software on amd platforms. seems like they'd be step by step with amd on this.
one thing with the hyperthreaded xeons working a little better could be that all of the threading runs through one cpu/cache/etc. per socket, instead of actually having to split information through two separate cpu's...theoretically...on the same socket...which may actually make latency better overall. so even though hyperthreading doesn't work well, better latency [and i'm only assuming this] may help them some. but, then again, you said that this is only with nuendo, so...who knows.
thanks Scott for doing this for us man. good luck and keep us up on it for sure...
_________________
Tiger Style Productions

[tonelow]

Hi all,
This is my first post here. I don't own Nu3 yet, but I'm hoping to soon and have been doing recon on hardware configs and Nuendo capabilities .... so I've been reading here daily. I just wanted to say thanks to Scott and ALL the regulars here, that share their experiences so freely for the benefit of all. Keep up the good work and thanks again.

Tony Dominic

[FestivalStudios]

Does this motherboard support the Dual Dual chips ---?Is there a bios upgrade for this .
Hmm I thought it had to have a bios upgrade ---??
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[Tiger Style]

[FestivalStudios]

We can still hope 2895 --come on guys all is not lost---This is just 1 possible preliminary config.
from "a hill billy computer builder." -HAHA LOL
Hey Scott I thought Hillbilly was 1 word ???
_________________
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Control Room B--Cubase SX 2,MOTU 2408 PCI 424,FW1814,ANALOG STUFF

[jcschild]

[BrianT]

Scott,

Until the BIOS can at least accurately recognize the amount of memory in the system, I wouldn't assume much about apps and/or hardware compatability.

For all we know, it could be a hardware/driver issue at this point, as much as a software issue. Until the BIOS is straight, who knows.

I would recommend pulling the RAM down to 2GB and give it another shot. So far, Tyan's largest issues seem to be with large amounts of RAM.

And, BTW, thanks for the testing and the info. I hope to dive in with you on the dualcores, ASAP.
_________________
Regards,
Brian T

[younglv]

[franYo]

Scott,

Thanks for the report. I agree with BrianT, you should give it another try with 2 GB RAM only, although I don’t have much hope this will make much of a difference. The question about Nuendo’s compatibility with more than two processors have been asked here several times in the last few months and I think Steinberg’s silence speaks louder than words in this case. If they thought it would work OK surely they would have told us so, and even advertise the fact. I fear there is some waiting ahead of us for Nuendo to catch up in this area. Hopefully I’m wrong.

Meanwhile, Scott, I’d be really interested in that single dual-core test. It would be good if you could put all the stuff (video card, audio card, Magma) on just one chipset (if you’re going to give it a try with S2895). See how nForce 4 Pro fares all by itself.

Franjo
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[marcus cliffe]

Do you think its the same problem as the Dual hyperethreading issue?

Marcus
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[Jake68]

I think it may be early days for Dual core. We still have the question regarding the suitability of the software vs the operating system, XP Pro vs Server etc, and of course the arrival of the desktop duals, basically turning your single into a dual STILL running on XP Pro and Nuendo, surely this wont be problematic.

Also Steiny and AMD seem to be forging a close relationship and we should expect problems to get ironed out as time goes by. Patience on this amazing new development from both Intel and AMD may be required. However if the Intel one works first, I may break a long habit!
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[jcschild]

HI Brian,

2 things
1) once we had the 4gig issue i went down to 4 512meg (2 GIG)
in fact i reflashed the bios 2 times with just 1 512 in it.

every other software (multithreaded like 3d Studio) so far has no issues.

where it is possible it is still a bios issue, or maybe an XP issue (more testing today)
its odd other things are getting stellar benchmarks.

i don't want to ruffle Steinberg feathers but at this point i am pointing to it.

really we are early in our tests and have many varibales to go thru yet.

Fran,
yes i do intend to test with the 2895, i finally have 7 coming today (all i could get, my vendor who is direct with them only got 20)


tells you how backordered/allocated they are. (my guess IBM and HP)

i like the idea of putting everything on one Pro chip. i have a quadro 3400 here to test with. (and SLI 1400's)

Randy,
not sure where sequoia is at this time. in my conversations with Magix last yr they were not even recommending Dual systems
as it was not multithreaded.

Jake,
you may have a point in the OS (why i am trying sever 2003 enterprise)
however according the Microshaft. licening is based on socket not core
EG: home will run a single dual core
Pro dual dual core.

this does not mean it runs it right~
and if the DC Xeons work right first that makes 2 of us! of course that a year away.
_________________
Scott
ADK

Home of the "Kentucky Fried DAW"

[crypticglobe]

Hey Scott,

Listen... though Steinberg has had a good partnership with AMD, I get the impression that they rarely get new technology before we do. I don't think Steinberg has even had a Dual Core system to test yet... and that is hardly their fault. Ya know? If AMD was REALLY as interested in music production as they say they are, they would have provided a dual core system to Steinberg for development a LONG time ago.

p.s. To those speaking of Hyper Threading on XEON systems.... Nuendo will not even RUN with HT enabled... and it certainly does not get better performance. Steinberg (and others) have pointed to a known Windows issue that prevents this from working as it was designed.

I really don't think it's fair AT all to lay this all on Steinberg.

Scott, it would be really cool for you to load up a software program that DOES seem to work properly on Dual core, and then do some Dual Core vs. Single Core benchmarking. I know it's a lot of work... but it will help you sell more dual core system ultimately if you can provide those numbers... ya know?

I am very sceptical that dual core will provide more than TWICE the performance of a single core at the same speed.

Thanks,
_________________
Steve Lamm
Cryptic Globe Recording
Houston Club Cubase/Nuendo Host
Custom DAW's and Audio Production
www.clubcubasehouston.com
Cubase/Nuendo School!

[Beat Productions]

I wonder how the single unit Dual Core 939s will fare...
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[robdarling]

I'm with Steve on this one. I bet parts of AMD don't even know what's going on completely when things leak out the door in the early, grey, is it beta or it real? days of a new product. This puts Steinberg, just one company in the aleady tiny niche world of high-end music computing, at a loss. If AMD can't even really get themselves a final BIOS, what can Steiny really be doing at this point?
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[BrianT]

[BrianT]

[franYo]

[crypticglobe]

[Ben Walters]

I wish I didn't have to say it, but Steinberg: I told you so. This is precisely why I started begging you to test on quad cpu single core systems over a year ago.

The fact that Nuendo is actually getting worse performance on quad core systems mirrors closely what I saw when testing enterprise systems I was developing on N-way servers. The most common threading architecture is to allocate one worker thread per CPU, with another for UI handling and possibly others for things like disk or network access. If Steinberg is using this architecture what is likely happening is they are experiencing resource locking issues. Each worker thread is assigned a portion of the workload and operates independently to complete its task, but occaisionally shared resources like a UAD need to be accessed, and eventually these work chunks will need to send their audio streams back to the main mix buss. Anytime a shared resource is in use by one thread, the other threads are blocked from using it. If a thread needs a shared resource to complete its current task it may well just wait for the resource to become available. The result is that with an increased number of threads operating concurrently, the CPUs can spend a lot of their time getting in each others way.

This is all fixable, and a well thought out threading and locking model can address these issues after thorough testing on appropriate systems. In my first experiences with this six or seven years ago we were able to go from a performance decrease when using many cpus to near linear scaling within about five months - but they sure were long months. The fact that other apps are scaling well with quad core systems is most probably an indication that their developers have been testing on quad+ core systems for a long time, something that was very possible and even relatively cheap long before dual core CPUs were a twinkle in AMDs eye.

Steinberg, you really missed the boat on this one! Please tell us you have a plan to address this.

[ten]

Could you possibly turn off the affinity to the 2nd core on each cpu in task manager>>processes>>right click on nuendo3.exe and then possibly get normal usage? Did anyone try this with xeons and ht ?

Jcs, maybe you could try this if you get time mate....and stick them dualcores in a 2895 to ;O)

btw, Im selling my matched pair of opteron 250 e step (0.90micron) versions as Ive upgraded to 252s. Anyone interested fire me a pm (im UK based)

ten
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[Jake68]

Cant help but think its a little new to expect everything to work straight away in application developed by companies like this!....

We are gonna have to give this one a break for a while. At least for the 4 core systems.
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