Product specifications

118 • Workstation Setup & Administration Guide
Chapter 8 • Installing the Remote Processing Software
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CPU Usage on Avid|DS RP Stations
In some cases, users may find that the CPU usage on their RP station or their
client workstation during processing is low. This may be more obvious when
the RP station is a faster machine, and in some cases the CPU usage may be
lower on the RP station than on the client workstation. This is a normal
occurrence however.
CPU usage is an indicator of processor activity. The faster the processor, the
faster it completes its job (processing the current frame). If the CPU has to
wait for the next frame read from disk to start processing the frame, the CPU
usage is lowered.
This is normal, and it depends on the effect being processed. For simple light
effects, like a color correction, the processing is fast enough that the CPU is
actually idling most of the time. This appears as a low CPU usage value. These
effects are said to be “I/O-bound”, meaning that the Read/Write operations
involved for each processed frame are more significant than the actual
processing. Because Avid|DS is fully multi-threaded, the processing itself and
the I/O operations are done in parallel. However, if the CPU is idling most of
the time, a low CPU Usage value is to be expected.
Most native Avid|DS effects support multi-threading and, in addition to this,
processing jobs can be divided among the CPUs available in the workstation.
For example, on a dual-CPU workstation, when a blur effect is processed, half
the frame is processed on one CPU while the other half is processed on the
other. This dramatically improves the overall processing time.
In these cases, because only one of the CPUs is being used, the CPU usage
never goes above 50%.
To verify if an effect is single or multi-threaded,
1. Click the Start button and choose Run and enter perfmon in the Run
window to run the Performance Monitor.
2. Add one counter for each CPU Time.
For multi-threaded effects, the two curves move together while processing. In
single-threaded effects, they move in opposite directions.
CPU usage can be affected by the RP license (single, or dual). An RP license
for one processor will force the RP station into single-thread mode, and the
CPU usage will never exceed 50%.
CPU usage usually appears higher on the client machine (if it has the same
processor type as the RP). This is because the Read/Write operations are faster
on the client (local storage). As a result, the processor spends less time waiting
for input frames before processing them.