BI load times dramatically different on 2 PC's with exact same specs

Tuckerdude

Tuckerdude

Getting the hang of it
Apr 28, 2014
193
79
Seattle Area
Hey Folks....Happy First Of May!

So I've been running BI on my main desktop machine for about 4 months now. It was a brand new rig with very high end specs:

Core i9-79080XE
128GB Ram (More than BI needs, but again this is my desktop PC)
1TB M-2 SSD
Asus Rampage VI Extreme Motherboard
Windows 10 64Bit
Nvidia Titan GFX card (for playing games)

The machine is very performant across a number of applications and runs BI buttery smooth with 35 cameras

However...from the beginning, I've noticed that application load times seem very slow, especially BI which takes a full minute to get up and running. I don't even see BI's interface until around 45 Seconds.

Just this weekend, I decided to upgrade my Stand-alone PC which serves up BI 24/7 and records all the activity around the property. I replicated the entire system spec from above and once I got everything installed, I noticed that BI launches within seconds (almost instantaneously), which is what I was used to before.

So my question is...does anybody have any clue what might be causing this delay? I know it's hard to debug such things, but any pointers or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Again...it's not about performance, as the i9 CPU is a beast and does a great job with the heavy load from BI. But rather, the load times which seem CRAZY long compared to other machine with identical specs!

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
Could it possibly be disk fragmentation or the existing system is spending a bunch of time at the beginning doing something the new system wouldn't need to (like loading up the clips database or something)?

My guess is this is something that has developed over a long time, but you wouldn't see on your new system right out of the gate after a clean install. For reference same thing happens on Windows, best fix for declining Windows performance is a reinstall (or re-image in a corporate environment).
 
Hey crw030....

Many thanks for the response! Normally I would go along with you (as I've seen this phenomenon develop over time). But it has been like this since I first built the machine about 4 months ago. So, I can vouch for the fact that it has always loaded this slowly.
 
So this same machine has poorer load times in other applications too? Maybe try a disk benchmark to see if it measures up.

Did Blue Iris load that slowly before you added any cameras to it? Or do you even remember? What if you deactivate, say, half the cameras now, then shut down BI and open it again?

Do you have other disks in there or just the one SSD?
 
If it comes to it, something you could try is making an image of the boot drive (Macrium Reflect is an excellent tool for this), and then reinstall Windows on it, reformatting the disk as you do it. Make a new install media using the Windows 10 media creation tool -- don't use old install media. Then test on the fresh install. If it helps, great, if it doesn't help, restore your backup image.

A general tip for installing Windows: make sure no disks except the boot drive and your installation media are connected. Windows has a bad habit of putting critical stuff on other drives during installation (maybe only if the other drives have unpartitioned space?) and it can come back to bite you later when you discover you actually need what you thought was your boot drive and some other drive both installed in order to boot into Windows.
 
Heya bp2008,

So on other applications, the load times are what I usually expect, like loading up Photoshop CC and its up and running in seconds.

But...I just tried your suggestion of disabling some cameras and reloading. If I disable about 15 cameras, my load time drops to about 35 seconds. If I disable 25 cameras, the load time goes down to about 23 seconds. Interesting.....but odd how I don't see this behavior on my other machine (with the same specs).

Not sure what kind of disk benchmark to try...do you have a suggestion?

I have a single M2 ssd with 1 TB on it, and a secondary mechanical HD drive with 2TB

Thanks!
 
CrystalDiskMark

This is a pretty simple one, no learning curve to speak of. Be careful, I don't remember if this one packages adware into the installer or not, just pay attention to what you click Next on.
 
Anyway it really doesn't sound like a disk problem if disabling cameras helps.

Are you running BI as a service and then just opening and closing the console? What exactly are we measuring here?
 
I run as a service, and the console starts quickly. The Blue Iris banner appears within 1-2 seconds of double clicking the shortcut on my desktop, and by the 2-3 second mark the console/GUI will be fully open and usable.
 
Ugh.....as usual, I need bp to help me see the light!

It WAS EXACTLY THAT! Because it's my desktop machine, I don't have BI setup as a service in case I want to play a game or do something CPU intensive. I will just close down BI, play my game and re-launch.

I just toggled run as a service, and now the load time is what I get on the other machine (which is running all the time).

Thanks bp, I guess this is another one of those "senior moments" :lmao:
 
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LOL

That is still a pretty horrific startup time... granted my wee little system doesn't push nearly as many megapixels through as yours but it tends to load in just a few seconds when not in service mode, and a few seconds longer waiting for all the cameras to get their streams going. Hardware acceleration slows down the loading a tiny bit but you don't have that anyway.
 
Well...I am still EXCEEDINGLY happy with the performance I'm getting after our little "tuning" session from some months back!

On average with the 35 cameras running, I'm still hovering around the 38% mark on CPU load! Which offers me plenty of headroom to add the next wave of cameras:headbang:

Thanks again man!
 
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Hey SoCal,

Well, given my "modest" A/B testing, it seems to come down to the number of cores that makes the difference. That plus a WHOLE LOTTA tuning on an camera by camera basis to find the sweet spot between framerate and usability. As I have added more and more 4K cameras, it's turned into quite a juggling act, but I am super happy now with both performance and usability. 4K really does make a difference (to me anyway) in terms of picture quality, and with most of the cameras running at 15 FPS I am able to achieve the 30% load on the i9 CPU.
 
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