Graphics card question.

[ingeborgdot]

I don't have a graphics card installed at the moment, but am wondering if people are finding the BI works more efficiently with a graphics card or not. If you are using a card, what card are you using? I'm wanting to upgrade my system, and was wondering if anyone was using a card. Thanks.

 

[wittaj]

Around the time DeepStack was introduced, many here had their system become unstable with hardware acceleration on (even if not using DeepStack). Some have also been fine.

This hits everyone at a different point. Some had their system go wonky immediately, some it was after a specific update, and some still don't have a problem, yet the trend is showing running hardware acceleration will result in a problem at some point.

However, with substreams being introduced, the CPU% needed to offload video to a GPU is more than the CPU% savings seen by offloading to a GPU. Especially after about 12 cameras, the CPU goes up by using a GPU and hardware acceleration.

You now only would use a graphics card if you are using Deepstack and use the GPU to process the DeepStack to improve processing time over the DeepStack CPU version, but do not use it for hardware acceleration within BI.

 

[ingeborgdot]

I am not using Deepstack, but Code Project. Is a GPU really necessary? I will only incorporate one if you or anyone else says they see significant improvement.
As for HA, do you advise to leave that off in my section that says Hardware accelerated decode? You say put that drop down to No? I had watched a video on BI setup and they said set it to Intel + VPP.
Thanks for your help.

 

[wittaj]

Yes, before substreams were introduced, hardware acceleration was a requirement, so the video you watched was probably either old or made before people started seeing stability issues once BI added AI to it.

As I mentioned, the CPU% needed to offload video to the GPU is less efficient and uses more CPU than not using the GPU now that we have substreams. My CPU% improved once I turned off hardware acceleration.

So for you it comes down to the response times you are getting from Code Project - are they fast enough for you? If so and the CPU isn't being taxed, then it probably isn't worth it. Personally I would say if they are sub 500ms, it isn't worth the expense of the GPU.

Plus SenseAI just recently added GPU ability and it has been problematic for a lot of people and some are not seeing improved times, so my recommendation would be to sit back and let it settle and then decide if you need one.

 

[ingeborgdot]

Okay, thanks. No GPU added at this point in the upgrade.