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Last check on Ultrascope issue before punting
I’ve read the many posts on compatibility problems with Ultrascope and non-approved PCs, so I’m not complaining here. Just launching a hail mary…
I have an older model Dell 670 Workstation (dual xenon 3.02, 4GB Ram), that has largely been collecting dust, so I thought I would try to use it to run Ultrascope. I dropped in a new VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 4670, the Ultrascope and prayed. The result is Ultrascope runs, and the video display displays OK (thought it skips frames), but the scopes are whacked. I’ve uploaded a screen print here:
https://f1.creativecow.net/1550/ultrascope-problemis there is some setting of the display card, or windows that will fix this, or is my only option to sell my Dell and buy an HP Z400?
I looked into building a system, but the approved motherboards are all out of date/old/no-longer available, and I’m not willing to go to that effort on the hope that I can build one that actually works.
Any help appreciated.
Cheers,
Paul_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
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8 Replies
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Hi Paul
Looking at the screen grabs, this appears related to an issue we have seen in some of the more recent ATI drivers.
We are currently recommending driver version 10.2 for ATI based GPUs and Ultrascope, which does not produce these strange artifacts.
https://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx
Our development team are looking into the issue, but as graphics drivers change so often it can take some time to resolve problems such as this.
Callum McLay
Technical Support Manager
Blackmagic Design EMEA -
“….I looked into building a system, but the approved motherboards are all out of date/old/no-longer available, and I’m not willing to go to that effort on the hope that I can build one that actually works.”
Strangely, all the recommended expansion cards are unavailable.
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Thanks Callum. I downgraded my ATI drivers and software to your recommended 10.2 and the display artifacts have greatly improved, but not disappeared. Since things are so close to usable, I’ll see if there is any other improvements possible…Attached is a new screen grab:
ultrascopedisplayarifacts2.jpgThe scopes area -almost- usable, except for the streaky verticals, which make fine grain evaluation pretty difficult. Those do not appear when viewing the same frame on the Davinci scopes nor on my Techtronics scope.
I noticed that BHVideo has an HP Pavilion P6630F turnkey system. If I am unable to use my current PC for perfect ultrascope displays, would there be any reason that I should -not- expect quality ultrascope display on this low-cost PC? Its priced at $600 which would make a wonderfully affordable system to for scopes. I use the scopes in tandem with Davinci Resolve, and grade mostly 1080p24 10bit footage. I may be getting into some 2k grades soon. Will these HD and HD+ formats choke a system like the Pavilion?
Cheers,
Paul_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
_______________________ -
Sorry to be thick here. Those scopes look fine (unless the picture doesn’t do it justice). Can you run color bars through that and re-upload?
It will be much easier for us to see any render issues there.
Sincerely,
Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc. -
Yeah, we are working on getting some newer motherboards up there. But these systems are not that finicky. They don’t have any strict hard drive requirements.
They just need a 1x lane PCI-e slot (probably best not shared with the graphics slot) and a graphics card HIGHER than those we’ve tested. Again the biggest thing with the graphics card is the texture fill rate. Quadros have a problem with this but almost any mid level gaming card will work.
Also i’ve added a few more graphics cards to our list of compatible graphics cards (one is fairly spendy as it was a personal card that I brought in to test).
Sincerely,
Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc. -
OK, so just to prove your point, I sent bars and I believe you are correct. You might take a look just to be sure. I’m just not used to the strong vertical scans. They don’t look like I am used to seeing on my Tektronix nor the software scopes in FCP or Color or DaVinci…hence my thinking there was a problem.
Screenshot with Bars: ultrascopenoartifacts.jpg
RE the motherboards, I’m glad to hear that Ultrascope isn’t that finicky. Your approved hardware list states not to use a X58 nor a Dell. Without much info on why. So without that info, its hard to know what to avoid.
Cheers,
Paul_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
_______________________ -
Yeah, that screenshot looks good. We’ve had a few requests to be able to alter the intensity of the scans rendered. So hopefully that will be something we can add in the future.
Sincerely,
Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc. -
Just to close the loop here. I purchased an HP 580T desktop PC and it works great with Ultrascope. I did have to add a qualified video card.
_______________________
El Mundo Bueno Studios
Film * Audio
http://www.EMBstudios.com
Emeryville, CA
_______________________
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