Stable Configuration of Mac Pro, FCP, QuickTime, Kona, Celerity?

[Mark Maness]

What slots are your other cards located?

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Mark Maness]

[walter biscardi] “The one that’s recommended by AJA in the Read Me file that comes with the Kona 3 drivers.”

That’s what I am using. But let me ask you this… Does the Expansion Slot Utility tell you that your ATTO card is running below maximum speed?

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Walter Biscardi]

[Wayne Carey] “That’s what I am using. But let me ask you this… Does the Expansion Slot Utility tell you that your ATTO card is running below maximum speed?”

i don’t have it anymore. Fibre array failed after three weeks and we returned it. that’s why I’m meeting with my VAR tomorrow to talk about another unit.

But yes, I’m pretty sure it said it was running below maximum speed because the most speed is given to the graphics card.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Mark Maness]

[walter biscardi] “But yes, I’m pretty sure it said it was running below maximum speed because the most speed is given to the graphics card.”

Thanks, Walter. I’d be interested in seeing how your system runs after you get your new FC array.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Vahe Douglas]

I’m having similar issues on dropped frames on playback with 720p 59.94 10-bit footage, it captured fine. Dumped it to a 1080i 10-bit 23.98 rendered out, works great! But can’t figure out why the 59.94 isnt holding up.

I didnt know having the cards in different slots made that big of a difference, I knew the top slot ( my G5 Deul 2.5 PCI-X) was faster. I have a Kona Lh, with the ATTO to GSpeed and a 9800 Raedeon on the bottom, would the slot line up make a difference on this case?

[Ben Cheng]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your attention & time!
I have installed 2 x Mac Pro, running the following config:

System 1
– Quad Xeon 3.0Ghz
– 2GB RAM (4 x 512MB, 2 in each riser)
– ATTO Celerity FC41ES – Slot 4
– AJA Kona LSe – Slot 3
– Slot Configuration Utility – Config 2

System 2
– Quad Xeon 3.0Ghz
– 2GB RAM (4 x 512MB, 2 in each riser)
– ATTO Celerity FC41ES – Slot 4
– AJA Kona LSe – Slot 3
– ATTO UL5D – Slot 2
– Slot Configuration Utility – Config 4

Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.1
Mac OS X 10.4.8
QuickTime 7.1.3
ATTO Celerity driver 2.4.1
ATTO U320 driver 4.0.0
FCP 5.1.2
AJA Kona LS driver 3.3

The 2 systems are connected to a Facilis TerraBlock & they are running fine so far.
The 2 systems has 2 computer displays each, 1 x 23″ Cinema Display + 1 x 17″ Studio Display.

I’m curious if anyone has connect 3 PCIe cards to a Mac Pro, e.g Celerity + Kona + UL5D & what is the slot configuration we should use?

Cheers,
Ben Cheng
The Media Village
Singapore

[Mark Maness]

Nice!

What video cards do you get with each system?

I have the same as your system #1 with the exception of having an AJA Kona 3 card installed.

One word of caution… Make sure that your TerraBlock has the latest update (version 2.05) applied to it. It seems there was a problem with the 2.04 version and its DynaRAID software. I’m having to recapture footage since that because clips were way out of sync and timecodes got fouled up. Since the update, everything is fine.

As for your ATTO SCSI card… That is the only location to put it BUT I’m very sure that you are going to have some speed issues since that slot is only a one lane slot. That means if you plan to use this as data storage, fine… but if you want to edit from it, it will be problematic, at best.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Wayne,

Kona LSe in both Mac Pro.

I’m using Slot Configuration 4 for the system with UL5D.

Configuration 4 setups the PCI Express slots as follows:

Slot 4 – 4x – ATTO Celerity FC41ES
Slot 3 – 4x – AJA Kona LSe
Slot 2 – 8x – ATTO UL5D
Slot 1 – 8x – Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT 256MB

Cheers,
Ben Cheng
The Media Village

[Mark Maness]

Now… That may work fine….

I was just concerned that you may have had a graphics card like the high end Nvidia or the ATI X1900. With those you need a 16 lane slot.

Can I ask a question? Why are you looking at the Kona LSe? Budget constraints?

The reason I mention this… How about considering the LHe? That will give you the same inputs but with HD input for later. Personally, I think you would be much better off looking at the LHe series for your needs. The world is changing to HD in a real hurry and those that aren’t capable now are going to be left behind. It’s something to really consider.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Ben Cheng]

Hi Wayne,

1. The graphic card in it is the standard model, not the CTO one.

2. Kona LSe was chosen as there is no HD requirement either now or future.

Cheers,
Ben