is a 500 MHz, 512mb G4 powerbook enough power??

A forum for topics related to the computer used with MsPinky, it's CPU load and RAM requirements, and other computer hardware matters.
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spot
is a 500 MHz, 512mb G4 powerbook enough power??

Post by spot » Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:28 pm

hi all,



just wondering - i might get my hands on the above powerbook for a very low price. please lemme know if you think it should be enough power to get mspinky to work.



peace. spot
Suburban
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Post by Suburban » Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:17 am

i have a 500 mhz g4 powerbook with 768mb ram and i'm pretty happy with the performance.



all of the tracks i play are in .wav format...mp3s get pretty sluggish.
-Suburban

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dlpinkstah
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500 MHz G4 Pbk

Post by dlpinkstah » Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:04 pm

I actually did most of the early MsPinky development on a 500 MHz G3 Pismo Powerbook (black plastic) which I still use from time to time. It will run BinkyToy no problem, but as Suburban notes, you'll need to excercise some caution when spinning .MP3 files because sometimes on a rapid backspin you may experience glitchiness. When using my Pismo G3 I mostly use .WAV or .AIFF files (uncompressed) in order to achieve glitch-free operation.



So with your 500 MHz G4, if you're just doing audio it will be fine. For video, probably way too slow :cry:



And note--- on older machines it's especially important to de-fragment the harddrive to achieve maximum performance.



-DLP
spot

Post by spot » Sun May 08, 2005 4:25 pm

thanx for the clarification guys. i'll probably wait and save some cash to buy a decent pc laptop then. since you mentioned video scratching - can you really scratch videos in realtime??? i mean, not just mixing 2 videos together, but spin one scene back and furth just like audio scratching! would be awesome, you know, use all the 4 vinyls and then one guy would dj using mspinky and the other guy would be scratching videos and trying to sync it to the music...gonna be a hustle though to convert all the .avi files and dvds to .mov files...
cb shaw
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Wav vs MP3

Post by cb shaw » Sun Jun 18, 2006 4:51 am

I assumed that due to their smaller file size, .mp3's would be easier on the computer than .wav's. Am I wrong about this?



When using Maxi -Patch for video, I am using PhotoJpeg Quicktime Movies (320x240) and syncing them to the corresponding MP3. Is this the right way to go about things? Should I be using .Wav's, and / or a different video format?



and... is there a way to use the "existing" audio track associated with the video file, without separating the audio? If so, how?



I'm using Final Cut Pro as my output program for the final edited videos. Hope that helps.



Thanks!



-cb
djone37
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Re: Wav vs MP3

Post by djone37 » Sun Jun 18, 2006 5:31 am

cb shaw wrote:I assumed that due to their smaller file size, .mp3's would be easier on the computer than .wav's. Am I wrong about this?


Nope I think your wrong.



The CPU needs to decode MP3 files before the data gets sent to the soundcard, where as with waves, they are not compressed so no decoding is needed hence less CPU time wasted.
dlpinkstah
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MP3 requires CPU-intensive decode

Post by dlpinkstah » Sun Jun 18, 2006 7:03 pm

one37's right. The CPU has to do some intensive realtime decoding work to play an MP3, where as with .WAV or .AIFF files, the samples are simply copied str8 thru. However, with a recent model machine, there really won't be much of a difference in overall performance when using .WAV, .AIFF, or .MP3 files because the newer CPUs don't even flinch at having to do realtime decompression of MP3.
cb shaw
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Post by cb shaw » Sun Jun 18, 2006 10:40 pm

thanks again for the tips! also related to cpu performance, if am using a G5 tower would getting a third party video card increase max-patch's performance? if so, is there a recommended card?



also on the same video card topic, when the upgrade for the intel mac's comes out, would the suped-up video card on the macbook pro be worth the extra money, or would the regular macbook perform similarly?



thanks for all the input!
cb shaw
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one more thing on .wav vs mp3...

Post by cb shaw » Sun Jun 18, 2006 10:42 pm

although it doesn't take much power to compute, would using a .wav affect how much processor power is left over to compute the real-time video in maxi-patch?
djone37
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Re: one more thing on .wav vs mp3...

Post by djone37 » Mon Jun 19, 2006 2:52 am

cb shaw wrote:although it doesn't take much power to compute, would using a .wav affect how much processor power is left over to compute the real-time video in maxi-patch?


With a G5 you shouldnt have to worry about mp3 vs wav files as the difference in CPU processing power is so slight.



Now I think that you can have the video card do most of the video processing... so your more then fine to use mp3 files (I do and I use a 1.5Ghz Powerbook).
samith
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Post by samith » Tue Dec 24, 2013 7:41 am

when spinning .MP3 files because sometimes on a rapid backspin you may experience glitchiness. When using my Pismo G3 I mostly use .WAV or .AIFF files (uncompressed) in order to achieve glitch-free operation.
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