HQPlayer4 EC modulator tips and techniques

[asdf1000]

9 hours ago, k6davis said:

Core i7-9700K. It seems to like EC modulators. 😀

 

It will easily upsample PCM 24-192 => EC DSD256 x 48 with poly-sync-ext2. With any OS. Without a GPU. Without high CPU utilization. No overclocking or special settings or special cooling required. 

 

So the i7-9700 (non-K) should be fine then, if overclocking the i7-9700K is not required?

 

[asdf1000]

7 hours ago, JTS said:

In any event, I think for a chip like the 9900k, allowing all the cores to operate simultaneously without any time limit at 4.7 or 4.8 makes a huge increase in performance over what the original spec allows. My overclock is a gentle one by many standards, but it is enough to give me the performance boost and stability I want.

 

Can your i9-9900K actually do PCM 24-192 => EC DSD256 x 48 with poly-sync-ext2, without overclocking?

 

Or you haven't tried because you need your machine overclocked for your work?

[asdf1000]

On 8/4/2019 at 11:01 PM, k6davis said:

 

Actually, I'm not sure about that. 'K' basically means you can overclock the processor. The i7-9700K can do full EC DSD256 without overclocking, so the non-'K' variant should be able to as well.

 

It didn't cost much more to have the 'K', so I went for it anyway.

 

Isn't the "base" frequency of the 'K' variants higher?

 

In the case of i7-9700 vs 9700K its 3.00 vs 3.60 GHz base ?

 

This higher base frequency doesn't make a difference?

 

So if you went for the i7-9700 instead of 'K', there is a chance it wouldn't do what you can do now?

 

 

[asdf1000]

11 minutes ago, k6davis said:

 

Ahh... That I did not know. I'd go for the i7-9700K, which I did. And it's working great. 

 

No problem. So as I mentioned in the other thread , with no GPU offloading, there seems to be a pattern of 'K' variants being required to pull off PCM 24-192 => EC DSD256 x 48 with poly-sync-ext2 ...

 

The pattern of working CPU's, so far: i7-8086K, i7-8700K, i7-9700K and i9-9900K....

 

All 95W TDP

[asdf1000]

3 hours ago, jamesg11 said:

Hopefully, there will be rapid use of the info to enable off-the-shelf players from the likes of small green computer etc - for those of us who don’t tinker much with hardware et al.

 

Fanless i9-9900K , built for industrial applications. Should be fine for HQPlayer...

 

https://fit-iot.com/web/

 

5 year warranty.

 

Maybe @agillis @vortecjr can advise if they can build a fanless i9-9900K and price, since a few may be interested here?

 

[asdf1000]

6 minutes ago, jamesg11 said:

Currently SGC offer this - Intel i9 (Coffee Lake) 8-core processor.

 

Yep that's not the i9-9900K, that's why I tagged Andrew and JR above.... Specifically so they can consider and share an idea of the price here, for those interested in an i9-9900K fanless build.

 

There are a couple fanless cases that can support 95W TDP... HDPlex and Streacom are a couple I know...

 

[asdf1000]

34 minutes ago, k6davis said:

That's nice. It would be more than "fine". 😀 Looks like an excellent machine and costs less than I thought it would.

 

Hehe, yes the mention of 'fine for HQP' after mentioning industrial application and it's 5 year warranty, was a little playful...

 

It will be properly passively cooled.

[asdf1000]

8 minutes ago, rickca said:

Really expensive, but that Natural Airflow Technology looks very interesting.

 

5 years warranty is much more than typical though, so that would be part of the price.

 

It's not cheap but price looks fair to me, considering 5 year warranty and a very good fanless case design (case is good for 300W....)

 

[asdf1000]

2 hours ago, rando said:

  Fans are going to be necessary and rank in importance as follows; CPU, rear/top outtake, intake. 

 

If we’re talking

PCM 24-192 => EC DSD256 x 48 with poly-sync-ext2 ... it’s been mentioned the i7-9700K doesn’t need to be overclocked. Safe to assume the same for i9-9900K. 

 

The Airtop3 industrial fanless I linked earlier (case is good for 300W...) looks to be good.

 

As I mentioned earlier Streacom and HDPlex also offer 95W TDP fanless cases for those wanting to DIY for a bit less cost. So those are suitable for i7-9700K and i9-9900K  without overclocking.

 

So I wouldn’t say fans are necessary for PCM 24-192 => EC DSD256 x 48 with poly-sync-ext2

 

Depends on the person / system setup if they need fanless (no audible noise) or happy to have fans away from the listening room.

 

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, BCRich said:

If you google Intel i9 Coffee Lake 8 Core Processor, it comes back with the 9900K. So maybe it is,

 

I know someone who has one and it's not the i9-9900K...

 

That's why I tagged Andrew and JR... if enough people were interested I'm sure they could come up with something. As I mentioned before, 95W TDP fanless cases do exist - Streacom and HDPlex are a couple.

[asdf1000]

47 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

@k6davis wrote that Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.60GHz can handle all EC modulators with DSD 256 without any overclocking.

So I tried the same thing with my Intel Core i9-9900K @ 3.60GHz. Unfortunately without success. In my system, 4GHz overclocking is required for fluent listening. I mean, Miska also said that 4GHz is the minimum.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Jussi's i7-8086K has base speed 4.0GHz. TDP also 95W.

[asdf1000]

7 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

Fanless systems are limited in their performance

 

In your BIOS, have you selected “fanless” option?

 

What if you tell the BIOS you have a fan, so turbo boost is enabled?

 

If you have properly installed sufficient CPU passive cooling, there shouldn’t be any concern with allowing turbo-boost? Or is this the concern?

 

 

[asdf1000]

25 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

But after some time I come with the new EC modulators with DSD 256 in the critical temperature range.

 

So it's the case itself perhaps?

 

I see for your case:

 

"Cooling: Heatpipe Direct Touch 4 Pipes – Recommended CPU TDP 65W, Max TDP 95W"

 

But the DB4 Streacom case can properly support 110W TDP (with extra copper accessory) , so has a much higher margin above 95W

 

Personally the DB4 is the case I would choose with i9-9900K

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

That's a good point. Now the case should fit into my hi-fi rack, so I chose:

Streacom FC9 Alpha (Black) - Desktop - micro ATX

 

I know, that's where I got: Cooling: Heatpipe Direct Touch 4 Pipes – Recommended CPU TDP 65W, Max TDP 95W"

 

Personally the DB4 is the case I would choose with i9-9900K

 

DB4   can properly support 110W TDP (with extra copper accessory) , so has a good margin above 95W

 

But may not fit in your rack, it's very big

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

😊That's right

 

Time for a bigger rack ! 😁

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, rando said:

 

Forget fans for a minute.  

 

Yes that board is designed for stressing certain elements in a reasonably secure way.  What you appear not to grasp is how far above any realistic capability you are taking environmental factors.  

 

If makes not a whit of difference how you produce a dangerous amount of heat.  OC, not OC, egregiously dangerous settings, or not providing ample thermal discharge in the name of perceived SQ.  Your consumer level gaming board is not rated to the level of a purpose built industrial design meant to be reliably placed in harsh conditions without need for human intervention.

 

I will say no more.  Your server, your right to do with it as you please. 

 

It’s probably the fanless case... which is recommended for 65W TDP...

 

The 110W TDP case I mentioned offers better safety margin.

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, k6davis said:

If you've never used Cuda, it couldn't be easier. Put the card in the slot, install the video driver (from the Nvidia website, not the disc) and check the Cuda box in HQP.

 

Do you know the process for using CUDA with HQP on Ubuntu?

 

 

[asdf1000]

Just now, k6davis said:

If you're talking about HQP Embedded on Ubuntu Server, it's a bit more complicated.

 

Apologies - yes I meant Embedded on Ubuntu.

 

Are the steps documented somewhere?

[asdf1000]

9 minutes ago, k6davis said:

. There's details about what the options are in the documentation that comes with the software. 

 

These are the steps I'm asking about... in the latest manual i don't see these steps.

 

On 8/8/2019 at 10:37 PM, sledwards said:

• CPU: i7-8700K w/ Corsair H100i AIO
• GPU: GeForce RTX-2080 for CUDA offload
• OS/HQPlayer: Ubuntu 18.04 Server w/ Embedded or Windows 10 Pro w/ Desktop
• Performance
  • DSD256 with ASDM7EC modulator
  • All filters and input bit rates
  • No over clocking, CPU temp approx. 50 deg C

 

Hi sledwards, can you kindly share the steps to get CUDA offloading working with Embedded on Ubuntu?

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

14 minutes ago, k6davis said:

 

See the readme file in /usr/share/doc/hqplayerd/readme.txt.gz/readme.txt

 

The config file to edit is /etc/hqplayer/hqplayerd.xml

 

 

Thanks!

 

nano "/etc/hqplayer/hqplayerd.xml" works for me.

 

but "nano /usr/share/doc/hqplayerd/readme.txt.gz/readme.txt"  doesn't work for me.

 

Edit: ran "gzip -d readme.txt.gz"

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, k6davis said:

 

You're welcome.

 

That's because the "gz" is a compressed file, like a "zip" or a "rar". I included the only pieces of info from it you need for Cuda & Multicore above.

 

Yes I edited the above to say ran "gzip -d readme.txt.gz"

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, k6davis said:

I included the only pieces of info from it you need for Cuda & Multicore above.

 

Looks quite simple, so thanks again.

 

Now the steps before this are just:

 

1. Install CUDA Toolkit 10.1 Update 1  from here:

https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads?target_os=Linux&target_arch=x86_64&target_distro=Ubuntu&target_version=1804&target_type=debnetwork

 

and

 

2. Install latest driver from here:

https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/149138

 

Is that all?

 

For #2 above, I see that's a ".run" file. What command is needed for that, from terminal commands?

 

Thanks again

 

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, k6davis said:

 

And then you were able to read it?

 

Yes, it unzipped and then "nano readme.txt" worked fine.

 

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, k6davis said:

You just have install the driver. Being a Linux noob myself, I looked up how to do that. There are a few commands, one figures out what the latest driver is & downloads it (something about "ppa"). The next actually installs it. I don't remember the specifics, but they are easy to find.

 

No worries. It was the top Google result:

 

https://askubuntu.com/questions/18747/how-do-i-install-run-files

 

Overall looks easier than I expected.

 

Thanks for the tips!

[asdf1000]

One final question @k6davis (and I'm sure all this will help others in future).

 

If installing Ubuntu Server , how to see GPU usage via command line, to check that the GPU is actuall being used by HQP? And to see how much GPU is active.

 

I've always used top command but for CPU.

 

Is there a simple and recommended command?