[COOT] optimal Hardware for coot

From: David Schuller
Date: 17 January 2012 15:21


On 01/17/12 07:14, Charles Finley wrote:

Hi,

is there anything like an optimal hardware setup for a new installation of coot?

i had a look in the FAQ and the documentation, but i could not find anything (aside from the recommendation of a three button mouse).

regarding the CPU:

- is coot multithreaded?
- does coot use any form of SSE?
- is intel or AMD preferred?

COOT is not generally CPU-bound. Intel has the faster CPUs these days, but it shouldn't matter greatly to COOT. Is this for a COOT only machine, or will other tasks be run as well?

regarding memory:

- more is better?
- does ECC make any sense or is it a waste of money

Yes, more is better. These days I would install at least 4 GB, and possibly more. Memory is cheap, and it makes a big difference if you are running multiple applications at once.

I would consider ECC a waste of money for a COOT-ony machine. We only use that for servers that absolutely need to be rock-solid, like our data collection workstations.

regarding the GPU:

- is CUDA / Stream / Open CL supported?
- is a high end card needed or will any mainstream card do?
- any need for large on-card memory?

Any mid-grade (e.g. radeon x6xx or so) card should be fine for 2D COOT. for 3D stereo, see below.

regarding disk drives:

- does coot benefit from faster harddrives / RAID 0?

Sure. Everything does. Lots of RAM will minimize swapping, but there's still reading in maps, etc. Coot is probably not as disk-bound as lots of other applications though.

regarding 3D displays:

- is shutter-stereo supported (with need for quadro gpu for synchronisation)?
- is polarisation stereo supported (resulting in lower vertical resolution)?

Yes, COOT supports both active and passive stereo. For active nVidia 3D stereo on Linux you need a Quadro card with a 3 pin mini-DIN connector; on Windows I think you don't (the emitter can gets its sync from USB)
Here are the nVidia supported hardware pages for Windows and Linux:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_pro_graphics_boards.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_pro_graphics_boards_linux.html

I think the cheapest current offering with a stereo port is the Quadro 4000.
If you get a Quadro FX 3800, you need to buy the optional 3 pin connector panel separately.

thanks for your help

Chuck

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All Things Serve the Beam
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                              David J. Schuller
                              modern man in a post-modern world
                              MacCHESS, Cornell University