Nikon Capture 4.xx RAW converter

[Canis Vulpes]

This afternoon I did some photography and processed a NEF in NC beforehand I allowed windows to manage VM and moved NC temp file to primary master which did not require defragging. I dragged an image from windows thumbnail into NC and did seem a bit faster. Its hard to tell but operations seem around 10% faster but conversion to TIFF and pass to CS took 2.5 minutes. Every image is different and some have been taking 90 seconds or so. A big leap found from not using NC's multiviewer. The gong shot (posted in gallery today) took 2.5 minutes and in that time I monitored task manager and found:-

Processor totally max'ed out at 100%
Little change in RAM and VM usage
NO to minimal disk usage

I believe that NC's conversion algorithm is very processor dependent and I think my biggest speed improvement will come by replacing or overclocking my existing CPU. The fastest CPU my motherboard will accept is an AMD 3200+ Barton. I believe should provide 25-30% gain but cost approx £125.

One thing I am tempted to try is having no VM page file forcing NC to use RAM and overclocking my CPU to 2800+ to provide 10% improvement.

I set no VM once in windows 98 and goosed the computer so I am a little nervous doing this again but logic is tempting me.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by Stephen Fox

This afternoon I did some photography and processed a NEF in NC beforehand I allowed windows to manage VM and moved NC temp file to primary master which did not require defragging. I dragged an image from windows thumbnail into NC and did seem a bit faster. Its hard to tell but operations seem around 10% faster but conversion to TIFF and pass to CS too 2.5 minutes. Every image is different and some have been taking 90 seconds or so. A big leap found from not using NC's multiviewer. The gong shot (posted in gallery today) took 2.5 minutes and in that time I monitored task manager and found:-

Processor totally max'ed out at 100%
Little change is RAM and VM usage
NO to minimal disk usage

I believe that NC's conversion algorithm is very processor dependent and I think my biggest speed improvement will come by replacing or overclocking my existing CPU. The fastest CPU my motherboard will accept is an AMD 3200+ Barton. I believe should provide 25-30% gain but cost approx £125.

One thing I am tempted to try is having no VM page file forcing NC to use RAM and overclocking my CPU to 2800+ to provide 10% improvement.

I set no VM once in windows 98 and goosed the computer so I am a little nervous doing this again but logic is tempting me.

Don't you need high performance memory to overclock?

I once tried tweaking my memory settings in BIOS to improve performance but the PC became unstable.

[nirofo]

Hi Stephen

Changing your CPU will make little if any difference to the rendering speed, your processor already works far faster than the software you're using requires, overclocking will only stir up more problems! You have a bottleneck somewhere, something is tying up your computers access to memory, you may have one or more programs trying to use the same facilities at the same time. Some programs are great at changing files needed by others to run properly. either way it sounds as though your system is totally messed up and requires a re-boot to flush out the crap (if you pardon the expression). As I said previously, Win XP prefers to handle it's own vm, I doubt changing this will make any difference. I would be loathe to do anything radical at this stage, overclocking will solve nothing and buying new equipment is really the last resort, there are several things you can still try. First of all I would try resetting the bios, don't set it too agressively, maximum speed settings are sometimes counter productive and are only really for gamers anyway! After re-setting the bios do a complete 'C' drive reformat and re-boot Win XP, as I said earlier, make sure you have all the latest drivers for your hardware and have backed up all your files etc. I think this is the only way to go.

Incidentally, have you tried Phase One Capture One v3.7 - ( PM me! ).

nirofo.

[robski]

I agree don't overclock you could corrupt data on the disk and lose it forever.

I am not convinced that it is your OS is screwed up because from what you have said it is the only program that is slow. It would be interesting to see if this runs slow on an intel cpu. It could be using a function call that is not very efficient on the AMD. My son who is a gamer says the AMD is tweaked to perform better with functions calls used by games programs.

I'll see if I can download it and run on an intel box at work on monday.

[nirofo]

Hi robski

I use an Athlon 2200XP CPU and 1gb (2x512mb) standard memory in the computer I use for graphics and it handles everything I throw at it no problem at all. I've used AMD CPU's for years running all sorts of graphics programs etc., and I've never had a problem that I didn't cause myself! If an Intel CPU is faster on graphics, then I suggest that it is so marginal in normal computer use as to be insignificant. Bear in mind that nearly all the CPU tests are conducted with games in mind, this is a completely different ball game as most games are operating in 3D. If you want a significant improvement in 2D graphics then I suggest a MAC with a top spec 2D graphics card is more appropriate.

nirofo.

[Canis Vulpes]

Windows OS is not screwed up. I don't do porn, peer-to-peer file sharing or visit 'free' sites. I am very careful what I install and download, the snap shot of processes in task manager should show the computer is quite clean and efficient. As the processor is 100% occupied during RAW - TIFF conversion then a faster processor with more operations per second should reduce conversion time.

Rob, I appreciate you spending time to look at this situation but if you download NC, it will need several 'upgrades' to get to NC4.4. I purchased NC4.1 which took an amazing 40 MINUTES to convert and screwed the PC during this time. I used it once and forgot about it. I realised 4.2 was available by upgrade and offered more efficient processing and took 5-7 minutes to convert and we became friends. 4.3 fixed problems with d-lighting (Nikons shadow recovery) and 4.4 has D200 support. I think these upgrades need a full licenced copy in order to install.

I read that the MAC version of NC is a bigger dog than the x86 version!

Through my job I visited a large portrait franchise company and had free access to roam (I work in CCTV, Security). Equipment being used was digital backs to medium format cameras (40Mpx) Capture one and Lacie computer equipment and Sony Triniton CRT monitors. The studio has just opened and is a testament to CRT and the Trinitron.

I am interested in comparing Capture One with NC.

[robski]

Originally Posted by nirofo

Hi robski

If an Intel CPU is faster on graphics, then I suggest that it is so marginal in normal computer use as to be insignificant.

nirofo.

I think you miss my point nirofo, I am not saying that intel is generally better at graphics than AMD. Nor I am I trying to slag off AMD. I am using an AMD myself at home.

The point I am trying to make is that there are hardware differences between the 2 processors otherwise AMD and Intel would in court everyday slaging it out over copyright issues. These differences will mean that each instruction will take a different number of steps to achive the same thing. If you look at the core design in each case they use different methods of instruction and data cachcing, pipelining and a different sequence of low level instruction to perform some of the higher level functions. In all it will be swings and round abouts when things average out. It maybe that NC is making a function call that is much more efficient on one processor than the other.

Considering that Nikon is not a Software company there expertise will not be in producing efficient and optimised code. My belief is that this program has not been optimised for speed. Which is a point I made earlier. We can only come to this understanding by discounting other factors as we have been slowing doing by getting Stephen to do various tests. The only thing outstanding is that we have not had it confirmed that it also runs slow on an Intel.

My background is electronic, I started in analogue with radio and my introduction into digital was learning how to machine code program a Z80 8 bit processor back in the 80's. I then did some assembly, basic, pascal and C programming. Recently I have done some java programming for a project at work. I also have to get my head around the compliler's operation, C++ and multithread programming when trying to find a bug in our software to a level where the programmer has a pretty good idea which block of code to look at.

[robski]

Originally Posted by Stephen Fox

Rob, I appreciate you spending time to look at this situation but if you download NC, it will need several 'upgrades' to get to NC4.4. I purchased NC4.1 which took an amazing 40 MINUTES to convert and screwed the PC during this time. I used it once and forgot about it. I realised 4.2 was available by upgrade and offered more efficient processing and took 5-7 minutes to convert and we became friends. 4.3 fixed problems with d-lighting (Nikons shadow recovery) and 4.4 has D200 support. I think these upgrades need a full licenced copy in order to install.

I sounds like a no go then Stephen. Shame. If it had been a free download and a five minute job I'd be asking you for a test RAW file.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by nirofo

Hi Stephen

You have a bottleneck somewhere, something is tying up your computers access to memory, you may have one or more programs trying to use the same facilities at the same time.

I would not re-install XP simply because it is such a pain to re-install all the other gubbins including Windows XP SP2.

Performance manager should help identify the operation that is taking the time. It is certainly not rendering that is the issue. The calculations might be, since NC seems to use the equivalent of layers i.e. each filter such as D-Light and Unsharp mask is applied independently and hence NC probably has a huge memory requirement. Anyway performance manager will identify the bottleneck. (At work our product thrashes after 40 minutes use, and PM allowed us to track this down to the TCPIP access.)

Leif