Iris, Iris Pro or GT750M: graphic card for Millumin, which laptop to choose?

benoitsimon

Hi,

I'm about to buy (next thursday) a laptop for a theatre company (not so rich!). I will use two WXGA (1280 x 800) outputs simultaneously, no live input.

Which model would you recommend for that use with Millumin?

Does somebody already tried the new IRIS or IRIS Pro Graphic cards? 

Does that affect so much HAP playback or Syphon use?

Does the processor i5 or i7 makes a difference for that purpose?

And RAM quantity?

Thanks.

Benoit.

Millumin

Hello @benoitsimon,

The graphic card is most important part for Millumin, as most calculations are made on it.
I don't recommand the Iris Pro model, as the graphic card is integrated, and far from being a professional one. Please refer to this video for more information.

If you want the best deal, you should buy the previous generation of MacBookPro Retina that got a GeForce GT 650M. It's a great machine (see this test), and you can have it as a refurbished model, or as a second-hand computer. So saving money.
If you got more money, you should definitly opt for the GeForce GT 750M model.

Of course, I'm talking about the "best machine". Any of these machine will handle your two WXGA outputs nicely. Even the Iris Pro model (the Iris model should be ok, but just ok).

Best. Philippe

lopoic

Hi,

I'm currently testing Millumin for live touring with a band that got a pretty ambitious scenography consisting of 3 screens with back projections (3x 1280x720).

My Millumin project runs at 25fps with an output resolution of 3840x720 through a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital SE.

On my own MacBook Pro (mid-2010) with a Nvidia GT330M GPU, the playback is smooth but not perfectly locked/stable. The only processes I use in Millumin are corner pinning (keystone correction purposes), position, rotation and I'm adding a background fill layer beneath my 3 video layers (1 for each screen). The media are all Photo-JPEG with multiple audio channels.

Yesterday, I gave a try to Millumin running on a last generation MacBook Air (Intel HD5000 chipset) customized with i7 CPU and 8GB RAM.

With the same project described hereabove, I was able to playback my output at 25fps sharp.

I know that the Nvidia chipset is no professional graphic card. But, it is important to notice that the current MacBook Air has a non-Retina display... So the chipset keeps more power range for graphic calculations.

On the Retina models, the Iris and Iris Pro got a terrific amount of pixels to manage with just for the built-in display! With the price difference, that had to be said.

Cheers,

Loïc

benoitsimon

Hi,

Thank you Philippe for the video link and the advices (I bought a refurbished MacBook Pro 15''4 with GT650M like my personal laptop which I know is working properly).

Also thank you Loïc for those precisions. Unfortunately, the dual Thunderbolt and the HDMI on MacBookPro makes the entire difference for me.

Did you setup an SSD on your own MacBookPro?

Best regards.

Benoit.

funkyphiphi

Hi,

I did not find answers in the manual.

Is Millumin optimized for Open CL. Should we choose the biggest cards in the new MacPro ?

Is Millumin optimized for multicore processing ? Should we choose a fast processor with 4 cores, or a slower with 12 cores ?

Thanks Philippe for your advice.

Philippe

Millumin

Hello @funkyphiphi,

Millumin isn't optimized for OpenCL.
The graphic card is most important part for Millumin, as most calculations are made on it. The CPU is not very important.
Please refer to this thread.

Best. Philippe