With the Graphics Plugin for Windows and Mac there is a small performance tester tool available for testing various configurations. The tool will test the plugin directly and how it performs on the network and how quickly it returns graphics to the NLE system.

It will not test the time it takes to fill the NLE system's frame buffer or the time the NLE system uses between each request for frames to the NLE system. Hence, it is recommended to test the NLE system once the Graphics Plugin is tested and found to be working satisfactory.

The performance tester tool tests the rendering, network speed and how long it takes before the plugin delivers a frame to the NLE system, that is the raw speed of the plugin.

• Results table: Shows a table of results displaying the protocol tested, prefetch size, time and frames per second achieved.

• Viz Engine: Sets the Viz Engine host to be used for testing.

• Image protocol: Sets the parameter for how to transfer the graphics over the network. Select one or multiple options.

• Prefetch size: Sets the pre-fetching that will be tested. Available options are 5, 10 or 20 frames or fields.

• Scene name: Sets a particular scene that can be loaded and tested (e.g. 02_GFX/VizNLE/1000).

• Clip length: Sets the length of the clip that is to be rendered. 5 or 10 seconds are good starting points to check the rendering time.

• Pause time: Sets the pause in milliseconds between renders, that is the time that an NLE system uses to process the previous data. This would be set much lower for SD than for HD. It is recommended to try other values between 0 and 100 ms+ to see how this affects the network use. For more information, see the Tuning the NLE System section.

• Run tests: Tests the current settings configured for the plugin with the clip length and pause options set. This is useful when performing tests with concurrent users.

• Video mode: Sets the Viz Engine video mode to either:

  • 1080i 50 FPS

  • 1080i 60 FPS

  • 720p 50 FPS

  • 720p 60 FPS

  • PAL

  • NTSC

• Test summary: Shows a report of problems and various statistics.

Once the settings that give the optimal results are found they can be set in the Viz configuration tool manually such that the settings can be tested with the actual NLE system as well.

See Also

• Tuning the System