Hardware and software environment guide
For testing and validating system performance see Benchmark guidelines for Pixotope Graphics machines
CPU
Cores
Pixotope is based on Unreal Engine which favors fast CPU cores. You should therefore prioritize having fast cores, rather than a large number of slow cores. The faster cores are needed to provide maximum rendering performance, while the other cores take care of other system processes.
Speed
CPU clock speed itself is only one of the factors that reflects actual CPU performance. Architectural improvements, IPC and other optimizations always evolve, so an older CPU with a clock speed of 3.5 GHz is not as fast as a 2020 3.5 GHz CPU. Also be aware of base clock speed and boost clock. Most modern CPUs have a lower baseline clock when running basic tasks, but boost much higher when heavy applications are run, which applies when running Pixotope:
Use this site for detailed specifications of the different CPUs and GPUs:
Motherboard
We recommend that a Pixotope machine should have at least 28 PCI-E lanes (Intel) and 24 PCI-E lanes (AMD):
GPU card uses 16x PCI-E lanes
AJA / BMD / Matrox card uses 8x lanes
NVME SSD uses 4x lanes
In order for Pixotope to function correctly, the onboard NICs must be able to provide uninterrupted and guaranteed throughput. This is especially critical for the low latency required for tracking data. If issues are suspected, it is possible to prove or diagnose with USB or PCIe based network adaptors, but be aware of the usage of lanes for a PCIe adapter. Verify that the latest Bios and firmware/drivers for the NICs are installed.
Avoid multiple NVME drives if you have limited CPU PCI-E lanes! They each take valuable PCI-E lanes. Use 1 NVME as primary and normal S-ATA drives for the remaining storage if you have this limitation.
Motherboard manufacturers have to follow certain rules in their design, but some often push voltage/cpu speed past recommended values when their settings are in auto mode in order to gain a performance increase over their competitors. This can cause system instability.
In this image, you can see how the Gigabyte motherboard overvolts the CPU on stock settings out of the box, which can then create too much heat, which will in turn make the CPU throttle its speed.
GPU
Pixotope supports NVIDIA graphics cards only.
We do not support multiple GPUs (SLI).
We generally recommend using the latest available driver from http://nvidia.com. You should perform a clean custom install, where you install all the components except GeForce experience. GeForce experience which contains the screen recording and casting software ShadowPlay, can reduce the overall performance of the graphics card by up to around 10% if active.
Also when setting up your NVIDIA device, be sure to set all Nvidia 3D settings to default except Power management mode to “Prefer maximum performance”, as shown below.
Operating System
Pixotope requires Windows 10 or Windows 11. However, Windows 11 is preferred, as Microsoft has stopped providing security updates for Windows 10, even for Enterprise customers.
Third-Party Software
We always recommend as clean a system configuration as possible, since third party software can interfere with system performance. This includes:
Video conferencing and remote desktop software such as Teams, Zoom, Google Hangouts, TeamViewer, Anydesk etc
Software such as Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud, which can interfere with network and hard drive bandwidth
Photoshop, Premiere and workflow software such as Substance painter, 3DSMax, Maya, Blender, etc. This software actively uses considerable GPU and RAM resources which can interfere with operations
In the Task Manager, you can navigate to the “Startup” tab to control which processes automatically start when you boot a Pixotope machine. We recommend only having essential programs start with Windows to ensure that there is minimum unnecessary interference and resource use.
Windows Version
Use the latest version of Windows 10 or Windows 11. Be aware that if you are using custom pre-made Windows images, these may have restrictions or policies that can prevent Pixotope from working correctly. We recommend clean Windows installs with the default Windows permissions settings. If you are prompted to allow Pixotope processes, select “Yes”. Use the latest Windows image downloaded directly from Microsoft. Do not use custom images provided by your IT department, since you may inherit policies which can interfere with Pixotope operations.
High Performance Mode
Set Windows power plan to high performance or ultimate performance. Ultimate performance mode eliminates polling of hardware to check if it needs more power. The hardware can consume all the power it needs.
If Ultimate performance mode is not available in your setting, execute this instruction in the command prompt. You will need administrator privileges:
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61
This is the UI for setting Ultimate Performance
Firewall, Antivirus, and Third-Party Software
Pay attention to third-party software which might interfere with Pixotope processes, in particular antivirus software/firewall software. They can slow down or completely block important activity.
Do not use "optimization" software (Speedupmypc etc). Many of these applications intercept data communication, which often corrupts data (especially tracking data), and causes strange behavior.
Project Locations and syncing of project files
Do not use network locations to sync projects between computers, use version control such as Pixotope Asset Hub, Perforce or Git. This is because a lot of the files that are written to the project directories are machine specific. Copying these files directly to a different machine causes a lot of problems.
Corrupt Windows install/missing .DLLs/general errors
Many times it is faster to completely reinstall Windows than to try and diagnose an error. The reason for performance issues, crashing and missing .DLLs can be hard to find and time consuming to track down. Installing Windows from a USB flash drive takes around 20-30 minutes, and if you use the latest image available from Microsoft it will be the most recent build including most of the patches.
Power Supply
We recommend high quality redundant PSUs. If one fails, it automatically switches over with no restart of the system and no interruption.
Chassis, cooling, and airflow
Cooling is extremely important, since all chips generate heat and the processors will throttle themselves (reduce performance) once they reach a certain temperature. This temperature varies by model and type of chip.
In general CPUs/GPUs start throttling around 85°C and up, so you will always want temperatures quite a bit cooler than that. Throttling causes reduced performance, lag and crashes.
Many video cards do not blow hot air out of the chassis, so the heat stays inside. This makes a good chassis necessary with fans blowing air out. A chassis should be cool to the touch even when everything is running full load. The temperature of the back plate of the cards, and in particular the back plate of the GPU, should give you a feel for how effective the cooling is.
Consider the airflow through the system. Typically cold air is taken into the front of the system and blown over the cards to be exhausted at the rear. Fans should always be mounted to aid and not oppose the intended airflow and to prevent internal hotspots.
We recommend proper rack mounted chassis.
Example of the chassis we use which have 3x120mm fans blowing onto all the components and a rear exhaust fan. http://www.istarusa.com/en/istarusa/products.php?model=D-400L-7
Avoid common "gaming" machines in a production environment. The chassis most often does not have the cooling ability of a proper rack-mounted chassis, and the systems are not designed for 24/7 100% workload in a tough environment.
Apple Macs are not supported
The air around and outside the chassis needs to be cool, so make sure the space your rack is in is well ventilated and has a steady supply of cool air.
Hardware diagnostics and monitoring
Use HWiNFO to get a complete computer system overview, including temperature monitoring: https://www.fosshub.com/HWiNFO.html
If you believe you have issues with your system, create a complete system report and send it to us for review.
Use this tool to ensure that your graphics cards and video I/O cards are running at their intended speed. They need to be seated in the correct PCI-E slots on the motherboard for this to be correct. Consult your motherboard manual on which slots to use. If you use the wrong slot, you risk much lower performance or no functionality on both graphics cards and video I/O cards. Under bus in HWiNFO, expand bus pane and check that the current link width is correct. This should be 16x for graphics cards, and 8x for AJA / BMD / Matrox video I/O cards.
Network
Network connections
We recommend using 2 network ports:
1 dedicated to Tracking. Tracking data is especially vulnerable to latency and packet loss issues, so you should run this on a dedicated network
We do not support Data hub and CTS/Tracking over wireless, these connections must be wired
1 for general internet and network access and Pixotope DataHub
We recommend as a base setup to use two network adapters on one machine in order to separate the tracking data from the general network traffic.
Remember that you need an active network connection (network cable plugged in to the adapter) in order for the adapter to show up and be selectable in Director.
Windows profile
Windows network profile has to be set to private. Public network profile will block both Data hub data and tracking data which means the computers with Pixotope will not see other Pixotope machines or receive/send tracking data.
If you still have problems with Pixotope not receiving or sending data between machines/other hardware, disable the Windows firewall.
System Latency
The following tool can be used to identify and diagnose latency spikes within the system:
https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
This tool should be run after the software is configured for the environment, in case software such as third-party antivirus or hardware device drivers cause disruptions to system latency.