# Projection computer to run QLab



## Russell Reed (Sep 5, 2018)

Our trusty 2009 Mac Pro finally bit the bullet, it was getting old and slow so we have been looking for a replacement but the money isn't really there to shell out 8 grand for a new Mac Pro with the graphics processing to handle the up to 6 1080P projectors (our old Mac Pro could barely handle 2 projectors) or 10 grand for a IMAC pro. We are a High School that does 3 productions a year and usually try and do as much as we can with projections. I was thinking buying one of these un upgradable mac's could be a bad long run investment. I was wondering what the community thought of using External GPU's with my personal laptop a 2016 MacBook Pro 15inch. The only reason my laptop is not cable of running projections is the GPU. I don't know how EGPU's will hold up in a production environment, and I was looking for suggestions.

Thanks so much!
Russ

Heres what I was looking at...
EGPU Enclosure
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQG2K5K/?tag=controlbooth-20

GPU
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5WGXX3/?tag=controlbooth-20

Reference article
https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/25/revi...mac-macbook-pro-best-external-graphics-video/


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## NickVon (Sep 6, 2018)

A couple of thoughts, that may not sit well. If you are looking to run (6) 1080p discrete/unique video surfaces. There is no amount of external GPU that you can hook into a laptop that has enough bandwidth to support the GPU's for that many displays.

The reason we use towers (like your older MAC pro, which is a bit long in the tooth admittedly) is for the High-speed data connections direct between the CPU and the GPU (PCIe x16) Modern USB 3.1 Gen2, Lighting bandwith is quite impressive but you would need probably 3 of those ports on your 2016 laptop to get the quality/speed/latency that you would't hate (and even then if all those ports are connected together on the motherboard they are all sharing the same data bus.

If you are all on board with Qlab. It's time for a new Mac pro. I don't quite know where you are gettin $8-10k MacPro costs from. But if you really want to handled 6 discrete outputs you are venturing into major video hardware that operates outside of your desktop systems and to very niche and expensive market.

My Venue bought a MacPro (trashcan style) fairly baseline for $4000* (*we purchased 2 HD LED monitors better then budget level stuff, Mouse Keyboard, Active 1-channel DVI splitter and various other insundry adapters. All told maybe an additioanl 600$). It's runs 2 video monitors on the desk at 1920x1080 (Our main projector is a Mirror of Display 2, And I've run 2 additional outputs at 1280x720 for the odd one of show. It handles it just fine provided the media has been optimized for Qlab and encoded properly.

I believe the limits of the MacPro's are still (4) unique displays. To go beyond that you need to fiddle with the Matrox triple/doublehead to go hardware (i'm not knowledgeable about how they actually accomplish what they do); or you need to investigate in depth the outboard PCIe x16 Bay's and Rack chassis that are sudo-supported by Apple and install additional Graphics Cards. (which is what I think you are thinking.) The later (an external PCIe x16 box) will likely not work with a laptop because the bandwidth limitations inherent in the design of laptop computers.

Other thoughts:
You got nearly 10 Years out of your first Mac Pro, Thats great value for money. Is an investment in a computer you'll keep for 5-7+ a bad decision even if it costs $5k upfront? Your IT department is probably swapping out every computer in the district every 2-3 years. Our College IT Department was happy to purchase our MacPro with the prospect of holding on to it for 5yrs or more, your IT department may feel similarly. Because generally speaking when you purchase a poweruser kind of machine our workload that we put it through doesn't change much in the theater world. The next big step will be 4k resolutions as standard but thats' still probably 5 years away, and you'll find that to move actual display technology to those resolutions will cost 10's of thousands of dollars, and happen 10 years after that for institutions.

Summary:
I also dislike the idea of using my personal computers for this kind of work. It's just a liabilty I don't wan to have or put on others. What happens when somebody spills coffee all over it.

I still think the EGPU's while a great way to get single source/display power on a mobile platform (and USB3, and Lightining is blisteringly fast, I don't think even though the cards may have 3 or more outputs, that you can use all of them simultaneously. That may have changed in the last couple of years but the Last Performance GPU I purchased for my Win PC was limited to only using 3 of the 4. That said, As I was just typing that, you'd probably still have 1-2 video out on the laptop itself still.

I think a New Mac Pro should be what you strive for, and settle on your above EGPU as a last resort. (Or if wand when yo require more then 4 unique/discrete outputs.

If you have any questions i'm pretty computer tech Savvy but I also don't keep on the bleeding edge of technology either, and the eGPU's are both groundbreaking as technology and quite promising with the speeds that external connections can now manage. (eGPU's before Thunderbolt2/USB3.1 Gen 2 would have been unheard of)


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## ZLD (Sep 7, 2018)

What is your overall budget for this? Personally, I really like the workflow with Watchout for video walls and projection mapping. They offer educational licensing as well for very reasonable prices. If you are willing to spend $10k, then you can get prebuilt hardware from their US hardware partner ShowSage, which comes with a key and 6 outputs and a guarantee that it'll work turnkey. 

Apple has basically left the scene for high-end hardware. Trying to manage such an order on their Macs these days, is likely to be a frustrating and overly expensive experience, especially for on a high school budget.


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## Amiers (Sep 7, 2018)

Yeah there isn’t much else to say Nick hit every head. 

I’ll also say it if you missed it. Don’t use your personal laptop. It will get destroyed. 

Curious what your budget is as well as if you are willing to switch to PC.


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## Russell Reed (Sep 8, 2018)

Thanks for all the advice.


ZLD said:


> What is your overall budget for this? Personally, I really like the workflow with Watchout for video walls and projection mapping. They offer educational licensing as well for very reasonable prices. If you are willing to spend $10k, then you can get prebuilt hardware from their US hardware partner ShowSage, which comes with a key and 6 outputs and a guarantee that it'll work turnkey.
> 
> Apple has basically left the scene for high-end hardware. Trying to manage such an order on their Macs these days, is likely to be a frustrating and overly expensive experience, especially for on a high school budget.




Amiers said:


> Yeah there isn’t much else to say Nick hit every head.
> 
> I’ll also say it if you missed it. Don’t use your personal laptop. It will get destroyed.
> 
> Curious what your budget is as well as if you are willing to switch to PC.



Our budget is scaleable, but if were spending 10K or close to 10K we want whatever solution we come to to be a scaleable solution that can grow with us, and we want the hardware to be very repairable if something went wrong. Im not opposed to a non Mac solution as long as there is good software to be run on the machine. I would say ideally we are looking to spend around $6,000, and the need to run 6 displays is probably overkill so 4 or so would be okay.


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## dbaxter (Sep 8, 2018)

As far as repairable goes, it will be hard to beat a $600 desktop PC with a couple $200 PCI video cards to drive the displays. Motherboard will be replaceable/upgradeable as will the plug-in cards. Grow as you need.


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## Amiers (Sep 8, 2018)

Well if you want to spend the money. 

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/Cf8KHx

This will run anything you could ever throw at it. 


Here are some other builds that will work as well. 

https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/#X=507835,1076856&G=1

Software would be playback pro.


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## ZLD (Sep 8, 2018)

If you go the route of building your own computer for this, be very sure you read about what goes into making a high end video server. It can run parallel to what goes into picking parts for a top end machine that will often be built with the intention of playing PC games, but it honestly takes a lot more care in selecting the correct configurations of components. Things like memory latency and memory channels become much more important in a machine that is intended to be serving high resolution video content, versus a machine that is supposed to be running games. And while nVidia tends to rein supreme for PC games, with only a few exceptions, they suck at their support for video walls as well. Stick to AMD or Matrox cards (but more so AMD).

For $6K, depending on what resolution you are intending to project, you can certainly go with some new prebuilt basic server hardware from HP or Dell, or go the used route a save a ton of money if thats an option. A new custom build would also easily fit within that.

The hurdle you face after that is your software options become pretty narrow. There are free options that have some challenging hurdles to overcome such as VPT8 and much more expensive options such as options from Dataton, Immersaview and Vioso. On the lower end of pricing for the PC is Mapio. It seems capable although young as an option. Resolume also offers some good software. There are also some hacky type options that could use software not intended for this that are cheap or free.

What type of projection mapping are you typically looking to accomplish with this? Do you intend to make a single, seamless high resolution backdrop or should this be capable of mapping video to individual windows on a supposed moving train? Or should it be able to do everything?


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## ruinexplorer (Sep 8, 2018)

Dataton did a nice blog entry (which you can download) which gives advice on tweaking Windows 10 (Enterprise) for use as a media server machine. When you really want to dedicate a machine to being a media server without any hiccups, you don't want something that is a general purpose machine.


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