Computer specs for multiple parallel recordings

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Hi all,

I'd like to be able to record from two or more (though probably no more than four) animals at a time using the same computer. Testing this with the one I'm currently using, the frame buffer for one stream is filled as soon as I start the second stream. It's a relatively old laptop with a dual-core i5-7200U and 8GB DDR4 RAM, so I'm not entirely surprised and trying to figure out what specs to go for in a new computer. I found this thread where Daniel advises 4 cores and 16GB; I also know the McGill miniscope platform uses this mini-computer with a 4-core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM, though I'm unsure how many animals they record from in parallel (I believe four but I may be misinterpreting Mosser et al 2020). Just wondering if people had any additional experience to share about this!

Cheers,

Gabrielle

[Zeeshan]

Hi Gabrielle, 

We actually use 1 computer per recording as it seems like this alone can be a lot for our computers to manage, especially if it's a v4 miniscope and high definition behaviour video camera. I'm not too sure myself what limits the capacity to record multiple miniscopes from the same computer, but my guess would be RAM and the kind of GPU used?

Zeeshan 

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[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Hi Zeeshan, thanks for the clarification! Yeah I was surprised that Daniel said in that older thread that RAM isn't too important! I most likely wouldn't be recording my behavioural videos via the miniscope software, and I'm currently still using V3 at 15 or 20fps, so for now that makes for less demands on the computer, but good to know.

[Federico Sangiuliano]

Hello Gabrielle. Could you provide more information about your computer? To give you my personal experience, I have this computer but with 32 GB of RAM. We managed to connect 6 minicams without an issue. We didn't test more than that because we didn't have more minicams to connect.

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Hi Federico,

it's this guy:

https://icecat.biz/en/p/acer/nx.ghgaa.003/aspire-notebooks-e5-575g-55nw-34404866.html

not quite the same league haha

are minicams equivalent to miniscopes in terms of the demands on the computer? I'm guessing gaming laptops would be a good bet in general?
compared to yours, this one for example: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/lenovo-thinkpad-l15-gen-1-intel-10th-gen-core-i7-10510u-32gb-ram-1tb-ssd-storage-win10-pro/15757296 has 4 instead of 6 cores, and a very basic GPU without dedicated VRAM. do you reckon it would still do the job?
Cheers!

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

very basic integrated graphics* , even

[Daniel Aharoni]

Just to add to this conversation.

• The Miniscope DAQ Software tries to create a parallel processing thread for each device it is streaming data from as well as 1 thread that handle all writing of data to storage, and 1 initial thread for the GUI. Ideally you want a computer that has enough cores to allow each of these threads to run without competing with each other for time on the CPU. 
• Ram isn't too important here. The software does allocate a circular buffer for each streaming device so that it can temporarily hold data while waiting for that data to get written to a drive. Not sure what the minimum would be here but likely any reasonable amount is fine (maybe 16GB or more).
• Depending on the number of devices connected and their resolution, you need to make sure that your storage device is fast enough to keep up with writing all this data. Usually a standard SSD is good enough for many data streams as long as they aren't some crazy high resolution. Generally avoid directly writing to external drives or drives over ethernet.
• If you plan on using a CPU intensive video compression codec (FFV1 for example) you want to make sure your CPU is up to the task. The compression for all data is done in the single thread that also writes data to storage so a slower CPU can struggle here. Especially if you have high resolution data.

I have a high-end Dell XPS 17 laptop which has an 8 core CPU and it doesn't struggle with streaming and writing 6 video streams that each are around 1MP @ 50FPS. We have also tested out the software on a cheap Latte Panda and it seems to work well with just a single V4 Miniscope and one 1MP or lower resolution behavioral camera.

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Hi Daniel,
Thanks so much for the detailed answer, this is super helpful!
Regarding the first point, am I understanding right that ideally you need 2 + x threads, where x is the number of devices you're streaming from?  (i.e. one thread for each device + one thread to handle writing data to storage & compression + one thread for the GUI) Or is it 1 + 2x? (i.e. one thread for each device + one thread to handle writing data to storage & compression for each device + one thread for the GUI)

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Oh and I'm taking away from your answer that the GPU is entirely irrelevant, right?

[Daniel Aharoni]

Yep. 2 + X is the number of parallel threads running. With a decent speed cpu you definitely don't need this many cores but at some point the acquisition of one video stream will slow down the other. 

As for the GPU, I don't think most things in the software are too gpu intensive. All visualizations are done using opengl and custom shaders running in your gpu but they aren't doing anything too crazy. If you plan on running DLC-Live within our software then you would want a gpu capable of doing that. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/miniscope/d1e0f250-e94e-4650-9868-c702936d3131n%40googlegroups.com.

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Great, thanks again for the insight!

[Federico Sangiuliano]

Hello Gabrielle. Your computer has a dual core processor, and it might be struggling to keep up with the operating system and the miniscope (you can check this using the Task manager tool). If you are planning on purchasing a new computer for using multiple miniscopes and behavior cameras consider one with a Thunderbolt port. Those ports use USB C connector, so any USB C hub will let you connect many miniscopes and minicams. As Daniel mentioned, another thing to consider is using solid state drives for storage. I hope this helps but let us know if you have any further questions

Thank you

Federico

[Gabrielle Siemonsmeier]

Hi Federico,

Thanks so much for your answer! yeah it's an SSD, I've already run into the issue of trying to write data to an external HDD haha
Regarding the USB C hub, I was actually thinking that at some point the connectivity would be the limiting factor i.e. how many independent USB ports are available to not run into a bottleneck in the data transmission - but you're saying as long as the multiple inputs run over a Thunderbolt port that shouldn't be an issue?