Technical Topics > SDR - Software Defined Radio
RX-888 and graphic board
Ray Lalleu:
Users of the RX-888, what is your graphic board/circuit ?
It's very important, as the RX-888 has no FPGA included, and is leaving all the decimation work to the PC. And the special dll in the Windows-PC has to do all that work before sending the decimated data to the standard SDR software.
And that work is not what a standard Intel or AMD processor can do, not not any machine using the standard way of computing. That work has to be done by special units on the graphic board. But as you know, all graphic boards are not equal... and also maybe the dll cannot use all the families of graphic units from different founders.
At first, please reply about the graphic circuit of your PC, with what results, so we get a basis for further investigations.
Josh:
I don't have a 888 but the sdr control apps that push some of the processing off to a gpu will be best with regard to cpu time. On that note, SDR Console can offload processing to a gpu but only certain gpus and apis will do, older cuda or opencl versions might not help a given sdr app - check with the app author if your card will work. In a similar light I was thinking about a 888 ran by a pi, or other small form factor pc might be able to do the grunt work and feed the product to the main pc, dunno.
On a like note, I used the nvidia control panel, specifically the profile menus, offloading to cuda cores on the gpu the opengl api used by a digital mode decoder display. Not only did it offload the visuals, it made them look lovely with antialiasing and anistropic filtering enabled, compared to the same display without aa and aniso.
kris:
Hi Ray and Josh - I can't believe no one said anything!
Ray only asked for the technical data of your computers, no need to hide!
I do not understand much of what you write about, but from this link I got what "technically" it is about.
https://www.sdr-radio.com/computer#1417996905
With the help of Intel Driver & Support Assistent I have read information about my laptop, and updated drivers
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html
I will try to install OpenCL support tomorrow.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/tool/opencl-drivers.html
https://www.sasview.org/docs/old_docs/4.1.2/user/opencl_installation.html
My laptop is a Dell Inc. Latitude E5470
BIOS Versio Date: 08/04/20 05:33:56 Ver: 1.23.3.00
MOTHERBOARD Manufacturer Dell Inc.
Model 0VHKV0 Version A00
OPERATING SYSTEM
Edition Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bitowy)
Version (Build) 21H2 (10.0.19044)
Devices and Drivers
PROCESSOR 2 core Intel® Core™ i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz
GRAPHICS Intel® HD Graphics 520
AUDIO - Realtek Audio
VB-Audio Virtual Cable
MEMORY 8 GB 1 slot
My RX-888 under SDR Console v.3.0.25 works flawlessly with the 1MHz processing bandwidth and that is fully sufficient for me. CPU load 32-45%.
With a wider processing bandwidth, it freezes fairly quickly. The same happens when receiving the VHF / UHF band. As I have read, it is due to memory overflow.
When I start OpenCL, I will write if the RX's work will improve.
I have one free slot for RAM memory, so I can increase it.
Ray Lalleu:
Hello Kris,
I need to look again at the RX-888 about how low it can go down by itself.
The decimation is a numerical process equivalent to an analog frequency change and passband filtering. Without the decimation, the output of a ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) at 65 millions of samples per second, each sample using 2 bytes (up to 16 bits for each sample) is 130 millions of bytes per second. That was far above the possible output of the older line cables, but is now well within reach for the true USB-3 cables.
But being able to send that amount of data each second does NOT mean that the CPU can process that amount of data with all the FFT work needed by the SDR software. The work to reduce the passband to something more manageable is still to be done. Normally, that work is made on the SDR hardware by a special component called FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). The computing on an FPGA is completely different from that on a CPU. It's a programmable array of gates, with each gate sending it's output to other gates, at high speed, without instructions to decode and execute.
On graphic boards, there are some units organized that way, although less powerful than in full FPGAs, at least rather useful for synthesis of images, and those units can help for some other intensitive computing.
From your reply, Kris, I understand that you have no graphic card except the incorporated one in your Intel CPU, the Intel HD graphics, known to be useful, but far below the graphic cards by Nvidia and Radeon. I understand also that you have set your RX-888 to the lowest output, but I don't understand how that is really possible down to a low output.
That's all for tonight, good listening!
kris:
Hello Ray - The Intel HD Graphics 520 is an integrated graphics unit
My setup is this:
Provider Intel Corporation
Version 27.20.100.7990
Date 5/6/2020
Device Details
Adapter Compatibility Intel Corporation
Video Processor Intel® HD Graphics Family of the Skylake generation
Resolution 1366 x 768
Bits Per Pixel 32
Number of Colors 4294967296
Refresh Rate - Current 60 Hz
Refresh Rate - Maximum 60 Hz
Refresh Rate - Minimum 48 Hz
Adapter DAC Type Internal
Adapter RAM 1.00 GB
Availability Running at full power
Status This device is working properly.
Location PCI bus 0, device 2, function 0
Device Id PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1916&SUBSYS_06DE1028&REV_07\3&11583659&0&10
- more specification is here
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-520.149940.0.html
Today I checked the graphics card driver directory again and it turned out that the OpenCL.dll library is there. I didn't have to install anything.
It was enough to set: Program Option (up / right corner) or View> Display> OpenCL> check Enable OpenCL (visible my Intel Graphics HD 520)> OK
And the program ran without any problems - it does not stutter when opening other applications,
the CPU load has dropped by about 10% and is from 15 to 32%, the waterfall resolution improved.
My RAM is about 47% occupied with Bandwight 1MHz, but increasing the bandwidth to 2MHz exhausts it completely and the receiver stutters. It will be necessary to increase the RAM to 16 GB which (supposedly) ensures smooth operation up to 10MB of processed bandwidth.
I think that the transmission speed via the USB3 cable is not a problem here, but the RAM size, which I can see on the indicator in the lower right corner of the program window.
In a word, I was able to run OpenCL/FFT without problems!
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