Computer for PixInsight? - Forums

Topic starter

Dec 15, 2021

Well I never would have thought I’d consider going down the PI route 6 months ago but I’m seriously considering buying the software. My concern is my current computing power with my system right now. After reading PI’s recommended hardware suggestions to me it looks like I’m on the VERY LOW side of computing power.

My question: Is there anyone using PI with a computer similar to mine and if you do how does it perform?

My Current Computer: i5 6400 @3.2gh, 4gig graphics card & 16gigs of ram. My HD is an upgrade SSD with plenty of space so that part isn’t a concern to me.

I use 3 monitors on my system and it’s awesome especially when multitasking.

I currently am using many different software which includes; APP, Gimp, Topaz, AutoStackertt, Registax.

I know the easy way to find out is to just download the trial software and give it a go (which I plan to do), but I thought I’d ask my goto people here on AB to see what there experiences and recommendations would be. Am I going to be able to use this computer with PI?

Thanks in advance!

Dale

Engaging

Andreas Zeinert

Dec 15, 2021

Hello Dale,
the main question is what resolution your images will have ?!!
I usually work with an old CCD sensor (camera Atik One 6) with 2750x2200 pixels which provides about 11,5 Mb for a raw fit file. Very easy to manage in PI with an old Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz and 8 Go bought in 2014. A bit longer when I have to preprocess dozen of pictures of my Canon 77D or my Fuji XT30 at full resolution but still possible. The best is that you give it a try with the trial licence of PI before you decide, this is a full licence for a couple of weeks, this will give you an idea. Unless you are working on big sensors you configuration seems to be working fine.
CS
Andreas

Helpful

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 15, 2021

Andreas Zeinert:
Hello Dale,
the main question is what resolution your images will have ?!!
I usually work with an old CCD sensor (camera Atik One 6) with 2750x2200 pixels which provides about 11,5 Mb for a raw fit file. Very easy to manage in PI with an old Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz and 8 Go bought in 2014. A bit longer when I have to preprocess dozen of pictures of my Canon 77D or my Fuji XT30 at full resolution but still possible. The best is that you give it a try with the trial licence of PI before you decide, this is a full licence for a couple of weeks, this will give you an idea. Unless you are working on big sensors you configuration seems to be working fine.
CS
Andreas

Thank you Andreas,
Yes I plan to try it but I just wanted to see how many others are using it in a similar configuration as mine.

I use the ZWO ASI071MC pro and the 294mc pro. 071 sensor is: 4944 x 3284 and my 294 is: 4144 x 2822.

Dale

Lorenzo Siciliano

Dec 15, 2021 · Edited: Dec 15, 2021

Hi Dale.
I have a laptop waaaay older than yours but I'm still able to process files from my 294mm.
Just have to wait a bit (!) longer to get the results.
My configuration is: Asus N75f, i7-2670qm, 16 gb ram and double 1Tb ssd.
A bit slow, indeed, but it still runs!
Ciao.
Lorenzo

Helpful Respectful Supportive

Andreas Zeinert

Dec 15, 2021

I used to process pictures taken with the Roboscopes with the ASI071MC sensor like this one https://www.astrobin.com/9vpk2h/B/
and I had absolutely no problem to process this in PI with my computer. We should always be aware that computers are devices that cost a lot of petrol and CO2 emission for their construction, we do not need to buy a new one just to get 20% more efficiency. I always try to buy a good model with capacities quite higher than I need at the moment and then I can wait at least 8 years for a new computer, unfortunately marketing and software incompatibilties are often the main reason for computer change. This should not be so. Last year (2020 !) I bought a small computer for piloting my telescope and I learnt that it will not be supported by Windows 11 while W10 support will end in 2025, shame on Microsoft, this is not soustainable business.

Lorenzo Siciliano

Dec 15, 2021

Andreas Zeinert:
.... we do not need to buy a new one just to get 20% more efficiency.

Totally agree.
There's no need to be up to date if your hardware is able to do the right tasks, even if it takes a bit longer.
That's my humble opinion.
Ciao.
Lorenzo

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 15, 2021

Lorenzo Siciliano:
Hi Dale.
I have a laptop waaaay older than yours but I'm still able to process files from my 294mm.
Just have to wait a bit (!) longer to get the results.
My configuration is: Asus N75f, i7-2670qm, 16 gb ram and double 1Tb ssd.
A bit slow, indeed, but it still runs!
Ciao.
Lorenzo

Thank you much Lorenzo! This is helpful. I’m on a PC not a laptop.

Dale

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 15, 2021

Andreas Zeinert:
I used to process pictures taken with the Roboscopes with the ASI071MC sensor like this one https://www.astrobin.com/9vpk2h/B/
and I had absolutely no problem to process this in PI with my computer. We should always be aware that computers are devices that cost a lot of petrol and CO2 emission for their construction, we do not need to buy a new one just to get 20% more efficiency. I always try to buy a good model with capacities quite higher than I need at the moment and then I can wait at least 8 years for a new computer, unfortunately marketing and software incompatibilties are often the main reason for computer change. This should not be so. Last year (2020 !) I bought a small computer for piloting my telescope and I learnt that it will not be supported by Windows 11 while W10 support will end in 2025, shame on Microsoft, this is not soustainable business.

Great I’m glad to hear all this! I totally agree btw with not buying computers every other year as well. This one I’ve got now is 4-5 yrs old and has been quite solid for me and I’m impressed with how well it does its job.
Again just wanted to see what others are using and what they think of its performance with similar computer configurations.

Dale

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 15, 2021

Lorenzo Siciliano:
Andreas Zeinert:
.... we do not need to buy a new one just to get 20% more efficiency.

Totally agree.
There's no need to be up to date if your hardware is able to do the right tasks, even if it takes a bit longer.
That's my humble opinion.
Ciao.
Lorenzo

We are on the same page here it sounds! I don’t like spending money on something that isn’t needed. Hence this post.

Dale

kuechlew

Dec 15, 2021

PixInsight is a very I/O intensive application, so performance of your SSD may be the most important aspect for the standard tasks. Tweaking your computer may involve adding an NVMe SSD in case your motherboard supports it. Alternatively you may add some more RAM and work with a RAM Disk. But don't forget to save your data to a real disk before switching off the computer :-)

Admittedly I'm a beginner with PI, so there may be some more CPU intensive processes I didn't encounter yet. I noticed that RAM usage is fairly low, although it seems you can tweak the integration process to use more of it - have to try this at some point.

When I tried my first image integration with PI, I was a bit shocked how much slower it is than DeepSkyStacker. But the result was way better, so it's worth to wait a little bit.

Long story short, if your ssd performs well, you shouldn't have a problem with your setup. Just make use of the free trial period to convince yourself.

Best regards
Wolfgang

Helpful Engaging Supportive

Rodrigo Roesch

Dec 15, 2021

I bough a game computer with a lot of disk space, memory and a good graphics card. If your computer is too old may not work very well with future software upgrades. Also there is certain part of processing that take a lot of resources such as stacking and noise reduction. So processing could be come very difficult

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 15, 2021

Long story short, if your ssd performs well, you shouldn't have a problem with your setup. Just make use of the free trial period to convince yourself.

This is my plan, but I am considering adding more ram to my system. I've been very happy with the 16gigs I have now but if PI seems slower than what I'd think I may go ahead and double the ram to 32gigs.

Dale

Ian McIntyre

Dec 15, 2021 · Edited: Dec 15, 2021

Just purchased a Clevo Notebook running Ubuntu Linux 20.04.1 with the following config;

NS50_70MU Mainboard
11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
32gb (2x16) Crucial 3200 DDR4 SODIMM
2TB Crucial P5 Plus 4.0 NVMe 2280 M.2 SSD
On-board Intel GPU

I'm pretty new to all of this (astrophotography) and have not used PI on any other system, so comparisons are limited to embedded tools I have used on my 8 year-old i7-3.2ghz (i think 3rd gen?), 32gb PC1600, Windows desktop. Now, of course, running PI in its native Linux is theoretically going to be faster than on comparably equipped Windows machines. Not sure how much difference that makes.

PI loads quickly (1-2 seconds) and I never feel like I am waiting too long during any process. The process that I am able to use as a litmus test is Starnet. I have used Starnet in my previous GIMP/Affinity workflow. Running Starnet at a stride of 64 on the Windows Desktop takes 30-45 minutes. The PI embedded version run on the Linux Notebook has never taken more than 5 minutes. Again, other processes within PI I have no comparison model accept for the machines run by the Youtubers with tutorials I have watched. The processes appear to be faster on the Linux notebook.

Of course, the older machine is slower in areas other than just the processor. Bus speeds, storage r/w speeds etc. are all going to be slower.

Not sure if this is any help, but this is my experience thus far.

PI Benchmark Utility:

CPU IdentificationCPU vendor …………. GenuineIntel
CPU model ………….. 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz System
InformationPlatform …………… Linux / Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Operating system ……. 5.11.0-41-generic #45~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 10 10:20:10 UTC 2021
GNU/LinuxCore version ……….. PixInsight Core 1.8.8-11 (x64)
Logical processors ….. 8
Total memory size …… 31.141 GiB

Execution Times
Total time …………. 01:01.43
CPU time …………… 00:54.15
Swap time ………….. 00:07.26
Swap transfer rate ….. 2282.725 MiB/s

Performance Indices
Total performance …… 7658
CPU performance …….. 6990
Swap performance ……. 12643

Helpful

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 16, 2021

Ian McIntyre:
Not sure if this is any help, but this is my experience thus far.

Thank you very much, Ian! Yes, it does give me more feedback on what others are using. I'm not a Unix user so that part I can't comment on but from what I'm seeing your system is quite a bit stronger than what I have, however I've had excellent luck with Gimp, and StarNet. As you point out, StarNet does take me a bit to process. However, only about 10-12 minutes with the stand-alone version.
The more feedback I'm getting, the better I'm feeling about PI with my computer!

Thanks!
Dale

Well written Respectful Supportive

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 16, 2021

Just an update, I have just applied for the trial version of Pix Insight so I'm looking forward to getting started with it!

Thanks to everyone that has responded!

Dale

Well written Respectful

AstroDivers

Dec 17, 2021

Hello Dale,
as someone already said above, the HD might be often the bottleneck. Upgrading to SSD might be huge and it will also affect in general the performance on your PC.
I have files that are at minimum 120 MB, so often they double or triple that size after being worked with any process in Pixinsight.
Working on SSD or HD make a huge difference to me.

Now that you joined the PixInsight gang, here something more that could help you: Swap Folders!

Swap folders are another upgrade to performance that are within reach without any upgrade if you have at least 2 drives (optimally SSDs).
What is this? You basically create X folders on at least 2 different drives and PixInsight will do his magic there.
What i found out is that 2 sets of 4 swap folders give me the best performance. I tried less, I tried more, the optimum is 4 folders on two different SSD.

You can find some more information on how to manage swap folders here.
It's nothing complicated, you just have to do some trial and error and evaluate with the benchmark tool the performances of each configuration.

Hope it helps

Helpful Engaging Supportive

kuechlew

Dec 17, 2021

Just to give you an idea what a ram disk may gain in terms of performance:

benchmark score with 1 swap folder on a "normal" SSD:

benchmark score with 1 swap folder on a ramdisk:

benchmark score with 4 swap folders on a ramdisk:

benchmark score with 8 swap folders on a ramdisk:

Actually transfer rates appear quite slow for a ramdisk, so maybe there is some further room for improvement on my system. Still I think you get the idea.
As mentioned before, 4 swap folders seem to be quite effective and there is a diminishing effect with additional swap folders.

Best regards
Wolfgang

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 17, 2021

AstroDivers:
Hello Dale,
as someone already said above, the HD might be often the bottleneck. Upgrading to SSD might be huge and it will also affect in general the performance on your PC.
I have files that are at minimum 120 MB, so often they double or triple that size after being worked with any process in Pixinsight.
Working on SSD or HD make a huge difference to me.

Now that you joined the PixInsight gang, here something more that could help you: Swap Folders!

Swap folders are another upgrade to performance that are within reach without any upgrade if you have at least 2 drives (optimally SSDs).
What is this? You basically create X folders on at least 2 different drives and PixInsight will do his magic there.
What i found out is that 2 sets of 4 swap folders give me the best performance. I tried less, I tried more, the optimum is 4 folders on two different SSD.

You can find some more information on how to manage swap folders here.
It's nothing complicated, you just have to do some trial and error and evaluate with the benchmark tool the performances of each configuration.

Hope it helps

Hello AstroDriers, (sorry don’t know your name)
Thank you for this information! Yes totally agree with you on the HD. I upgraded my old HD to an SSD in the summertime and holy baggibies did that really boost the performance of my system! So again totally agree!

Not familiar with this “swap folders” thing, I’ve just gotten into the software and still need to do a lot of learning with it but will definitely look into how this works.

Thanks for the tip!

Dale

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 17, 2021

Just to give you an idea what a ram disk may gain in terms of performance:

benchmark score with 1 swap folder on a "normal" SSD:
benchmark score with 1 swap folder on a ramdisk:
benchmark score with 4 swap folders on a ramdisk:
benchmark score with 8 swap folders on a ramdisk:

Actually transfer rates appear quite slow for a ramdisk, so maybe there is some further room for improvement on my system. Still I think you get the idea.
As mentioned before, 4 swap folders seem to be quite effective and there is a diminishing effect with additional swap folders.

Best regards
Wolfgang

Thank you for this info Wolfgang!

Dale

AstroDivers

Dec 18, 2021

Dale Penkala:
AstroDivers:
Hello Dale,
as someone already said above, the HD might be often the bottleneck. Upgrading to SSD might be huge and it will also affect in general the performance on your PC.
I have files that are at minimum 120 MB, so often they double or triple that size after being worked with any process in Pixinsight.
Working on SSD or HD make a huge difference to me.

Now that you joined the PixInsight gang, here something more that could help you: Swap Folders!

Swap folders are another upgrade to performance that are within reach without any upgrade if you have at least 2 drives (optimally SSDs).
What is this? You basically create X folders on at least 2 different drives and PixInsight will do his magic there.
What i found out is that 2 sets of 4 swap folders give me the best performance. I tried less, I tried more, the optimum is 4 folders on two different SSD.

You can find some more information on how to manage swap folders here.
It's nothing complicated, you just have to do some trial and error and evaluate with the benchmark tool the performances of each configuration.

Hope it helps

Hello AstroDriers, (sorry don’t know your name)
Thank you for this information! Yes totally agree with you on the HD. I upgraded my old HD to an SSD in the summertime and holy baggibies did that really boost the performance of my system! So again totally agree!

Not familiar with this “swap folders” thing, I’ve just gotten into the software and still need to do a lot of learning with it but will definitely look into how this works.

Thanks for the tip!

Dale

Hey, no problem.
Consider that setting up swap folders is a one time job.
Once you set up the best swap folder location and number it's done forever
Happy learning

Luca

Paul Howat

Dec 18, 2021

I have been learning Pixinsight for two years now and it is a fantastic programme. To get the most out of it you need to put time in. I have used two books to get to a reasonable level. The first is Warren Keller’s Inside Pixinsight and the other is Mastering Pixinsight by Rogelio Bernal Andrea. Also if you are short of time learn to use The batch processing script, load all your images press run and leave overnight!

Helpful

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 18, 2021

AstroDivers:
Dale Penkala:
AstroDivers:
Hello Dale,
as someone already said above, the HD might be often the bottleneck. Upgrading to SSD might be huge and it will also affect in general the performance on your PC.
I have files that are at minimum 120 MB, so often they double or triple that size after being worked with any process in Pixinsight.
Working on SSD or HD make a huge difference to me.

Now that you joined the PixInsight gang, here something more that could help you: Swap Folders!

Swap folders are another upgrade to performance that are within reach without any upgrade if you have at least 2 drives (optimally SSDs).
What is this? You basically create X folders on at least 2 different drives and PixInsight will do his magic there.
What i found out is that 2 sets of 4 swap folders give me the best performance. I tried less, I tried more, the optimum is 4 folders on two different SSD.

You can find some more information on how to manage swap folders here.
It's nothing complicated, you just have to do some trial and error and evaluate with the benchmark tool the performances of each configuration.

Hope it helps

Hello AstroDriers, (sorry don’t know your name)
Thank you for this information! Yes totally agree with you on the HD. I upgraded my old HD to an SSD in the summertime and holy baggibies did that really boost the performance of my system! So again totally agree!

Not familiar with this “swap folders” thing, I’ve just gotten into the software and still need to do a lot of learning with it but will definitely look into how this works.

Thanks for the tip!

Dale

Hey, no problem.
Consider that setting up swap folders is a one time job.
Once you set up the best swap folder location and number it's done forever
Happy learning

Luca

Hi Luca,
Yes I did do that and, used the “benchmark/baseline” to give me something to work with and in the end did make a bit of difference.
I have installed the Starnet module to get Starnet up and running and wow what a difference in using this thru PI! I took the an image and processed it in the stand alone and it took a bit over 7mins to process it. Ran in in PI once it was installed and the same image took me 3mins 14seconds a huge improvement! Then I did the Swap folders as suggested above and it took exactly 2 minutes on the button!
I’ve watch a couple of videos where you can speed it up even more by using your video card for processing instead of the processor which is supposed to take the 2 min time frame down to 20 seconds. You need a niveida gpx graphics card which I do but I don’t really want to get into pulling specific files from a driver and putting them in the correct folder which you have to manually create. Not ready to do that yet. I also seen that there is Unix “plugin” for windows that you install, reinstall PI in that “Unix” environment and its supposed to be even much faster then on windows because its a Unix built software. Again not something I’m ready to do just yet.

Looking forward to learning this software to move forward with processing my images.

Dale

Helpful Engaging Supportive

Dale Penkala

Topic starter

Dec 18, 2021

Paul Howat:
I have been learning Pixinsight for two years now and it is a fantastic programme. To get the most out of it you need to put time in. I have used two books to get to a reasonable level. The first is Warren Keller’s Inside Pixinsight and the other is Mastering Pixinsight by Rogelio Bernal Andrea. Also if you are short of time learn to use The batch processing script, load all your images press run and leave overnight!

Thanks for the encouragement Paul, I plan to continue to study it to get used to how it works. Many have said that they use APP (which I have) for all the processing of the data then work with that data in PI so I may do that for now, but I’m planning on working with the the Batch Processing script to see how it works and also if it does a better job then APP does.

Thanks!
Dale

David Nozadze

Dec 18, 2021

Dale Penkala:
Well I never would have thought I’d consider going down the PI route 6 months ago but I’m seriously considering buying the software. My concern is my current computing power with my system right now. After reading PI’s recommended hardware suggestions to me it looks like I’m on the VERY LOW side of computing power.

My question: Is there anyone using PI with a computer similar to mine and if you do how does it perform?

My Current Computer: i5 6400 @3.2gh, 4gig graphics card & 16gigs of ram. My HD is an upgrade SSD with plenty of space so that part isn’t a concern to me.

I use 3 monitors on my system and it’s awesome especially when multitasking.

I currently am using many different software which includes; APP, Gimp, Topaz, AutoStackertt, Registax.

I know the easy way to find out is to just download the trial software and give it a go (which I plan to do), but I thought I’d ask my goto people here on AB to see what there experiences and recommendations would be. Am I going to be able to use this computer with PI?

Thanks in advance!

Dale

Hello Dale!

I think your current computer will run PI just fine. I've run it on a Lenovo Yogabook C930, which is technically a netbook: i5/4GB RAM/256GB SSD/no graphics card. Some processes (like stacking, denoising, deconvolution) do take more time than on my main PC (ThnkPad P1), but not dramatically so.

Well written Helpful Concise

Paul Howat

Dec 18, 2021

I do find it interesting that in a hobby where collecting hours of data is a must have. Trying to save a few seconds on a Pixinsight process run is not that important! Use what you have and if you have $000’s to spare buy better optics!! Enjoy

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