Then I guess you can get higher frame rate if you swap the graphics cards and put the 8800 GTS into the i5-760.

I might consider doing that soon !

So you say the latest GTX 560 and 580 are really fast? How much time does it take to process one frame (with 6-cams) with both of those cards?

I don't have a GeForce 580 but I just tested GeForce 480 and processing speed is 2 frames per second (that is, 0.5 seconds per frame) for a 6-camera video. My CPU is quad-core Intel Core i7 (Nehalem generation) overclocked to 4.0 GHz.

The top-performance GeForce 580 and mid-range GeForce 560 are slightly improved versions of GeForce 480 and GeForce 460, respectively. For a GeForce 580 you need a 700 W power supply so a less power hungry GeForce 560 sometimes is a more cost-effective and practical choice.

Greenlaw has GeForce 460, lets ask him about tracking speed for that card.

For four camera tracking, my GTX 460 averages about 0.67 second per frame. This was faster than I was expecting so I'm very happy with this card. I'll check what it does for six when I get the chance. (Might be a while; I'm wrapped up in other parts of my project at the moment so I'm a bit behind with my iPi usage.)

I was using a GTX 260 before that and I think it was taking about 2.5 to 3.0 seconds per frame, but that was with an older (slower) version of iPi Studio. The GTX 260 should be a bit faster now with the current release of iPi Studio.

In general, I would think any of the more recent generation Nvidia cards are significantly faster than the 8800. That said, if you have an older computer you need to make sure it can use one of these new cards and support the power requirements as there are many versions of these cards. For example, my old computer had a card comparable to the 8800 and when I decided I needed a newer card, I discovered that my only option was to get a whole new computer. Then, when I upgraded from the GTX 260 to the GTX 460 I had to make sure the model I chose was small enough to physically fit inside the new computer and that it could use the existing 400w power supply. I found my options were limited but what I wound up with works great.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

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Well I do have a very recent PC with a "recycled" GFX card so I think recent cards won't be much of a problem for my rig. And if those cards do really speed up the process by 4 or 5 times I really need to upgrade!

Anyway, I processed almost all my shots from friday's shoot and I still have a take that I'm not quite satisfied with - though it's quite "extreme" (drunken boxing) and the result is not that bad.

http://youtu.be/ZNyiYBDQnJU

Seeing the video, what would be my options to optimize the capture? T-shirt over long sleeves or plain long sleeves like what I used? Would additional lighting help in this case (the room was well lit but once recorded it seems a little dark)? Specific options to lock/unlock within the software?

It is hard to suggest what to improve. It seems like you pushed the technology to its limits in this take. This "drunken boxing" animation would benefit from detailed hand/wrist tracking and better shoulder tracking, but corresponding software upgrades are not expected anytime soon. Hand/wrist tracking is a particularly difficult problem for markerless mocap.

I do not think colored sleeves would help here. Seems like you have reasonably good tracking for arms in this animation. Using colored sleeves can make arms tracking a bit more reliable but I would not expect much improvement from it.