Andy, I configured Multipsk as you described and the CPU usage seems to average about 5 percent. Panoramic mode is about the same. I've included a few screen shots so you could see the results.
Mixw seems to tax the CPU the same way as Multipsk does, but Fldigi needs a bit more to run - CPU usage jumped to 10%. I guess it's the difference in RAM. Would like to hear how the Vista laptop works out. Please let use know. Tony -K2MO PS: We're about the same here Andy, thanks for asking. Still waiting for research to catch up with type-I. Hope all is well with you and yours my friend. ----- Original Message ----- From: Andy obrien To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 3:55 PM Subject: Re: [digitalradio] SDR-Radio with DM780 20M Digital Band Tony, my shack PC sounds like yours. A Dell P4, 2.3 CPU , but only 1 gig of RAM. Perhaps we can compare current system resource utilization for regular Multipsk ? Regular Multipsk in PSK31 mode with a 4,3 Khz waterfall uses 25 % of CPU. With RS ID on , about the same 25-26% With Panoramic decode.. CPU increases to around 30%. Then Multipsk with Direct I/Q mode invoked , CPU increases to 60% Then RS ID in SDR /IQ direct invoked, Multipsk uses 90% of my CPU. The above is JUST Multipsk related, obviously other applications , like a web browser being open, add more demand. My daughter is away skiing this weekend, so I may "borrow" her Vista laptop and do a comparison. I do not know what is realistic for Multipsk with all its SDR receive capability and RS ID. I don;t really understand what actual performance increase one could expect if CPU was 3.0 Ghz rather than 2.3, Also not sure what performance improvement going to a dual core around the same clock speed would produce. On my shack PC, Multipsk seems "close" , I am guessing if I could eek out another 10% it would run just fine. I'm reluctant to put more RAM in to an old machine, but I do have a compatible 1 Gig memory chip that i could pilfer from another PC and see if 2 gigs of RAM ease demand on the CPU. I'm guessing it would not make much difference. I do have plenty of HD space. Hope you and the family are all OK, Andy. Andy On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Tony <d...@optonline.net> wrote: Andy, I plan on switching to SDR in the near future. My current PC is a dual CPU 2.2GHz Dell with 3 GHz RAM. Any idea what the minimum PC requirement is to run Multipsk with SDR? Could you also tell us what processor you're running now? Thanks, Tony -K2MO ----- Original Message ----- From: Andy obrien To: digitalradio Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 9:11 AM Subject: [digitalradio] SDR-Radio with DM780 20M Digital Band One of the things that I wanted to accomplish with an SDR receiver, is the ability to keep an eye on the whole 14065 to 14115 frequency range. If I was down on 14074 monitoring ALE 400 traffic, I would miss Olivia signals that popped up in the 14109 area. I would also miss Hell signals at 14068. Now the SDR affords the opportunity to keep an eye all all at once. My venture in to SDR from a digital mode perspective has led to a discovery that, other than Multipsk, the current state of the art does not support direct monitoring of wider I/Q data. I'm also challenged in that my PC cannot cope with the Multipsk CPU demand when I try direct monitoring. So, at the moment I am visually monitoring signals with the SDR and using traditional software methods to decode the 3-4 kHz of audio that is fed from the SDR to applications like DM780 or Fldigi. At this screen shot http://www.obriensweb.com/sdrdm780.jpg you will see how it appears. I am simply using DM780 and SDR-Radio software together. When I need to transmit, I just use my TS2000 after dialing in the signal discovered by the SDR receiver. Simon HB9DRV will likely "integrate" these two applications later in 2010. I did catch a Russian on RTTY this morning that I would have otherwise missed while I was slumming it in PSK31-land.. Multisk does RS-ID over this entire 14065-14115 portion, and DM780 is likely going to include this ability in the future. If people use RS-ID often enough, it will be really "cool" to monitor 14065-14115 and get RS ID alerts. So, just over a week playing around with the SDR receiver... I see the potential... digital mode applications are not quite "there" yet. When they are "there" (as in Multipsk) my PC isn't. This $41.00 Ebay PC may eventually get retired for a slightly improved one with better CPU. OK, back to keeping an eye on 14065-14115. A-ha, an SV3 calling CQ RTTY, 14082. Andy K3UK
