Hello, some advice pls…
I’m currently trialling Pix4dMapper and pulling my hair out with the processing times on step 1 on my laptop (HP Envy 360), I’ve been thinking about purchasing an external GPU, but before I did, I wanted to make sure it would help. My laptop is equipped with an AMD Radeon Vega 8 GPU and while step 1 is running, the GPU is barely being utilised, 3-5% only.
Should Pix4d be utilising the GPU more in my current setup? If so, how/what do I change to make it do so?
Thanks!
Hi Adrian,
The Pix4Dmapper is compatible with any GPU that is compatible with OpenGL 3.2 or above. That means that Pix4Dmapper should work with low performances Intel integrated graphics card HD 4000 and above. However, for faster processing, Pix4Dmapper also uses the processing power of GPUs that are compatible with Nvidia CUDA 9.1 and above (with the latest drivers installed). This allows increasing the performance in Pix4Dmapper, especially during step 1 and with large projects. That is why we recommend using a GPU that is compatible with CUDA. Any Nvidia GPU: GTX, Mobile, Tesla, Titan or Quadro, that is compatible with the CUDA version 9.1 and with the latest drivers will be used during the processing. We recommend using GeForce GPU because they are usually cheaper with regards to the performances in comparison with other graphics cards such as Quadro for example.
Regrettably, we don’t support OpenCL. Therefore, you won’t be able to use the AMD card for computation as you can do with NVIDIA. However, in Step 1, the essential component is the CPU. In some subprocesses, we use all its resources, in others not. As successful processing with software like Pix4Dmapper depends on a balanced system, you would have to ensure your computer set up doesn’t have any bottleneck problems. You can use the Puget Systems Benchmark Tool for Pix4D to quickly compare the performance of your computer to other workstations.
Best!