Serious fps issue: simple comps, powerful GPU+CPU

[lightbx]

Hello all,

Please forgive that my first post is a call for help. New to Resolume, studying the manual, and learning a ton from this forum. Hoping I can help others soon. I have done many searches on fps issues, but here is my specific case, wondering if anything stands out.

Working at a new venue, and inheriting a system that needs help. With just one video, Resolume plays at 20fps (if we're lucky). With 2-3 layers, no fancy effects, it drops to around 10-15fps. Anything more complex and the system reaches a horrendous 4-5fps. I think our GPU+CPU (details below) can accomplish much more than this. When a client asks us to just play the one promo video they spent top dollar producing, and it plays at 20fps, well...that's no good.

The space is set up with 5 HD projectors forming a U-shape wraparound image, plus a control monitor. Compositions are 8960 x 1200, which sounds big, but we have another machine that runs 7680 x 2160 compositions with 4K videos at 45-60fps. (I can get the specs on that machine if anyone wants to compare.) I wish I could just switch machines, but we need high performance from both.

Here are the specs for the system I must improve:

HARDWARE
Dell Precision T7610 running Windows 7 Professional (Service Pack 1)
RAM: 112GB
CPU: 2x Intel Xeon CPU E5-2570 v2 at 2.5GHz (2 processors)
GPU: 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (CUDA, 4GB VRAM each), Driver version 358.50, DirectX version 11.0
OUTPUTS:
Card 1. 3x Displayport to VGA adapter (to projectors) + 1x HDMI (to monitor)
Card 2. 1x Displayport to VGA adapter (to projector) + 1x DVI to VGA adapter (to projector)

SOFTWARE
- Resolume Arena 4 runs off of main boot disk (C:), a separate Resolume partition is not feasible for us
- All videos play from two local SSDS: 1x Samsung MZ7WD480 (480 GB) and 1x Radeon R7 (240GB)
- All videos are exported from Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015, DXV3, Normal Quality (No Alpha), 32 bit, Maximum Bit Depth, 30fps, Progressive, Frame Blending, Keyframe every 1 frame, Maximum Render Quality

THOUGHTS
I have read that it is best to only use one GPU instead of 2. To do this with our setup (6 outputs), we would need either a new GPU or triple heads. Our previous tech set this all up very recently, so I know the management doesn't want to buy anything else without being sure we need it.

I would really love to get around 5 layers, more clips, blend modes, effects, etc., to run at 30fps. If anyone has a similar setup, or has fixed this before, I would be forever grateful for your sage advice. Thanks x a million!

[Oaktown]

A few questions for you:

• What's your motherboard?
  Are the GPUs mounted on the right PCIE slots?
  Are all your VGA adapters active adapters?
  Since you're doing HD work, why are you using analog instead of digital?

[lightbx]

Thank you so much for your message, Oaktown!

Motherboard: the stock Dell T7610 Workstation Motherboard (model # NK70N), which TechRadar writes is "a full-size Extended ATX motherboard with an Intel C602 chipset." (Not sure what implications this holds for Resolume performance.)
PCIE slots: Device Manager lists one GPU in "PCI bus 4, device 0, function 0" and the other GPU in "PCI bus 3, device 0, function 0." How can I identify the proper PCIE slots for the GPUs? Further, I should mention this. Even though they are identical cards, one of them does not fit in the chassis (The top of the cover locks in, but not the bottom). This is obviously the first red flag of our setup. It seems that this computer is not meant for these video cards. I think it came with an NVIDIA Quadro card, and have included the Graphics/GPU specs in the attachments.
Adapters: None of the adapters attached to the GPUs are active (just short Displayport -> VGA cables). I should also mention our entire signal path here. The Displayport outputs go to (passive) VGA adapters, and then the VGA cables go to (active) VGA-> Ethernet adapters, (J-Tech Digital ProAV Premium Quality VGA Extender / VGA Amplifier / VGA Splitter over Ethernet Cable). The Ethernet cables then go to a second, identical adapter, back to VGA, which then enters the projectors. We installed these because our previous tech said that our VGA cables were so long that we were losing resolution on the projectors farthest from the computer, and these claim to carry signal up to 196 ft. (I am starting to suspect there are some issues with this signal path, but I am curious as to why this would affect the fps/performance of Resolume, since this is happening after the signal is sent from the GPUs.)
Analog vs. Digital: I believe our previous tech wanted to use VGA to get the maximum resolution (1920x1200) from each projector.