Computer with Roon and HQPlayer discussion.

Randy Myers

Randy Myers

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 7, 2015
Messages
6,120
Location
Kansas
I was curious what computer specs people are finding work well with Roon and HQPlayer.

I do not want to turn this into a pre-built music server/streamer versus purpose built computer as a dedicated music server discussion. We all have our opinions; so we will leave it at that for this discussion please.

I wanted to see what level machine and what results people have been obtaining. Hopefully this might help someone decide what kind of machine they should put together. I also would love to hear your results with different filters, etc.

My new machine has 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. It now has 4 drives, 2x 1 TB M.2 and 2x 500 GB 2.5" SSD drives. The operating system, software installs and my SACD rips run on one M.2 and the DSD downloads, which are by far the largest files are used from the second and fastest M.2. CD Rips and Flac downloads are on the two 2.5" SSDs.

Of course it is gold power supply with heat sinks on the M.2 drives and on the memory chips. Liquid cooled with slow spinning air intake fans that only spin up when needed (in other words almost never).

The CPU is a brand new i7 8-core monster. I choose to leave out a video card for CUDA Core off load for now. I can always add one, but I prefer not having the power needs and fan noise of a top end Nvidia card, for now.

I have been experimenting and monitoring a bit. Oh, I am up-sampling everything to DSD512/48, 24.6 Mhz.

What I am finding, in my system is that the Roon/HQPlayer combo is more CPU intensive then anything else. With monitoring I can see the HQPlayer uses a good chunk of CPU cycles compared to everything else, combined.

What I am finding is that the disks are using nothing, under 1% at all times. I was considering adding another two sticks of memory to get it up to 32 GB. However, what I am finding, non-stop full loads never use more than 25% of the memory. So really no reason to add any more.

I am finding that when up-sampling PCM files the CPU usage is between 25%-30%. I am finding that up-sampling DSD files are using between 33%-43% of the CPU cycles. I have also seen that the CPU load is distributed across all 8 cores. This definitely leads me to recommend the more cores the better as far as CPU choice.

So by far the biggest drain on the system is CPU usage.

In HQPlayer I am using the poly-sinc-short-mp filters. Previously, on my last quad-core i7 machine with a Nvidia GTX-980 I was not able to play the non-2s versions of the filters without stuttering. Now I can.

I have been hesitant to try the xtr versions of the filters since I was reading a thread where Jussi was saying that the xtr filters are 5 times as long and drove his 10 core machine to 90% usage... ouch....

So anyway, that is the results of some pretty extensive testing and what appears to affect smoothness of playback with Roon/HQPlayer the most. As always, your millage may vary.

PS... I just discovered a very strange issue with HQPlayer filters. Using the non-2s filters I found my version was not able to play PCM files with 44.1 base clock i.e. 44.1 (CD rips), and 88.2. The 2s filters play them just fine including the more demanding xtr filters.

I watched CPU usage and it appeared to be similar results as before but with the more demanding xtr filters, but using the 2s version. Interesting... HQPlayer is the best performance playback engine, by a little... but it seems to be rather funky software sometimes, in my view. As with most setup in audio, it pretty much stays the same after you get it set to your preference, or so it seems to me.

One other follow up, after doing quite a bit comparison I prefer the poly-sinc-short-mp-2s filters over the xtr version. This filter seems to have a more stable image then the xtr's, also the xtr has more "sparkle" then I prefer.
 
I am temporarily using Small Green Computer's SonicTransport i5 while awaiting delivery of the i9 server.

The i9 has HQP and Roon built in. It uses the Intel i9 "Coffee Lake" 8 core processor. 8GB RAM DDR4, SonicOrbiter Linux OS and 120GBSSD for Roon and HQP.

You can add internal storage if you want. I was surprised how much the 4 cores of the i5 were used as I upscaled to different levels. Everything I have read (doesn't make it true) was that i needed i9 and 8 cores to upsample to 256Mhz while using the filtering of HQP.

Always enjoy reading your threads. I don't understand all of it but learn something new each time. Thanks

I am amazed how much better the i5 sounds over the laptop i was using.
 
Thank you, and yea, a laptop is really not a great choice for this purpose :)...

I have found in my tests that HQPlayer appears to be very CPU intensive!

My new i7 8 cores works superbly up-sampling to DSD512/48. I imagine the i9 8 cores will work even better! It appears to me that 8-16 GB RAM is fine (I never go below 16 myself), but going to 32 GB would probably be a waste in a dedicated to being a music server only machine.

Speedy hard drives really help also. SSD is a minimal in my view. M.2 if your machine has the option is even better. The new "Samsung 970 evo plus" M.2 drive is the new speed champ (better then their more expensive "970 evo pro"). I copied 500 GB of DSD files from one M.2 drive the the other.... it was sustaining over 1 GB/sec speed.... in other words, it took 8 mins to copy half a terabyte! Going from M.2 to a 2.5" SSD took three times as long...
 
What do you mean by work well. Fast processing or sounds good. If you want good sound, it's not just software speed or lack of process power. Process power has an affect, but your not taking into account how the PS are isolated, damped and implemented. The quality of the PS. The actual case and its ability to damp vibrations. The layout of components to reduce Electro/magnetic interference.

I say all this as I just put the ADD-Power devices in my power distribution strip. The change was amazing. Enough so that It was much easier to hear the affect of different types of feet under my preamp, server and DAC. Those feet had a profound impact on the sound. I can't but not believe the time and expense Mojo Audio put into designing the case that houses my server and DAC aren't critical to the end sound. Mojo was very insistent that not only the actual case, the way it was formed and so on was critical to performance, but the actual finish that was applied also had a large affect.

Just food for thought.
 
I don't disagree. Everything is important, of course. Especially your points about quality of Power Supply and quality of the case. Even though internal vibration is becoming a much smaller factor with SSD and M.2 drives, no optical drives, minimizing fans, etc. Still, a very high quality case and high end mother board are essentially important.

I also believe, from experience, and most importantly when running HQPlayer; the CPU generation, number of cores, and speed all have a huge impacts on performance and the sound. HQPlayer has a huge impact on the sound of a music server, of any kind. Even though Roon and other music playback programs are good, when considering the actually playback engine, where the rubber meets the road, HQPlayer is the top performer.

And, of course I very much appreciate the input and opinions. I love hearing other view points, gaining knowledge from other peoples experiences is always a fantastic thing!
 
In keeping with the idea of the importance of the software and its load on the system, I am sending my Mojo server in to have the software changed from Win 10 to Linux. Ben says I should anticipate a 20% to 30% improvement in all around sonics. I have not been running Win Server 2016 because my MB does not support it. I could have bought another board and swapped everything out, but I'm just kind of busy. Trying more to just enjoy the music. I do keep getting into tweeks here and there, but altering the MB is a pretty thought intensive project.
 
I have a dedicated Falcon Northwest machine with Intel Core i7 8700k 6 Core machine.

With HQP I upsample everything to DSD512 running -2s filters and convolution filters in HQP at the same time. No problems at all.

When using just Roon (no HQP), I upsample PCM music to 352.8 and DSD music to 512DSD. I also use convolution filters when using Roon alone.
 
My computer is now about 2 1/2 years old, used with Roon and HQP. I needed something powerful enough to upconvert DSD64 to DSD256 in 6 channels. I had one built for me, the builder consulted with Jussi (of HQP) to determine the power needed and they came up with the

i7-6950X

which is 10 core 20 thread. It was pretty expensive then, apparently hasn't changed much in price in the two years. I haven't tried 512, but it handles multichannel upcoversion to 256 with no problems. I'm not a computer expert and relied on my builder and Jussi.

Larry
 
Dang, that sounds like a monster of a CPU for sure! That might possibly be more powerful then my i7-9700K.

The i7-6950X 3.00 Ghz base clock and 3.50 Ghz turbo speed. With 10 cores and 20 threads that is pretty top notch for sure.

My i7-9700K has 3.6 Ghz base clock and turbos up to 4.9 Ghz. I noticed that HQPlayer was driving it at about 4.5 Ghz on all 8 cores, but only using about 30% capacity. Both procs are fabbed at 14nm, but yours has 25 MB cache while mine has only 12 MB cache. Bottom line, both are fantastic for HQPlayer!

Can your Lampi even do multi-channel DSD512? That would be rather amazing for sure. My T+A has only 2-channel capabilities. Honestly I have never looked into anything but 2-channel :)....
 
Kingrex said:
In keeping with the idea of the importance of the software and its load on the system, I am sending my Mojo server in to have the software changed from Win 10 to Linux. Ben says I should anticipate a 20% to 30% improvement in all around sonics. I have not been running Win Server 2016 because my MB does not support it. I could have bought another board and swapped everything out, but I'm just kind of busy. Trying more to just enjoy the music. I do keep getting into tweeks here and there, but altering the MB is a pretty thought intensive project.
Click to expand...

That's cool, I hope it does a great job for you. Since I really hear a huge different with DSD, especially higher level DSD I am very satisfied with my T+A and Windows.

I see no reason of running a server edition of the OS. It is not being used in an environment where it is being hit by many machines at once and up time is really irrelevant. I know at work I run Windows Server 2016 on one of our new severs since it is running SQL Server 2016 and is serving the data to all staff in our organization. I also have no reason to run Active Directory or other server type software. I have no need for multiple CPUs (64 vs 2 capacity if I recall), redundant power supplies, etc. Everything that a server OS is designed for.

At home it is just me and Windows 10 Pro is better for the environment. I know, my "home" OS can only address 256 CPU cores. I am simply trusting that will be enough :). With the exact same hardware there is a negligible difference although the home edition is probably a touch better since it has less overhead, which is required in a enterprise environment.

I will stick with Windows 10 Pro since I believe it is as good of performance as any OS out there, but more importantly the T+A can only do DSD256 and DSD512 with Windows 10. Sound quality wise, to me and especially with HQPlayer, DSD is everything... the higher the better.
 
Randy, I have two playback DACs. My multichannel DAC is a NADAC from Merging Technologies. I use my Lampi Pacific for 2 channel files.

Larry
 
Ah, got ya. I figured you probably had something like that but I did not recognize the multi-channel DAC! Very cool indeed. I am sure your machine could provide the Lampi with incredible DSD512 :)...
 
I was talking with a friend of mine who worked at Microsoft for 20 or so years and now as a consultant. He likes music and wants to fiddle with a computer to make a server. I mentioned having Windows 10 and wanting to move to server 2016. He immediately started spouting reasons why server would be far superior to Windows 10. He's not an audio file. He just understood how server 2016 provides an uninterrupted clean flow of data where's Windows 10 is sticato and fractured as it tries to think about everything else in the computer while processing your music. Server 2016 only thinks about your music and uses buffers to ensure a clean uninterrupted flow of the music data while it might think of other limited processes.
 
That is all very cool and I can understand his concerns. My only real thought is that with current systems, multi-core processors, incredibly fast RAM, optimized motherboards, amazingly fast new M.2 drives, etc., this would be minimal. Also, if it is a 100% dedicated machine the singular thing that is being processed is music 99% of the time. I do believe part of his assumption is that a server is much more singular purpose applications; file server, database server, DNS, etc., while normal Windows 10 machines being used at home are almost always multi-tasking. This is not the case with a dedicated machine. I would be extremely surprised if there is any performance difference what so ever, but if so the higher over head on server OS might hinder it ever so slightly. The server OS is designed to run on a completely different class of machine which I would doubt many of us would be willing to have in our audio systems. The noise of these level machines alone would not allow this in a music application.
 
Randy Myers said:
That is all very cool and I can understand his concerns. My only real thought is that with current systems, multi-core processors, incredibly fast RAM, optimized motherboards, amazingly fast new M.2 drives, etc., this would be minimal. Also, if it is a 100% dedicated machine the singular thing that is being processed is music 99% of the time. I do believe part of his assumption is that a server is much more singular purpose applications; file server, database server, DNS, etc., while normal Windows 10 machines being used at home are almost always multi-tasking. This is not the case with a dedicated machine. I would be extremely surprised if there is any performance difference what so ever, but if so the higher over head on server OS might hinder it ever so slightly. The server OS is designed to run on a completely different class of machine which I would doubt many of us would be willing to have in our audio systems. The noise of these level machines alone would not allow this in a music application.
Click to expand...

Where do you get the idea that windows 10 in your hopped up computer is not constantly multi tasking. The software does not care what the hardware is. To a degree. The software has to have the correct drivers. The sofrware has its many jobs to perform in the environment of many cores. Maybe it's even noisier. I have been told by 2 manufacturer they intentionally build the most basic, low power machines possible to reduce noise. I talked about it on Audionirvana. Its like a car. A 500HP Corvette is way noisier to ride in than a low power lexus. The Corvette gets you there a lot faster, but the Lexus also gets you there. IMO, a server should be a very quiet lexus. That is why 90+% of all server manufacturer use Linux. The reason in 2 fold. 1 it does not update on you. Makes customer service issues significantly less. 2 They only build in the programs needed so the machine runs with minimal background process. That makes the whole of the operating system more quiet.

One last point. Go into your Win 10 settings. Even with Audiophile Optimizer on. Look at the list of running programs. They may not be using much power, but that list has 70 or more operations that are all running in the background all the time.
 
I know of many reasons that manufactures use Linux... working with one for some time... I can tell you many times it is not primarily SQ, other factors are involved.

There is very good reasons why Windows updates itself. When you stop all of the cyber criminals out there then there will no longer be a reason for it. Linux and iOS are just as susceptible as Windows, in many ways more.

A program sitting in memory but not actually running any tasks does not affect performance and certainly does not add any "noise"; they only take up a small amount of memory being ready if needed, but doing nothing if not... as I previously stated, the memory usage is very minimal even with super demanding programs such as HQPlayer. Also, remember that servers do the exact same thing. SQL Server, loads record sets results for every single view into memory when it is started. It does nothing with all this data until it is needed. The server looks at memory first when it needs a record set returned and if it does not find it then it goes to the database and queries it. A data architect knows this and designs data calls accordingly. This is just one small example. In most ways the two OS work in exactly the same manner, holds data in memory and looks there first. By the way, both the Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 Pro run on the exact same Kernal and are simply designed for different environments.

All OS's care about the hardware. Every single systems requires drivers to communicate with the various hardware. It is a basic concept in the computer world. No matter what your OS is you need software to communicate with your hardware, ala.... drivers (or whatever you want to call it). Firmware in the BIOS is software (drivers) that is loaded from a chip on the motherboard, etc., etc.

One last thing, I do not agree with the car analogy, sorry. The more powerful machines in computers are not necessarily more "noisy", in many ways they are far less... Higher performance lower power usage CPUs, faster lower power usage RAM, no longer using any moving parts, for example SSDs and M.2 drives, etc., and being able to put heat sinks on all of these non-moving part items to drain off any small amount of heat that is generated, among many other advancements. Therefore in the computer world higher performance many times are actually quieter machines unlike automobiles :).... again, I am sure views vary :D....

Ok, lets leave it at that. I asked to not get into the streamer versus, etc., etc... Obviously OS is also a personal choice. This discussion is about using a computer to run Roon and HQPlayer and what has worked best, what results you are getting, what filters have worked best for you, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top