How many fps with your high speed camera?

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Brett
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How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Brett »

I have the ZWO Asi 174. I tried all different settings today and the best I can get at full resolution,1920, is about 50fps for about 30 seconds before running out of most ram which after the fps drops to avg 25.

When doing ROI at 1280, I can get 70fps for much longer than I care for. Probably indefinitely.

However, what fps do you get on these usb high speed cameras when running at 1920? Any advise to get more fps?

Note I have already played with high speed settings. My hdd is 5400rpm and I'm supposed to have 4gb of ram plus definitely using usb 3 ports.

I have posted this at Cloudy Nights as well, but o would like the opinions of you guys since Im using my camera for solar work.


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by pstew »

For solar 20fps is plenty, if you do want to go faster a solid state drive will help a lot


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Brett »

Thanks Paul


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Gordon Ewen »

Brett, the speed you are seeing is almost certainly limited by your laptop. I am running a Dell XPS15 with 16 GB RAM and a SSD and I can get 120fps at full resolution.
If I use a laptop with HDD (i7 processor 16 Gb RAM) it can't cope; initially it runs at 120 fps but then drops and I think the data can't be written to the HDD fast enough. I have tried trying to download the data direct to an external SSD but that doesn't work very well.
I think it's all about having an internal SSD.
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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by rxdeath »

yea ssd or bust, and i personally would be unhappy with 20fps, i aim for 85% histogram and do everything i can do keep under 5ms exposure time. for solar i am regularly in the 120-170 fps range, i obviously use roi for some. i know i took a close up of the last sunspot at tiny roi and was getting something ridculous, i'll try and find the capture log and post it.

my old i5 with an ssd upgrade destroys my buddies new i7 with a 7200rpm. it's not even close, double his frame rates at least.


found it, the picture is crap, but that is really more my processing than the camera ability, also i must have screwed up because i only take 40 second captures of planets:

Frames captured=22093
File type=AVI
Binning=no
ROI=256x212
FPS (avg.)=549
Shutter=1.776ms
Gain=0
USBTraffic=80
HighSpeed=off
Brightness=0
SoftwareGain=10 (off)
AutoExposure=off
Gamma=50 (off)
Histogramm(min)=99
Histogramm(max)=227
Histogramm=89%

fpsshot.png
fpsshot.png (62.16 KiB) Viewed 9567 times


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by MapleRidge »

Hi Brett...

The stated high frame rates will be hard to realize in the field...at least in my experience.

Very short exposure and small ROI will certainly keep the frame rate up, and a fast hard drive or internal SSD will certainly cut the risk of dropped frames.

Once you go with a full frame, and any exposure in the 10's of ms the frame rate will not likely meet the stated Max.

Just me experiences,
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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Astrograph »

The frame rate a camera is capable of is also affected by the bit depth and if the format is mono or raw. Raw is faster but can lead to more dropped frames. 12 bit is faster than 16 but I know of no capture programs that support 12 bit capture, they all jump to 16 bit. Some cameras like Point Grey have different Mode settings which enhance quality but will have a negative impact on frame rate.

Also remember that exposure time limits frame rate. 20ms is 50FPS max no matter what you do.

Its all about finding the best combination of settings for your system.

rxdeath. Your image is what I consider an example of non optimum use of the camera.

1) Your capture period is 40 seconds. That is way too long and will just mean you are stacking frames with surface features in different places leading to motion blur. If you are getting to 549FPS then why expose for more than 2 seconds unless your camera is very noisy?
2) Your exposure of 1.773ms actually equates to 564FPS so something is reducing frame rate. If your system won't go any faster than 549FPS then increase the shutter speed to match it (1.821ms). These shutter times are ridiculously low anyway and probably introduce artifacts to the image.

I am a bit confused as to how you can be at 1.8ms anyway with no gain yet still manage a histogram of 89%!


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by GreatAttractor »

Astrograph wrote: 1) Your capture period is 40 seconds. That is way too long and will just mean you are stacking frames with surface features in different places leading to motion blur. If you are getting to 549FPS then why expose for more than 2 seconds unless your camera is very noisy?
Rupert, we've addressed this in another thread. If you capture a huge amount of frames in just 2 seconds, you're not following the lucky imaging principle (or not as well as you could). Most of frames will show the same state of atmosphere (they'll still be good for increasing SNR, but not for catching least-blurred moments). 40 seconds is not necessarily too long, depends on your imaging scale. I've used up to 45 seconds with my Mak 180 at 2700 mm with very good results.
Astrograph wrote: 2) Your exposure of 1.773ms actually equates to 564FPS so something is reducing frame rate. If your system won't go any faster than 549FPS then increase the shutter speed to match it (1.821ms). These shutter times are ridiculously low anyway and probably introduce artifacts to the image.

I am a bit confused as to how you can be at 1.8ms anyway with no gain yet still manage a histogram of 89%!
Hmm, this is a perfectly normal exposure time. With my setup (single-stacked Lunt etalon + Baader D-ERF, PGR Chameleon 3 mono w. ICX445, at ~f/11.2) I use around 0.7 ms (gain = zero), this gives 90-100% histogram. For white light, I've used anywhere from 0.4-17 ms depending on the setup. No artifacts/noticeable noise whatsoever.


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by rxdeath »

yes, as i said i made some mistakes, and i'm hardly an expert, but a 40 second sun capture is very rare for me, i would guess i had the limit set to a certain size file, and because of the tiny roi it took 40 seconds to reach it.

this is far from an example of how to use a camera best, rather just an answer to the question, how many fps on your high speed camera. i just grep'd my capture folder for fps and then looked for the highest one. the next highest after this was around 160fps which is way closer to typical, rarely do i go much under 60fps.

i can regularly get 85-90% histogram with 1-5ms exposure times on a asi174. i have a skyris 132m and that seems even more sensitive, i have used less than 1ms on that one. both instances i used no gain, gain (for me) is just used when i have done something to the train to slow it down (ds, barlow) and i need to cheat off the gain to keep my times as low as possible. i find going over 150-200 gain has an image impact, but under that and i can't tell the difference.

if the full capture log is interesting to anyone, i'm happy to post it


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by GuillermoBarrancos »

4 GB of RAM is nothing these days as the OS, drivers, services and other background processes can easily already take 2 GB of RAM away, leaving you with just 2 GB of RAM left, which you won't use all, as the OS will start swapping long before that.

So that is problem one.

The 5400 rpm harddrive is your next problem. You will never be able to achieve the max framerates, even with good USB3 drivers, due to the limitations of that drive. It simply cannot write the data to disk fast enough.

An internal SSD is an absolute minimum to have and having at least 8 GB of RAM will greatly help too. As recording at 1920 and high framerates will create huge files very quickly.

Seeing a combination of 5400rpm disk and 4 GB of RAM, it feels like a very low end Laptop/PC. So the CPU and chipset can also become a limiting factor.
As latop/PC manufacturers try to squeeze out Maximum Revenue by putting cheapest possible in their systems.
And if it's a HP or Dell system, you better try keep up to date with latest drivers, as they are Notorious with wonky drivers!
I have an end 2015 Dell XPS 15 Laptop for work and still suffering from wonky drivers 6 months later! /shrug


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Astrograph »

GreatAttractor, I accept that lucky imaging would normally require a longer period to capture the moments of 'good' seeing. However with solar I see negative effects, particularly with Prom's due to the movement over this time. I guess I have also become used to using and supplying our customers SSM's. This tool shows that average or poor seeing can actually last quite a while but when very good seeing comes along, it normally hang around for a good 10-15 seconds within which there will be some very very good seeing. Of course lucky imaging will capture that period but still runs the risk of stacking images with different features.

Re the exposure time, I guess I have become to used to rear mounted chromosphere filters running at F28+!


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Merlin66 »

I'm very interested in this discussion as I hope to record (1960 x 32 pixel) at >400 fps for fast SHG capture.
I have the camera, ASI 174MM but I haven't yet found the USB 3 computer......


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Astrograph »

Merlin66, your sensor is 1920x1200 so I assume the 1960 is a typo. Do you really want to have an image only 32 pixels high??

In any case you will find that when changing the ROI, reducing the effective height of the sensor has less effect on FPS than reducing the width.

You will find Firecapture quite useful for assessing frame rate as it displays max and actual as you play around with the ROI.

With USB3 it is a bit of a lottery. To ensure you get the best from a USB3 port, make sure nothing else is connected to any other USB3 ports. Laptops usually have one USB3 host controller for all the ports so it ends up sharing the bandwidth across them. According to Point Grey, their Grasshopper with IMX174 will use 93% of the available USB3 specification running at 162FPS and 1920x1200. The ZWO is a bit slower than a Grasshopper but even so I would expect up to 90% to be used. Main CPU performance is not that important. I use an i3 based laptop that has only one USB3 port. I can max out an IMX252 Grasshopper with that which uses 95% of the USB3 bandwidth. The key is having a good SSD fitted because a regular HDD cannot write data fast enough before the RAM buffer is full.

Also, unless it is a really good cable, do not have a USB3 cable more than 2m long.


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by Merlin66 »

Sorry,
the ROI will probably be 32 x 1920 pixel - we only need enough width to record the full extent of the nominated central wavelength, and the max pixel height to record, if possible, the full height of the solar disk.


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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by christian viladrich »

I can run my Basler 1920-155 (IMX174 sensor) at 155 fps in 8 bits acquisition. I have a Samsumg 840 Pro SDD. My USB3 cable is 3 m long.
I also have the SSM and the Robofocus controler connected on the other USB3 ports of my laptop.
Max duration allowed for the video depends on resolution and on wavelenght.
in a nutshell, running fast does make a huge difference in high resolution solar imaging.

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Re: How many fps with your high speed camera?

Post by marktownley »

christian viladrich wrote:in a nutshell, running fast does make a huge difference in high resolution solar imaging.
Totally agree at hi-res closeups. With full disks etc not as important.


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