System Requirements Calculator Question
I have an iMac with the following specs: (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017), 3.8 GHz Intel Core i5, 24GB Memory, Radeon Pro 580 8192 MB. I have 14 cameras, 20fps, H.264, 3MP. Plugging these values into your calculator the overall estimated CPU usage shows 5% usage. I used Motion-detection recording and Light occasional streaming of some cameras, which fits my environment. When SS is Not running the System + User CPU averages about 36%. However, when SS is running displaying no cameras SS CPU is 41% (not 5%) and System + User is 53%. When all cameras are displayed SS CPU is 69% and System + User is 61%. My question concerns the disparity of 5% estimated CPU vs the percentage CPU usage I am observing.
Comments
Note that the CPU usage shown in Activity Monitor for individual running applications is the usage of ONE core of your CPU. So if your CPU has 4 cores, then you need to divide this number by 4 to get that application's overall CPU usage. So if SecuritySpy is shown with a usage of 41%, then this corresponds to only 10% of your 4-core Mac's total CPU capacity.
Opening the "All Cameras" window will indeed result in higher CPU usage, caused by displaying so many high-resolution cameras to the screen at once. Currently, the calculator does not take into account the extra CPU usage required for video windows, but this would probably be a good thing for us to add I think. Many users use SecuritySpy purely as a headless server, but many others (like yourself) do use the interface of the software and the video windows, and it would be useful for the calculator to take this into account.