System capabilities

nagar

I noticed what looks like a discrepancy in your system requirements calculator for the Mac Studio.

Based on my system parameters, the current M2 Max 12-core 3.2 GHz supports less than half the number of cameras as the previous M1 Max 10-core 3.2 GHz. Doesn't make sense to me, unless something else about the tested configurations, e.g. RAM, somehow explains the difference.

Thanks.

Ben

You're right, this doesn't seem correct. The calculator uses real-word testing results from our Video Codec Test utility in order to generate these results. It's possible that we have incomplete data for this particular machine. Could you please run this on your machine: agree to the prompt to share test results with us, and then run all tests in the "H.264 and H.265" suite. This will contribute to our database or results, and will allow us to improve the accuracy of the calculator.

nagar

Once I have my new Mac Studio, I will be happy to post results from your codec test.

Ben

Great, please do so, it will be very interesting to see the specific results you get, and also very helpful for you to share these via the test app.

nagar

Hi Ben. I ran your codec test on my new Mac Studio, being careful to quit all video or CPU intensive apps. Hope this helps!

nagar

P.S. Just for reference, this is a base model M2 Mac Studio. The only upgrade is 1TB SSD storage.

Ben

Hi @nagar many thanks for running the tests, however I don't see that this data has come through to us. Did the test utility display a message asking you to share the results with us, and did you agree to this? Did you run all decoding tests? Do you have any kind of connection-blocking software installed (e.g. "Little Snitch") that may be preventing the app from sending us the results? It seems that we still have some data missing for this machine, which is why the calculator isn't giving accurate results.

nagar

That's odd as I do recall agreeing to share the results.

I just deleted and reinstalled your test app (the only way I could get the data sharing request back) and made certain to agree to it. I re-ran all the tests. If the results still don't come to you I'll have to do some more investigating, as to my knowledge I don't have anything restricting outgoing data such as Little Snitch. Just let me know.

I know this is just a test utility, but maybe add a confirmation at the end that tests were successfully completed and transmitted?

Ben

Thanks for trying again @nagar. When the app loads, it displays some information about the system. Could you post a screenshot of this please? I'd like to check that this lines up with the details we are expecting for this machine.

Meanwhile, we'll work on adding a confirmation that the test results were submitted.

nagar

Sure, Ben:

Ben

Many thanks for this. I've investigated further, and found a problem that could prevent the results from being uploaded. I've also added feedback to confirm whether the results were successfully uploaded or not. Please grab the new 1.5 version from the Video Codec Test download page and do another full run of the H.264 and H.265 test suite. The upload report will be shown after all tests have finished. Does it indicate that the uploads were successful?

nagar

I re-ran the tests with the 1.5 version. It reported 24 runs uploaded successfully.

I checked the option to include internal hardware, assuming that's what you want. Happy to re-run the test without that if that would help.

BTW again the only way I could get the initial request for permission to upload the results to reappear was to comprehensively uninstall the app (I used CleanMyMac X) and reinstall the updated 1.5 version. I did that to make certain that permission was in fact granted.

Ben

Great - it worked and we have the results. This has allowed us to update our calculator with more accurate information for this Mac. Many thanks for your help!

The new version of the test app will ask for permission to upload results every time it's opened, if permission hasn't previously been given. So if you open it and it doesn't ask for permission, this means that permission has already been granted and that the results will be uploaded.