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A
Anonymous
May 13, 2011
Question

Re: Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit

  • May 13, 2011
  • 3 replies
  • 21867 views

Hi Guys,

There has been a bit of discussion about being able to run Adobe software on Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit.

I am happy to announce that I am installing Adobe Creative Master Suite CS5 right now on the Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit.

It is about 21% complete and I will update again once completed and tested.

For those of you wondering why we would do such a thing, consider the following:

- Depending on the version of Windows Server 2008 you install (i.e. Standard, Enterprise, Webserver, Datacenter) you can leverage more processing power and RAM to help you complete your production task faster.

- For instance, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition allows for up to EIGHT physical cpu's and up to 2TB of RAM!  Imagine being able to encode, decode, export, render...etc all that much faster!

If this works out, here are a few tips:

- You can download Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit for FREE as a 9-day trial from Microsoft's website.

- The download INCLUDES all versions.  Microsoft's website includes a technical comparison of each, I would recommend the Enterprise Edition (non-core version) for maximum performance, although the Standard Edition (non-core version) can handle FOUR physcial cpu's but 'only' up to 32GB of RAM as opposed to 2TB from the Enterprise Edition.

- The Standard Edition is cheaper at $400 and the Enterprise version is $3000.

- Currently, the most 'practical' hardware solution to harness the power of Windows Server 2008 is to go with a 4-way (FOUR Physical) CPU motherboard.  There are currently two affordable solutions, one by Tyan and one by Supermicro.  Both are AMD based CPU's however, but currently will allow for up to 48 physical CPU's and up to 512GB of RAM.

- Supermicro H8QGi-F and Tyan TYAN S8812 (S8812WGM3NR) are the motherboard models

-  Both can take up to 512GB of ECC/Registered DDR3 memory or 128GB of the cheaper non-ECC/non-Registered memory (this is the regular RAM that every consumer-level PC has)

- I would recommend the Supermicro motherboard as it comes with 6 x SATA connectors versus only one on the Tyan motherboard.

- Also, coming this Summer 2011, AMD will have a 16 core CPU codenamed 'Interlagos" that can easily be popped into these motherboards giving you a theoretical 4 x 16core = 64 core system!!!!

- The NVIDIA QUADRO graphics cards are officially supported under Windows Server 2008 R2.  However for those with the normal Geforce graphics cards, you can just use the Windows 7 64-bit drivers as I did with my Geforce GTX 295, and it works great so far!

UPDATE:

Inserting disc 2.....  I'll keep you guys posted!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    LeoSSom
    LeoSSom
    Participating Frequently
    June 30, 2016

    Gosh , what a sad thing , did not know he had passed away.

    Regarding the site PPBM , the few days I learned to new PPBM 7 , even made my registration , I verified the email, but have not received the approval e-mail .

    Very sad the death of Mr. Millaard , he was very present here in adobe forum.

    A
    Anonymous
    January 6, 2013

    Did you have to do anything differently to install it? I can get all the trail products to go all the way through and say intializing install but after that nada.

    Harm_Millaard
    Harm_Millaard
    Inspiring
    May 13, 2011

    Interesting effort. Let us know how you progress, but I'm not convinced you will see significant performance gains. BFTB-wise (bang-for-the-buck) this does not look appealing. We have one dual AMD Opteron system with 16 cores in the PPBM5 Benchmark and that system is still around three times slower than a finely tuned i7-950 or i7-920, despite 40 GB memory. If you add the cost of Server Enterprise and the ECC memory, it looks like you are better off with a superb disk I/O system and then SATA connectors are completely irrelevant. Even quadrupling the number of cores by using eight physical CPU's with 64 cores will not result in a four time performance gain to bypass a lowly 920.

    A
    Anonymous
    May 13, 2011

    Well what I notice about benchmarks is that they are merely objective.  Of course measurements such as encode time or export time

    matters, however what benchmarks can't measure is the user's experience.

    Consider the case when your workflow becomes choppy or non-responsive, or being able to process a queue of exports while working on another edit, these are things I believe more cores and more RAM can help.

    Imagine being able to ingest, edit, export and write to a distribution media (i.e. burning a bluray disc) all at once.  This is something more cores and more ram can do for sure.

    Again, this project is for the professional who's time is exponentially more valuable than most, whereas the average joe may not find this solution cost efficient.

    I should also add that with the increasing presence of higher quality recording devices/camcorders such as the Atomos Ninja (4:2:2 ProRes) and Sony PMW-F3 with S-Log 4:4:4 recording, files are getting ever larger and larger.  The upcoming RED Epic is going to record video at well over 1GB a second!  Even the prosumer RED Scarlet is going to be near half a GB per second!

    So more cores and more RAM is going to be necessary in the very near future to deal with such large and high resolution video files!

    I should also note that many users who install Windows Server Operating Systems as their workstation OS have reported that it is more stable and more quicker than the consumer Windows counterpart.  It is also more stable and harder to crash.  This performance + reliability may also attract professionals looking for a robust yet more efficient work environment.

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