60% performance increase after checking "Use CPU when performing..."

[Arie]

Hi all,
actually this is not a bug but more of a heads-up to fellow Metashape users.

I'm currently running some tests to compare different settings. During my test, I noticed a significant boost in performance when checking "Use CPU when performing GPU accelerated processing" even though it says "When using dedicated GPUs please turn off ... CPU for optimal perfomance".
Here are the times (Metashape 1.6.5):

Unchecked:          6 hours 25 min (Depth maps), 32min (Build model)
Checked:               4 hours 9 min (Depth maps), 32min (Build model)
Unchecked 1.7:  1 hours 56 min (Depth maps), 35 min (Build model)
Checked 1.7:       2 hours 8 min (Depth maps) , 32 min (Build model)
 
Additional information: 269x 36mp images of a animal skull (i.e. turntable style data acquisition). Depthmap-based reconstruction in ultra high quality.
System: Threadripper 3960X, 256GB 3200 CL16, 1080ti, Samsung Evo Plus 970 Raid0 2TB.

My guess for the significant increase in performance is the high CPU core count of the 3960X. So it might be only helpful when using an HEDT system.
What I also find very interesting is the additional performance improvement of 1.7.0.11429. Speed-wise this is on-par with competing software. I'll be posting some comparisions in the 1.7 thread.
Hope this helps someone.
Cheers,
Arie.

[PolarNick]

Hi Arie! Cool!

Can you please tell how much slower depth maps in 1.7 when CPU usage is unchecked (of course if you will have time for running this additional test)?

[Arie]

Hi PolarNick,
I updated the original post. Seems as if there were some internal changes.
Cheers!

p.s. I've noticed with another datasets (UAV images), that the reduction in processing times between checked/ unchecked seems to be largely dependend on the type of data acquisition- I'm still doing some testing, will update.

[PolarNick]

Interesting, thanks a lot!