PC Requirements for Star Tools

[sandconp]

I have been a PixInsight User for a couple of years and thought I would try Star Tools. So far as I am very impressed with the ease of the tool but I am concerned about speed. What type of PC requirements are recommended for this product?

And I currently running a Laptop Intel Core I-5 4300UCPU @ 1.90GHz 2,50GHz with 8 GB of memory.

[admin]

I have been a PixInsight User for a couple of years and thought I would try Star Tools. So far as I am very impressed with the ease of the tool but I am concerned about speed. What type of PC requirements are recommended for this product?

And I currently running a Laptop Intel Core I-5 4300UCPU @ 1.90GHz 2,50GHz with 8 GB of memory.

Hi and welcome to the ST forums!

I believe I responded to your email with a similar question, but I will answer here as well;

Indeed, StarTools is an unapologetic memory and resource hog. When it comes to low-signal astrophotography, "regular" old algorithms are not sufficient and more rigorous, brute force approaches are warranted to make the most of your prized signal. StarTools implements these more advanced algorithms in spades, augmented at every step by its pervasive signal evolution Tracking (which keeps tabs on per-pixel signal vs noise evolution). As such, all components of your system will be given a workout and all CPU cores and threads are loaded up where possible. The features and flexibility you get in return though, is absolutely worth the CPU, memory and storage resources.

The StarTools 1.6 development versions implement a great number of optimizations that may alleviate some pressure on some systems (in addition to new features and other improvements). You may wish to give these a spin if you haven't done so.

Thank you also for sharing your specs; it's very helpful.

8GB is a the lower end of what is needed to run StarTools, but should usually be enough to process images ~12MP in size comfortably.
The weakest link here, by a wide margin, is your CPU. Intel's older U series of CPUs (i3, i5 and even i7) are only 2-core, 4-thread parts with very low clock speeds. They are great for keeping power consumption down and yield excellent battery life. Unfortunately they accomplish this by being low on raw processing grunt. It's not the end of the world - it just means longer processing times. Indeed binning will dramatically (exponentially) cut processing times, as does judicious use of previews. Be sure to try the 1.6 versions. Your i5 4200U is one of the first CPUs to support AVX2, so try the new (in 1.6) AVX2-specific executable for a small speed boost as well.

Laptops with 4-core Intel QM-series processors or the more recent 4-core AMD Ryzen U processors are a lot more powerful. They yield performance that is roughly twice as fast their older siblings.
If you intend to do a lot of (CPU-heavy) processing or rendering, you can pick up "old" OEM desktop systems (Dell, Lenovo, HP) with 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen i7 processor very cheaply these days. Depending on where you live, universities, offices, eBay, etc. will usually have a lot of them. They are easily upgraded with more RAM, SSD drives, etc. These should yield roughly 2.5x - 3x the performance of your i5 4200U.

Finally, if you are familiar with PixInsight, this post/table should be quite helpful with terminology translation and what the major differences are between the two engines.

Any questions, comments, do let me know. Hope this helps!

[sandconp]

Thank you so much for the detail response.

I have another computer an ASUS with 12GB of memory, Intel Core i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.59 GHz but I don't have an SSD drive on this computer. I would think that this would be a big improvement over my i-5 with 8 GB of memory.

So I am going to work on the same image that I tested earlier with Star Tools on my i-5 to see if I can see a noticeable improvement. I would not think having a SSD would make a big difference.

Please Advise.

Conrad

[admin]

Thank you so much for the detail response.

I have another computer an ASUS with 12GB of memory, Intel Core i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.59 GHz but I don't have an SSD drive on this computer. I would think that this would be a big improvement over my i-5 with 8 GB of memory.

So I am going to work on the same image that I tested earlier with Star Tools on my i-5 to see if I can see a noticeable improvement. I would not think having a SSD would make a big difference.

Please Advise.

Conrad

No problem Conrad!

An SSD vs mechanical drive will make less of a difference while within a module. Provided no virtual RAM is used (e.g. you have enough physical RAM), most disk access happens in between modules (after 'Keep'-ing an image). This disk access is caused by the Tracking data mining, which back and forward propagates the changes through time. With larger datasets this means routinely shifting around many gigabytes of data. In 1.6 this disk access is somewhat reduced and compression is applied.

Like the i5, the i7-6500U is also a 2-core, 4-thread part and (according to benchmarks) should yield a modest 20% performance improvement over the older i5. The extra 4GB could certainly help if the 8GB of the i5 was constraining you previously.

Do let me know your findings! Also, if you wish for me to have a look at any dataset you've produced and do a personalised workflow, likewise, do let me know.