Hardware upgrades for roadhog 4

Hello,

You can upgrade the hard drive but besides that I would not recommend any changes. The motherboard and its components are not consumer grade and the console uses them to help identify platform type. An upgrade of the motherboard to the 4-21 motherboard is not offered as far as I know and definitely not tested. The faders are very different and cannot be swapped out.

The loading of the library gets longer the more fixtures and data are in the library and the data increased greatly in 4.0.0. Preferences also loads some data as well so that's why it takes a second. After the first time preferences should open at normal speed.

I realize this should have been posted in the technical questions section.  I did not see it before.

Question 1 Part 1 Ram - Answer: 4GB 1066/1333 DDR3 per slot.  We can get 8GB at 1333MHz or 16GB at 1066MHz

8GB (4GB x 2 Module) 240 Pin non-ECC DDR3 Kits can be picked up still new in the packaging for $10-$20.

Answer found here at the manufacturers website:

http://advdownload.advantech.com/productfile/Downloadfile5/1-123JVE0/AIMB-581_user_manual_Ed1.pdf

Page 10 Section 1.9 System Memory:

"AIMB-581 has four 240-pin memory sockets for 1066/1333 MHz memory modules with maximum capacity of 16GB(Maximum 4GB for each DIMM). AIMB-581QG2 supports only non-ECC DDR3 memory modules and do not support registered DIMMs (RDIMMs)"

From Crucials website:

Non-ECC (also called non-parity) modules do not have this error-detecting feature. Any chip count not divisible by nine indicates a non-parity memory module. Using ECC decreases your computer's performance by about 2 percent.

Question 1 Part 2 SSD - Answer: there is no problem installing as large as a 2TB SSD, they're just expensive.  A 500GB to 1TB will be the most cost efficient.

Some pros about having a seemingly oversized drive:

1.  Last much longer as it takes more time to write over the much larger number of memory locations.  This comes up a lot in forums when discussing which M.2 NVMe drive to get and why.  The rule of thumb was to get a small one just for the OS and a huge one for your main drive and throw in some SSD's for long term storage or RAID configuration.  Now we shove the largest drive affordable everywhere.

2.  Without going into insane detail, the speed of the larger drives is usually higher than the smaller ones, even if not specifically listed on packaging.  This can help with things like boot time, extremely slow fixture library or preference window loading, and will even run ever so slightly cooler.

Cons:

They're not M.2, which at this point at cheaper and much faster, even the gen 1's...

Question 2:  Processors - Answer:  This is a little more complicated, short answer is yes either an i7 or Xeon E3, long answer is maybe.

i7-2600 - $10-$30 if you can find it.  Gives a noticeable bump in base clock, allows the machine to turbo and provides faster discrete graphics.

Xeon E3-1275 - $300, easy to find.  Gives the same performance as the i7 but is rated for servers, so.... mo betta for a lighting console.

Location for this answer:

Based on the Motherboard manufacturers information: "The AIMB-581 is designed for LGA1155, Intel Xeon and Intel Core i7/Core i5/Core i3/
Pentium/Celeron processor"

The Actual list of these processors can be broken down into two categories

Server/Enterprise: Xeon E3-1275, Xeon E3-1225

Consumer grade:
Core i7-2600, Core i5-2400, Core i3-2120, Pentium G850, Celeron G540

The RoadHog 4 uses a Pentium G850, the G here stands for Graphics and is most certainly a consumer grade component.  It has a fixed clock of 2.9 GHz, 2 Cores, and a low level of cache.  It's saving grace is its low TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 65W vs the 95W of every faster CPU in this line up.

The question then becomes one of can the power supply handle the extra 30W?  Probably, but it's better to check.  Other than that, they all use the same instruction sets, have all of the features of the G850 and more.

Part of the long answer has to do with how custom the custom Kernel Hog4 is using. Ideally, they would have left the hardware support alone.