Whats the maximum frame rate I can achieve with an EDT PCI Framegrabber board?
Maximum frame rate is a function of the number of bytes per frame output from the camera, and the system’s maximum sustained PCI bus throughput. The first is easily caluculated — take the width x height x depth (in bytes) of the camera. For example, if your camera outputs 1024x1024x12 bits, that equates to 1024x1024x2 bytes per frame = 2,097,152 bytes, or 2MB, per frame. Modern PCs (Pentium III or later, 500Mhz or better) can generally sustain 80-90MB/sec on a 33Mhz PCI card, slot, or up to 200MB/sec with a 66MHz card in a 66MHz PCI slot. The EDT PCI DV C-Link board is a 66MHz board; all others are 33MHz boards. This means that we can get maximim frame rates of up to 45fps can be achieved with our hypothetical 1024x1024x12 bit camera on a 33Mhz EDT card such as the PCI DV, or 100fps with the PCI DV C-Link in a 66MHz slot. These figures are hypothetical — as stated above, maximum real rates will depend on the camera’s size and output speed. In general, cameras output data at fixed fra
