Denizens of Stack Overflow I require your knowledge. I am working on a video processing system utilizing WPF and basic C# .NET socket communications. Each client transmits video data at 30 frames per second to a server across a LAN environment for processing. Some of the processing is handled by each of the clients to mitigate server load.
I have learned programing in an environment in which hardware limitations have never been a concern. Video changes that.. "Hello World" did not prepare me for this to say the least. Implementation of either of these two prospective methods is not a serious issue. Determination of which I should devote my time and energy to is where I require assistance.
I have two options (but open to suggestions!) assuming hardware limits the clients from producing as close to real time results as possible:
--Queued Client-- Client processes a queue of video frames. Each frame is processed and then sent via TCP packets to the server for further analysis. This system only processes a single frame at a time, in order of sensor capture, and transmits it to the server via a static socket client. *This system fails to take advantage of modern multi-core hardware.
--Threaded Client-- The client utilizes threaded (background worker) processing and transmission of each frame to the server. Each new frame triggers a new processing thread as well as the instantiation of a new network communication class. *This system utilizes modern hardware but may produce serious timing concerns.
To the heart of my inquiry, does threaded communication produce mostly-in-order communication? I already plan to synch video frames between the clients on the server end... but will data delivery be so far out of order as to create a new problem? Recall that this is communication across a local network.
More importantly, will instantiating a new socket communication class as well as a new (simple) video processing class create enough overhead that each frame should NOT be queued or processed in parallel?
The code is just starting to take shape. Hardware of the client systems is unknown and as such their performance cannot be determined. How would you proceed with development?
I am a college student. As such any input assists me in the design of my first real world application of my knowledge.
There is only one valid response to "is performance of XXXXXXX sufficient" - try and measure.
In your case you should estimate
When you estimate the requirements - see if it looks reasonable (i.e. having 10Tb/second of incoming data can't be handled by any normal machine, while 100Mb/s may work with normal 1Gb network).
Than build most basic version of the system possible (i.e. use ASP.Net to build single page site and post files to it at required speed, for "processing" use Thread.Sleep) and observe/measure results.
As for you "will creation of an object be slow" - extremely unlikely to matter for your case as you plan to send huge amount of data over network. But this is extremely easy to try yourself - StopWatch + new MyObject() will show you detailed timing.