Choppy output.

BillInSoFL

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So I finally made the effort to try to get my pixels into LSP. I have a few hundred in now spread across several controllers but when I add a macro and play the output it's choppy as hell.
Running the latest LSP on Win8 x64. Quad -core machine. When I play in the visualizer everything looks good. Looks like I'm going to keep using Madrix for the time being.

Any suggestions?
 

AAH

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I don't know too much about either LSP or pixels but I'd be wondering if the refresh/repeat rate of the E1.31 data is set too low. Instead of the 30mS or thereabouts that dmx can do it may be refreshing at 100mS or something fairly slow.
 

BradsXmasLights

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I have the same problem :mad:

Despite increasing transition frame rate and adjusting the 'effect generation interval' - even on a i7 - it still doesn't look 100% smooth. High speed multi-colour wipes look jerky. It's like the pixel strip has been grouped in to sections of ~4 or ~8 segments together - rather than a smooth slide of each segment working indepdently. It's most noticable on high-contrasting effects

However looking at my video from last year - I didn't have the problem then! (although i had a lot less pixels) I'm thinking I might uninstall LSP on my playout machine and see what happens.
 

BradsXmasLights

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Actually this may be my problem...
[attachimg=1]
Using the image shifter macro - maybe the image speed is too fast? :-\

I wonder what happens if the shifter speed is set to the slowest, but then the macro is looped more (to speed it up again???)
 

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BillInSoFL

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I'm seriously starting to question my LSP purchase. It can't even drive a few hundred pixels. I've got 9000 pixels setup in Madrix and it runs smooth as butter. I shouldn't have to do cheesy workarounds just to get the bare minimum functionality out of a product.

Guess I'll keep running Madrix this year and look for an real alternative in the off season. Did I mention I run Madrix on the same machine that's running LSP for my Renards :) And no, when I'm running Madrix and LSP I don't have any of the same Universes setup. It's just terribly buggy software.

Fortunately I haven't spend tons of time sequencing so I can hop ship when the time is right.
 

BradsXmasLights

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Newsflash! It appears Scheduler does not suffer the same performance issues! The same sequence / output settings plays way way way way smoother like it should then :D
EDIT: To clarrify, even after I adjusted my sequencing - the Sequencer in v2.5 (~august & december releases) is still not outputting correctly. The same file in Scheduler is quite presentable.
 

BillInSoFL

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I installed the newest build and did a quickie test. Output may have been improved with no changes to ms, etc. I'll continue to make changes over the coming weeks, although I need to sequence a few after Christmas songs. I've already had enough of the 14 I have. I'm going to need some non-Christmas music come the 26th.
 

fasteddy

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Driver said:
Actually this may be my problem...
[attachimg=1]
Using the image shifter macro - maybe the image speed is too fast? :-\

I wonder what happens if the shifter speed is set to the slowest, but then the macro is looped more (to speed it up again???)

Looking at your grid picture where you say its not smooth. I see that a timing section is 0.5 seconds and an individual chase is 0.25 seconds at most. So depending on the frame rate used would determine how smooth this would actually look in the grid. Now how this is actually percieved by the human eye should be no real difference because it appears you have used 15 frames per second and the human eye will find it difficult to detect anything more than 15 frames per second, so visually within your display the end result should be very similar. It also must be noted that DMX and E1.31 refresh rates are around the 25ms so anything more than this is really to no advantage at all and will just bloat the sequence for no gain.



Driver said:
Newsflash! It appears Scheduler does not suffer the same performance issues! The same sequence / output settings plays way way way way smoother like it should then :D
EDIT: To clarrify, even after I adjusted my sequencing - the Sequencer in v2.5 (~august & december releases) is still not outputting correctly. The same file in Scheduler is quite presentable.

The sequencer will run slower because of all the extra load from the GUI of the sequencer, but when using the scheduler output should be good as there is a lot less overhead.
 

BradsXmasLights

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So in LSP the grid - and it's fades - should be seen as a guide only then?

Foreunately Scheduler is playing out smoothly, so I've had a good run tonight at tweaking my sequence/transitions on that *smooth* output. But I really don't buy the excuse of GUI overheads in the Sequencer, considering it decides to optimise everytime before it outputs anyway. There's a massive difference in performance, even on an i7.
 

fasteddy

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By no means its perfect and needs work, but the main thing is that it will perform better in the scheduler than the sequencer and that the chase should look fairly smooth
 
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