xLights Lagging

[powerfix]

Hey all,

Firstly, great piece of software. Super impressive.

Just a heads up for those experiencing any lag within the xLights application itself - I'm running a Windows Domain with folder redirection for my Documents/Desktop/Photos/etc. and if you set your working folder to a remote location (in my case, over a 1Gbps Cat6 LAN to my domain server), you may experience frustrating lag in the application as soon as you make changes to an effect, controller, etc.

My PC is a beast - i7 8700K (overclocked), 2080ti GPU, 32GB 3200 ram, 970 EVO 1TB SSD, and the lag was consistent and very irritating. Tried hardware acceleration on and off, etc. but to no avail.

After some testing, I relocated the working folder to my local SSD and the lag has disappeared. Quick as lightning.

I can only assume that there is an instant-save/backup after a modification within xLights and I've searched for a config option to turn it off, but couldn't see anything.

No action here, just a heads up for future travellers.

Cheers,

Craig.

 

[algerdes]

First, there are quite a few using xlights with the data files "elsewhere". Some on local servers, some using cloud based. With that said, there have been several "warnings" over the years to keep your working files local. A lot of data going back and forth between the processor and the data files. Keeping your backups "elsewhere" seems to work. (In my case my backups are on my NAS.)

Then again, you already have experienced this.

 

[djgra79]

Depending on how you like to work, I find that by ticking the Suspend Render checkbox in the bottom left of the Sequencer tab, I get massive jump in stability and response. So if you know what effects are going to look like or maybe you're working on smashing out some lyrics, you can do all this and get things where you think they belong, then just render the effects/all and see what they look like. A lot of the slowness people experience is the fact that by default the program wants to re-render and update the changes you've made on the preview windows (makes sense) but for some systems this may be a bit too intensive processing.

 

[Skymaster]

1. Disable render cache, or move it to a different directory on local store. That will be writing stuff left-right-and centre as you're modifying effects. It has also been a little buggy of late. This is also temporary data and has no use sitting on a network share.
2. Be aware xLights has timeouts for slow file loading. If it cannot get a file in time, it'll just give up. This is especially pertinent for those that use systems like OneDrive folder redirection, where it is important to set the "Always Keep on This Device" option for the show folder.
3. As @algerdes says, you could also run your show directory locally, and have the backups saving onto the remote location.

I use a combination of all three on my machine. xLights show directory is part of OneDrive redirection, it's set to always keep on device, Backups got o my NAS, and the Render cache sits on a local Temp directory. Works a treat.

 

[powerfix]

Yeah perfect, thanks for the responses guys. I've been messing about with it this morning and have configured that very setup @Skymaster. Far better response times and no noticeable lag at all. Thanks again.