Sequencer running slow

[Kuper-Christmas]

Please help!

 

I've added some RGB lights this year.  16 strands of 50 nodes each.  I've watched a lot of videos from other users and I'm quite sure that I haven't overdone it.

 

When I only preview my sequences and don't control the lights, everything looks fine on the Visualizer.  However, when I select to control the lights and run the sequence, there is noticeable delay/lagging/skipping in the playback.  The audio runs smoothly, the problem is only in the lights.  I know the problem is not in the communication to the lights, the problem is in the Sequence Editor.  While it is playing, the vertical line moves across the screen smoothly until it gets to a complicated part of the sequence, it then slows down or stops, then skips ahead to catch up with the music.

 

What do I do to get everything up to speed?

[ItsMeBobO]

What kind of RGB lights?   Are they Cosmic?  

[Kuper-Christmas]

No, the RBG's are not Cosmic Color Ribbons/Bulbs.  They are from HolidayCoro with a Pixlite controller.

But I don't think it has anything to do with the lights or the controller.  The Sequence Editor slows down, I can see it slow/stop on my computer screen.

[PhilMassey]

Sequencer does use a lot of resources, Turn off things you don't need in the play menu such as change color of buttons.

Make sure as little as possible is running in the background.

Make a show and play it "On Demand" to see if the sequence plays well outside of the Editor.

I always see some hiccups and misfires on the playback with the SE but almost never with an actual show playing.

[Kuper-Christmas]

Tried all that.  It doesn't work any better. 

Also tried on two different computers which downloaded the S3 software independently (so I didn't get a bad download and copy it to the other computer.) 

[bob]

Please go into Network Preferences, and look on its "Options" tab.  There's a checkbox there that is labelled something like "Use Old MC-P Compatibility Mode".  Is it checked? If so, please uncheck it, save your changes ("Apply" or "OK"), exit the Sequence Editor, start the Sequence Editor up again, and see if that has helped.

[k6ccc]

A couple comments.  From post #3 it looks like you are basing this on watching your computer while you are also controlling the lights.  Unless you are running a screaming fast computer, don't even bother.  Visualizer puts a large load on your computer.  Sequence Editor puts a large load on your computer.  Running a large number of DMX pixels puts a large load on your computer (far greater than Cosmic Color Devices).  You've created a triple whammy on your computer.

 

There is virtually zero reason to run your sequence in SE while watching it on visualizer AND controlling the lights.  For the most part, you should be controlling the lights as a show without either visualizer or SE running.  Obviously before setting up the display, you have no choice but to watch on visualizer or animator with that being controlled by SE.

 

Let me give you an example.  My sequencing computer is a fairly high end desktop.  My show computer is not quite ancient, but not far from it.  My 2014 show consists of a little under 1200 pixels controlled via four E1.31 cards (on 10 active universes), 300 CCP pixels, and about 100 more traditional LOR channels for a total of 4535 channels in use.  The sequencing computer does not completely keep up with fast changes on visualizer, but the old slow show computer does not have any trouble running the show including some places where almost every channel in the show changes at the same time - over and over again.

 

So the moral of the story here is to use the various software pieces to do what they are designed to do.

 

Both Bob and Phil gave some useful suggestions to improve the situation, but the best solution is use the show player to control your lights.