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2015 Show issues


godman

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ok sounds like a computer upgrade is in order, What are the average file sizes for most people?

 

For Christmas 2015, my songs were:

Wizards in Winter:  lms.lcs = 3 KB, lms.ss.lid = 51.9 MB

Christmas Cannon:  lms.lcs = 31.7 MB

Jingle Bells:  lms.lcs = 2KB, lms.ss.lid = 44.5 MB

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing:  lms.lcs = 27.5 MB

God Bless the USA:  lms.lcs = 30.2 MB

Deck the Halls:  lms.lcs = 37.5 MB

Carol of the Bells:  lms.lcs = 19.7 MB

Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer:  lms.lcs = 2 KB, lms.ss.lid = 53.0 MB

Soldier's Silent Night:  lms.lcs = 35.9 MB

 

Obviously the three songs that were played as intensity files have VERY small lms.lcs files as there were less than a dozen channels, and those were mostly static.

 

I was playing this on an ancient HP desktop with a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive running Windows XP.  The files are stored on a Dell server running Windows Server 2012 R2.  While sequencing Wizards, I found that the show computer would run out of horsepower trying to play the song and control the lights.  Switched to an intensity file, and it had no problem keeping up (and only 18 - 20% CPU load).  The two additional songs added during the season were always done as intensity files.  For 2016, all channels in all songs will be intensity files (I have two controllers to replace before I can do that now).  I will also be adding either some, or quite a lot of additional channels for 2016. 

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if you purchased from holiday sequnces he should be able to convert them over to xlights for you. Or send you the "pixel sequence" to work for your needs

I have thought of contacting them and that is where I purchased all of my ccr sequences from. I have played with xlights a lot lately and been messing with the pixel editor. I used to do all my sequencing with Superstar. I just can't decide at this point what program I want to use. I will figure it all out when I play around with them a little more. Xlights has more effects than pixel editor but I am sure in do time there will be much more added to pixel editor. Hopefully I will figure it all out soon!!!!

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Did you experience lag while running the sequences on your non show pc?

The reason I ask is because that could help determine if it is truly a pc issue.

I have used xlights very seldom. One of the reasons is due to lag. Depending on the effect, lag would make my sequence worthless. I don't have many channels, probably around 800 pixels ran with a sans, but the lag was terrible. On the sequencing pc. So I know the show pc would not have a chance.

Switched back to superstar/ LOR and no lag.

Home sequencing pc is first gen i7 with 9 gb memory.

Show pc is 4gb duo core Xp box. 5 AC LOR controllers, 2 dc LOR controllers, 3 LOR ccr's, DMX universe with 5 controllers via holiday coro entec pro compatible dongle, sans 682 and sans 6804 coming off that show box. I use singing faces so lag is a show stopper. Ran flawlessly.

My bet is xlights effects causing the lag...

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Did you experience lag while running the sequences on your non show pc?

The reason I ask is because that could help determine if it is truly a pc issue.

I have used xlights very seldom. One of the reasons is due to lag. Depending on the effect, lag would make my sequence worthless. I don't have many channels, probably around 800 pixels ran with a sans, but the lag was terrible. On the sequencing pc. So I know the show pc would not have a chance.

Switched back to superstar/ LOR and no lag.

Home sequencing pc is first gen i7 with 9 gb memory.

Show pc is 4gb duo core Xp box. 5 AC LOR controllers, 2 dc LOR controllers, 3 LOR ccr's, DMX universe with 5 controllers via holiday coro entec pro compatible dongle, sans 682 and sans 6804 coming off that show box. I use singing faces so lag is a show stopper. Ran flawlessly.

My bet is xlights effects causing the lag...

Hi Sax, I didn't use Xlights last year, I only used LOR, I used Superstar to create some effects and them imported into LOR (non intensity), It seems like the lack of Ram could be the culprit cause the files with that were 250mb + seem to be the ones lagging, The other parts of the display were fine it was just the CCR like tree from E1.31 with the lag

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I ran 3100 pixels this year in lor most sequence using intensity files no lag whatsoever. 12 ccr tree and 1500 pixel tree at same time

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On 1/27/2016 at 1:37 PM, k6ccc said:

Obviously the three songs that were played as intensity files have VERY small lms.lcs files as there were less than a dozen channels, and those were mostly static.

 

I was playing this on an ancient HP desktop with a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM and a 120 GB hard drive running Windows XP.  The files are stored on a Dell server running Windows Server 2012 R2.  While sequencing Wizards, I found that the show computer would run out of horsepower trying to play the song and control the lights.  Switched to an intensity file, and it had no problem keeping up (and only 18 - 20% CPU load).  The two additional songs added during the season were always done as intensity files.  For 2016, all channels in all songs will be intensity files (I have two controllers to replace before I can do that now).  I will also be adding either some, or quite a lot of additional channels for 2016. 

Jim,

Last year when I would use an Intensity file in the visualizer, whether from the PE or SS, some of my morphs in the Visualizer would not show the tail. It looked like it was not even sequenced in, When using the legacy file, the morphs looked like they did in SS. I was a bit hesitant to use the intensity files for the show.

My question is, did you see this when playing in the Visualizer? also, did your sequences look correct, as sequenced, on the real display?

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4 hours ago, Ron Boyd said:

Jim,

Last year when I would use an Intensity file in the visualizer, whether from the PE or SS, some of my morphs in the Visualizer would not show the tail. It looked like it was not even sequenced in, When using the legacy file, the morphs looked like they did in SS. I was a bit hesitant to use the intensity files for the show.

My question is, did you see this when playing in the Visualizer? also, did your sequences look correct, as sequenced, on the real display?

 

I doubt I ever looked at them in Visualizer - nor was there any reason to.  The three songs were sequenced completely in SuperStar so I of course watched the visualization in SuperStar while creating them, but there was no reason to watch the same song in Visualizer.  I will tell you that the video card in my sequencing computer could not keep up while playing in SuperStar.  I regularly had to slow to 1/4 speed to properly see my effects.  Everything looked find in the real display.

 

One of my plans for 2016 is to either put a high end video card in that computer, or replace the sequencing computer with something high end and downgrade the existing sequencing computer to become the new show computer.  Depends on funding...

 

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Can generation 1 controllers work with intensity files and also does all lor cosmic color pixels work with intensity files? Does the firmware need to be upgraded also? Thanks

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22 minutes ago, ebrown1972 said:

Can generation 1 controllers work with intensity files and also does all lor cosmic color pixels work with intensity files? Does the firmware need to be upgraded also? Thanks

No.  Gen 1 & Gen 2 controllers can not play intensity files.  That's why I will be replacing my two old controllers this year.  I plan to run EVERYTHING from intensity files this year.

All Cosmic Color devices will play intensity files - however you need fairly recent firmware.  I had to update my early CCPs to current firmware last year.

 

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56 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

No.  Gen 1 & Gen 2 controllers can not play intensity files.  That's why I will be replacing my two old controllers this year.  I plan to run EVERYTHING from intensity files this year.

All Cosmic Color devices will play intensity files - however you need fairly recent firmware.  I had to update my early CCPs to current firmware last year.

 

Last year I ran 2464 channels and no intensity files. I understand that is not a lot of channels but this year I will be over 10,000 channels. Would it be safe to assume since I had no lag last year that adding these new channels as an intensity file will not cause lag also since the intensity files are so small?

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Using Enhanced LOR format has (as I understand it) an improvement in data throughput, but I can't tell you how much.  Bob or Mike would likely be the only ones who could answer that question.  As I understand it (and I could be wrong), using intensity files does not result in a smaller amount of data being sent (as compared to non-intensity data when both are using an Enh-LOR network).  What using intensity files does do is dramatically reduce the CPU load on the show computer (or director) by doing most of the computations when the intensity file is created.  This would be particularly true with DMX or E1.31 where the show computer needs to calculate the level of every channel about 45 times per second - as opposed to a LOR network channel where the computer only needs to tell the controller to (for example) dim channel 1 from 90 to 10 % over the next 3 seconds  That was the reason I went to intensity files for 2015.  My channel configuration for 2014 and 2015 were essentially the same (and mostly E1.31), but when I was sequencing WiW which is very fast, my old slow show computer could not keep up.  It was a max CPU load during the fast parts.  Since most of the show was sequenced in SuperStar, I re-arranged things a little and had SuperStar output as intensity files.  CPU load during the show dropped to less than 20%.  My intention for 2016 is to replace my two old controllers so I can run EVERYTHING as intensity files.  Depending on funds, I may also replace my show computer.  I am expecting to to increase my channel count by 200 - 300%.

 

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1 hour ago, k6ccc said:

Using Enhanced LOR format has (as I understand it) an improvement in data throughput, but I can't tell you how much.  Bob or Mike would likely be the only ones who could answer that question.  As I understand it (and I could be wrong), using intensity files does not result in a smaller amount of data being sent (as compared to non-intensity data when both are using an Enh-LOR network).  What using intensity files does do is dramatically reduce the CPU load on the show computer (or director) by doing most of the computations when the intensity file is created.  This would be particularly true with DMX or E1.31 where the show computer needs to calculate the level of every channel about 45 times per second - as opposed to a LOR network channel where the computer only needs to tell the controller to (for example) dim channel 1 from 90 to 10 % over the next 3 seconds  That was the reason I went to intensity files for 2015.  My channel configuration for 2014 and 2015 were essentially the same (and mostly E1.31), but when I was sequencing WiW which is very fast, my old slow show computer could not keep up.  It was a max CPU load during the fast parts.  Since most of the show was sequenced in SuperStar, I re-arranged things a little and had SuperStar output as intensity files.  CPU load during the show dropped to less than 20%.  My intention for 2016 is to replace my two old controllers so I can run EVERYTHING as intensity files.  Depending on funds, I may also replace my show computer.  I am expecting to to increase my channel count by 200 - 300%.

 

Thanks for the response and now I have a little better understanding of things. I too have thought of upgrading my show computer. I do not plan on running everything as an intensity file but rather all of my pixels I will be adding along with the pixels I already have. Either way I am ready to do some testing soon and see how it all works out. Thanks again.

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4 hours ago, ebrown1972 said:

Thanks for the response and now I have a little better understanding of things. I too have thought of upgrading my show computer. I do not plan on running everything as an intensity file but rather all of my pixels I will be adding along with the pixels I already have. Either way I am ready to do some testing soon and see how it all works out. Thanks again.

Let me explain my situation.  As you likely know, I run year round landscape lighting in addition to Halloween (a little) and Christmas (a lot).  Currently my landscaping uses 34 channels using five LOR controllers on two LOR circuits, and 51 channels of E1.31.  For Christmas 2014 & 2015, I added 960 pixels for my pixel tree and star controlled by a SanDevices E682, 214 GECE controlled by another E682, 300 CCPs on a third LOR circuit, and six AC strings for a total of 4,797 channels.  During 2015, I re-arranged my two year round LOR circuits and put the three 16 channel DC controllers that can handle E-LOR onto one network, and put the two old controllers onto another LOR network that is not enhanced.  The third network for the CCPs is E-LOR.  The six songs I did for 2014 worked fine on non-enhanced networking (since that did not exist in 2014).  Shortly before I opened for 2015 I was finishing the sequencing for WiW (really fast).  Once I had everything set up, I played the not completed WiW and found that the show computer was maxing out on CPU capacity.  Changed to Enhanced and the computer ran it fine.  For the two additional songs added during the season, I planned to use intensity files from the get go.  For 2016 I will be adding somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 channels - for all practical purposes all the added channels will be E1.31.  I know full well that the existing show computer will not handle it without using intensity files.  I'm not entirely sure about it even with intensity files.

 

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