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Latest S2 + More Channels + CCR = Slow Editing


stanward

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I am having a great deal of difficulty in editing my sequences, specifically when I watch the animation.

My computer's CPU goes up between 75-100% when playing the song/animation in the sequence editor.

What has changed since last year's sequence editing is the latest S2 version 2.8.12 and I went from 96 channels up to 192 channels and I have included one CCR to the mix.

Which one above specifically is causing my computer to run extremely slow when replaying the sequence?

I am running a Dell Optiplex GX620. I don't have any money to purchase a new PC right now, funds are really tight.

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Doing a google search for the GX620 shows it to come with a range of processors and amount of ram. What processor do you have and how much ram?

I program on a duel core 2 ghz with 4 gig of ram running windows 7 with no problems.

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Which processor? How much memory? Which video card? Does the video card have it's own onboard memory or is it shared memory?

All of the above are critical components of a computer and one "weak link" will slow it down.

Running your visualizer/annimation screen could be a memory hog while you are sequencing.

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P4 3.4GHz

3GB RAM

Intel 82945G Express (224MB Memory) which I believe is an integrated video card with shared memory.

Dual monitors

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stanward wrote:

Which one above specifically is causing my computer to run extremely slow when replaying the sequence?


In my opinion, your video card using shared memory driving 2 monitors could be the weak link.
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Not sure if this is related? Under display preferences area:


Animation Redraw Throttling

During play, the Animator will only redraw the animation every so often, suppressing more frequent redraw requests. This is done to try to ensure that it does not take up too much of the computer's CPU time. However, it means that very fast events may not get displayed by the Animator (although they will still affect your actual lights).

The amount of throttling that the Animator will do is configurable. By default, it is set to "Low", which means that it doesn't throttle very much, and therefore the animation should be as smooth as possible. The cost of this smoothness is that the Animator will use more of your computer's CPU time.



So, if you notice that the Animator is having a hard time keeping up with your sequence, making the animation and perhaps even the sequence itself choppy or sluggish, it may be because the Animator is using too much CPU time for your computer. In this case, you may want to try changing this setting to "Medium", which will cause the Animator to allow redrawings less frequently, thereby decreasing the amount of CPU time it uses. "High" will decrease CPU utilization even further.


-- there is also the enable recording area in edit menu - that could be related to certain parts of performance (?):

Enable/Disable Undo Recording



Certain very large operations in the Sequence Editor could take a very long time to do. For example, skewing a track involves changing all of the timings, effects, and loops in the track; in a large sequence with many channels, this could take a prohibitively long time. Much of the time spent is actually due to recording the changes so as to later be able to undo and redo them.



For situations like this, you can disable undo recording before making such a change, which will speed up how long the change will take. You will not be able to undo any changes after doing so (except for changes that you make after re-enabling it later), so it is strongly suggested that you save your sequence before disabling undo recording.

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I think it's time to upgrade this 5 year old computer.

Also, when I edit movies/video on that Sony Vegas Video editing software, it's impossible to review video in real time. Video card can't keep up, even when reviewing video on low resolution.

Thanks everyone!

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stanward wrote:

I am having a great deal of difficulty in editing my sequences, specifically when I watch the animation.

My computer's CPU goes up between 75-100% when playing the song/animation in the sequence editor.

What has changed since last year's sequence editing is the latest S2 version 2.8.12 and I went from 96 channels up to 192 channels and I have included one CCR to the mix.

Which one above specifically is causing my computer to run extremely slow when replaying the sequence?

I am running a Dell Optiplex GX620. I don't have any money to purchase a new PC right now, funds are really tight.


I've had trouble with the animation screen keeping up without being jerky and the best solution I've had to smooth out the animation acreen is to turn off "move grid with play." That's a big one! Also turn off " vary color with channel buttons". I have 2 CCRs with all 300 channels programmed into the animation screen and when I do continuous fast color change/sweeps on both CCRs, the animation is jerky even with these 2 items turned off. I then turned off "control lights" and that almost eliminated the problem. I'm using a 2-year old AMD quad-core 9550 with cpu usage rarely exceeding 15% and I am using a NVidia GTS250 card with 1 gig of ram. I am using 2 monitors. I also have one CCR connected to observe color during programming and I've noticed that when I have the channel grid moving along with the animation screen playing, that sweeps on the CCR will not move smoothly. It appears that the commands are bunch together and sent in bursts, for lack of a better description. As soon as I turn off all screen animation, the CCR then begins to operate much more smoothly. If I play the sequence through the show program, the operation is smooth. I'm convinced there is a bottleneck someplace in the sequence editor when it is trying to control devices, the animation screen, and the editor grid movement at the same time and I don't think it's CPU usage, but then I'm not a programmer (software) so I could be all wet. Could someone much smarter than me shed some light on where this bottleneck might be and what could be done to help the situation? (Would dual video cards, SLI, or something else help?) I'm only using 2 CCRs. I'm guessing there are others using even more of these and must be having similar problems with their animation screens.
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So if I understand this correctly the issues start when you guys are playing a sequence back in the sequence editor with the animation windows open?

I don't have any CCR and only have 80 channels so I can't really test the issue.

Does any one know if S2 uses directx or opengl to speed up screen rendering or is it all slandered draw commands? I am thinking that maybe LOR is not graphicly hardwere excelrated. Which I can understand them doing since not every computter has a good enough video card for opengl / direct x.

As for a quade core machine does S2 use mutiple cores on a prosesor (I ususlly use it on a single cor net book)? If not then that 15% is more like 60% of a sigle core machine.

Since S2 seams to hae no problom running complext shows I would headge on it being a graphics slow down.

You can try running fraps while using LOR and see if you get a frame rate count. But I doubt you will see one since it usually requires opengl or directx to be runing to get a fram rate.

It defniftly can't hurt to make sure you have up to date video card drivers.

I have sceen opengl program go from 2-3 fps jump to 100+ frams per secound cause of driver issues.

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csf wrote:

So if I understand this correctly the issues start when you guys are playing a sequence back in the sequence editor with the animation windows open?

I don't have any CCR and only have 80 channels so I can't really test the issue.

Does any one know if S2 uses directx or opengl to speed up screen rendering or is it all slandered draw commands? I am thinking that maybe LOR is not graphicly hardwere excelrated. Which I can understand them doing since not every computter has a good enough video card for opengl / direct x.

As for a quade core machine does S2 use mutiple cores on a prosesor (I ususlly use it on a single cor net book)? If not then that 15% is more like 60% of a sigle core machine.

Since S2 seams to hae no problom running complext shows I would headge on it being a graphics slow down.

You can try running fraps while using LOR and see if you get a frame rate count. But I doubt you will see one since it usually requires opengl or directx to be runing to get a fram rate.

It defniftly can't hurt to make sure you have up to date video card drivers.

I have sceen opengl program go from 2-3 fps jump to 100+ frams per secound cause of driver issues.


I've downloaded and installed FRAPS. Although I've heard of the program, I'm new to it. I've been able to get a reading for each of the monitors but it doesn't seem to register what the animation screen is doing. It will register on both monitors what my mouse movement is, which maxes to 60. (monitor refresh rate?) On playback of a sequence, the editor screen reading seems to be related to the timing grid. The reading on the other monitor disappears with the animation screen playing. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I will play a little more with that and see what I get. Thanks for the great suggestion.

The quad-core processor show considerable more on one core but a second core is showing usage as well. One core is running about 40% and another is about 20% while the other two are down around 5%. There is some mention in the display settings referring to OpenGL, but only some adjustment for proper display of the screen. I'll have to play a bit more with this tomorrow since it's way past my bedtime.
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