Visualizer dragging behind?

[Robert Burton]

I have noticed (now that I am getting more used to the visualizer) that it is sometimes dragging behind. I do have several windows open but my goodness... I have a i5 processor and 6gigs of ram :-(

[LOR Staff]

Make your visualization SMALLER. Go to 'Editor Properties' and hit the 'Change Size' button. 800x600 is a good place to start.

[scubado]

A beefy graphics card really helps too.

[LOR Staff]

A good graphics card certainly helps.

The real problem is deep in Windows and how it handles persistent graphics (the background, even a solid color one). Unless you are company that can devote tens/hundreds of millions of dollars towards creating rendering system from the ground up, you are pretty much stuck using the exposed Windows stuff.

If I were a betting man, I almost think that MS intentionally crippled some of those routines.... There isn't a big difference between my 12 year old P4 and my honkin' hex core when it comes to them.

[Robert Burton]

Wow. I will play with that. This Lenovo has a pretty decent display (laptop). Took it down (in size) and still kind of drags on a big hit.

[scubado]

Do you know if your Lenova has dedicated graphics card and memory? Or is it onboard on the motherboard with shared memory? On board graphics I don't think will ever be as good as a seperate graphics card. Sequencing on a laptop is convenient, but not as good as a desktop with dual display, just my opinion anyway.

[Robert Burton]

Do you know if your Lenova has dedicated graphics card and memory? Or is it onboard on the motherboard with shared memory? On board graphics I don't think will ever be as good as a seperate graphics card. Sequencing on a laptop is convenient, but not as good as a desktop with dual display, just my opinion anyway.

I am sure it is on board since...it is a laptop ;-)

Yeah...realize that a desktop would be better but unfortunately got what I got :-)

[Robert Burton]

Think I found where the memory hog was;

I took the spots down to 10% and about a size 25 for some, 15 for others. That and resizing the visualizer picture down to 800x600 seems to speed things up. Really think with the 14 spots...that was it.

[khawes]

I eeked out some performance by changing the communication from Local mode to using my own IP address. In Local mode windows desktop manager process would eat up 50% of my CPU as soon as I put the visualizer into play mode. using my network adapter and the computers ip address the desktop manager behaves much better.

[Robert Burton]

Ok.... Little brain dead now (at school on planning)....how to do that?

[LOR Staff]

It is perfectly normal for the visualizer to consume up to 100% of your CPU or 100% of a single core. I know that sounds BAD since it appears that the Vis is hogging all the CPU, but it's not really like that.

The Vis is designed to quickly get in, check if it needs to do something, and get out, and to do it when the CPU isn't doing anything else. In other words, the Vis is consuming that amount of CPU only because it is available and unused.

If the system is loaded down with other programs/whatever, the Vis is well behaved - it will release control to Windows quickly and allow all other processes some time before it comes in and renders another frame. The Vis will automatically sacrifice it's own performance to ensure the rest of your system remains responsive.

It has to work this way since the SE (or whatever else is running a show) has to have MS precision when sending commands. You should not see any appreciable difference controlling lights if you also have the Visualizer active. You will however see the Visualizer performance be reduced during high loads.

[scubado]

I eeked out some performance by changing the communication from Local mode to using my own IP address. In Local mode windows desktop manager process would eat up 50% of my CPU as soon as I put the visualizer into play mode. using my network adapter and the computers ip address the desktop manager behaves much better.

I just tried it both ways and didn't see any difference. The best way to tell if everything lines up correctly is listen at 1/2 speed.