gsmith37064 Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 (edited) Well i was excited to get everything up and running. From my desktop PC i had no issues running the house sequence, ghosts, and pixel tree. It was AWESOME. So i busted out the laptop from last year. 1.2ghz dual core with 2gb ram. Spent the day patching and getting everything up to spec. Last year i had nothing fancy and figured it would work again this year. Well i was wrong. The singing face would lag and the ghosts would stutter in movement instead of flowing natural. So I am back to using my desktop for now. Guess i know what my big purchase is next year. And i thought i was done buying items for this habit Edited October 12, 2016 by gsmith37064 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianchristmas Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, gsmith37064 said: Well i was excited to get everything up and running. From my desktop PC i had no issues running the house sequence, ghosts, and pixel tree. It was AWESOME. So i busted out the laptop from last year. 1.2ghz dual core with 2gb ram. Spent the day patching and getting everything up to spec. Last year i had nothing fancy and figured it would work again this year. Well i was wrong. The singing face would lag and the ghosts would stutter in movement instead of flowing natural. So I am back to using my desktop for now. Guess i know what my big purchase is next year. And i thought i was done buying items for this habit Check out the FPP Falcon Pi player it would only cost you about $40. I run my show with 3 of these linked together you would only need one though. My sequencing computer is a 27" imac with 32gb of ram 4ghz . Good luck! EDIT: I should mention that a single FPP has been showen capable of handling over 300000 channels Edited October 12, 2016 by canadianchristmas added info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebuechner Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 (edited) A Raspberry Pi with fpp is great but you'll need to use xlights or something else to convert your file and this setup is far from Plug and Play. I've always used a desktop, in my opinion you get a lot more bang for your buck when buying a desktop versus a laptop and you can do a lot more upgrades to the desktop. Edited October 12, 2016 by Ebuechner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. P Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 10 hours ago, gsmith37064 said: And i thought i was done buying items for this habit Now that's funny right there!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 I'm with Ebuechner, get a desktop rather than a laptop. I think I paid $80 for mine four years ago ( as a lease return refurb). Therefore I assume it is something like six years old, and running Windows XP. My Christmas show is about 5K channels, with over 4K of that on E1.31 so the CPU has to calculate the levels for each channel every 23 milliseconds. I found last year that on really fast stuff, it was running out if CPU horsepower. My solution was to use intensity files from SuperStar, and the CPU load went down to under 20%. This year everything is intensity files. If you have the option to use intensity files, that may at least postpone having to replace the computer. Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmith37064 Posted October 12, 2016 Author Share Posted October 12, 2016 (edited) My desktop is a 4ghz Quad Core with 32gigs of memory (slow HD but hey... what can i say.. at least its 3tb) and that is what i used for testing and everything was great. But my controllers are now mounted in the garage and it was easy to use the laptop. Worse case I will continue to use the 100ft nic cable ran from my desktop to the garage for this season and purchase something else next year. I do not think my wife will go for me spending another $600 on a nice machine right now. But a refurb machine may be the route to take... Need to hit the local pawn store this weekend it seems. Edited October 12, 2016 by gsmith37064 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 If it were me, I would look at major retailers that have a refurbished department rather than pawn shops. You never really know what you're getting that way. I have bought refurbished computers from both the Dell outlet and TigerDirect.com. Never had a problem with either one. Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShaggySS Posted October 13, 2016 Share Posted October 13, 2016 I have to agree with the other 2. A desktop is cheap for the amount of power you get. It will have a much longer usable life as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmith37064 Posted October 13, 2016 Author Share Posted October 13, 2016 I busted out my Surface Pro. I7 cpu with 16gb of ram... No issues running it now.. and it saved me from spending any more this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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