MikeA Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 When I run a sequence not controlling the lights it runs through the sequencer fine. When I plug in my 16 string CCR tree it runs the lights slow. The song plays fine and will end and the lights will keep running for 30 seconds or so. Using windows Vista, 4gb RAM. Does anyone have any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 Vista was not exactly the best version of windows, but it would generally probably run better with 8GB of ram. 4GB is pretty low and anything running in the background could slow it down. So here's the standard checklist. Reboot the machine from a power off state, no sleep or hibernate, and disable both. No screensavers, other than maybe blanking the screen. Remove any unwanted/unneeded programs. make sure there is no LAN activity, or disconnect entirely. You should be on an enhanced high speed LOR network (red adaptor) Make sure the audio file is the same length as the sequence, and is 128kbps and constant bit rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichRX7 Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 I agree, if you can afford to upgrade that machine I would get off the Vista. If you have a show only computer I see many refurbed win7/win10 machines pretty cheap on Craigslist and other sales sites. If it is a show only computer and never accesses the internet, remove the anti-virus software if you have any, or disable it (if you are concerned about the files you copy over) when you are running your show on that Vista computer. The anti-virus is trying to look at any files running on the machine and any network traffic which can be a huge drain on resources. Open the system SERVICES (admin functions) which I can't remember if you can just type services in the run menu on Vista, but make sure you disable any WINDOWS SEARCH items that auto-start with the computer. Look at the other services and see if you can disable any other of them as they are all running in the background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 1 hour ago, MikeA said: When I run a sequence not controlling the lights it runs through the sequencer fine. When I plug in my 16 string CCR tree it runs the lights slow. The song plays fine and will end and the lights will keep running for 30 seconds or so. Are you trying to play the lights from SE or are you creating a show and running the show? That makes a HUGE difference in CPU load. Running a show takes very little CPU load. For comparison, until Christmas 2018, I was running an ancient Pentium based XP computer as my show computer and up to about 10,000 channels. That was pushing it a little on fast songs until I switched to Intensity files for essentially everything (I sequence in SuperStar, so that was an easy change). After that the old show computer was peaking at about 18% CPU load. 1 hour ago, PhilMassey said: Vista was not exactly the best version of windows, but it would generally probably run better with 8GB of ram. Come on Phil, don't sugar coat that. Vista was the second worst OS ever released by Microsoft - only behind Millennium Edition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichRX7 Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 27 minutes ago, k6ccc said: Come on Phil, don't sugar coat that. Vista was the second worst OS ever released by Microsoft - only behind Millennium Edition. Hahahah, I still have a ME install disk somewhere if you want to borrow it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 5 minutes ago, MichRX7 said: Hahahah, I still have a ME install disk somewhere if you want to borrow it. I was fortunate enough to never run ME on anything. I did have a bunch of years of Vista on some work stuff. I was SO GLAD to retire / upgrade that to Windows 7. At home I went from Windows 98 to 2000 to Windows 7 and now Windows 10. Loved 2000 and was still using 2000 Server on my server until that computer died in 2014. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlogan Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 (edited) I miss Clippy! And Bob. Edited October 24, 2019 by tlogan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 I skipped Vista, but had spent enough time with it on my users machines to make sure I never wanted it on my own machines. Win 7 was a welcome relief, once we persuaded the company to endorse it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PJD Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 Ugh, Vista and ME were both horrible. Totally skipped both on computers that I controlled. Unfortunately, as the "computer expert" that family and friends always contact, I had far more interaction with both than I would have liked! Both are long gone from any machine I need to work with. MikeA - I suspect that even a cheap, used computer would be better than your current Vista, 4GB setup. Vista was released in 2006. Since Windows 7 was released in 2009, I would guess that your computer is over 10 years old. We purchased a small HP mini desktop this year to be our show machine. It has the bare minimum software installed and as others have said, we turn off WiFi and AntiVirus while the show is running. It seemed to be running fine when I was testing it with everything turned on, but why risk it? We chose the mini desktop over a laptop since it had a lot of USB ports for future expansion. We also wanted both WiFi and a physical internet port because we are running our pixels on E1.31. The physical network is dedicated to E1.31 and any internet/local network is via WiFi if needed (usually off). Since a show PC doesn't need to be super powerful, we purchased it "refurbished" from Woot at a pretty decent price. PJD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeA Posted October 24, 2019 Author Share Posted October 24, 2019 (edited) Thanks everyone. I am going to get a new laptop with windows 10 and 8GB memory. I am tired of messing with this POS. Edited October 24, 2019 by MikeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichRX7 Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 11 minutes ago, MikeA said: Thanks everyone. I am going to get a new laptop with windows 10 and 8GB memory. I am tired of messing with this POS. And that is the A#1 choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichRX7 Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 You can see my long post in this thread if you find the win10 laptop is lagging. Microsoft loves to bloat their OS with every new version. http://forums.lightorama.com/topic/50212-lights-lagging/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-463090 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeA Posted October 25, 2019 Author Share Posted October 25, 2019 Well $600 in a new computer did NOT fix this. I turned off windows search, nothing. I am running a Pixi 16 controller on LOR network. Any suggestions as to what to do next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. P Posted October 25, 2019 Share Posted October 25, 2019 Can you tell us what usb adapter, speed settings, controllers on network? Any screenshots of your setting will help as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted October 25, 2019 Share Posted October 25, 2019 On 10/24/2019 at 6:58 AM, PhilMassey said: Vista was not exactly the best version of windows, but it would generally probably run better with 8GB of ram. 4GB is pretty low and anything running in the background could slow it down. IIRC there were many Vista computers sold that had Pentium 4 Processors (32 bit), and those can't use mor tha3.x Gigof RAM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeA Posted October 25, 2019 Author Share Posted October 25, 2019 39 minutes ago, Mr. P said: Can you tell us what usb adapter, speed settings, controllers on network? Any screenshots of your setting will help as well. It's the RS485 HS (red) adapter. Pixi16 controller on LOR network. What screenshot would help? Someone suggested I should run this on a DMX universe but I have no idea how to do that. I just updated the firmware on the controller and it did not help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted October 25, 2019 Share Posted October 25, 2019 4 minutes ago, MikeA said: It's the RS485 HS (red) adapter. Pixi16 controller on LOR network. What screenshot would help? Network Preferences. How many channels (or pixels, or number of strings of what length so we can calculate it)? How many controllers and of what type. The more details, the better. Feel free to include a network drawing if that would help. This is mine - yours likely is not as complex and does not need the details. A lot of this one is there to show the conduit routes. 4 minutes ago, MikeA said: Someone suggested I should run this on a DMX universe but I have no idea how to do that. You can't run a Pixie16 controller on DMX. LOR only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick P Posted October 25, 2019 Share Posted October 25, 2019 One suggestion that is conspicuously missing from this thread is to consider running a LOR show director rather than a computer to run your show. They are significantly less expensive than a new computer and tough as nails. I've been using a show director since version 4 and been very pleased. I would consider the new N4-G4-MP3 to cover you for future expansion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeA Posted October 25, 2019 Author Share Posted October 25, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, k6ccc said: Network Preferences. How many channels (or pixels, or number of strings of what length so we can calculate it)? How many controllers and of what type. The more details, the better. Feel free to include a network drawing if that would help. This is mine - yours likely is not as complex and does not need the details. A lot of this one is there to show the conduit routes. You can't run a Pixie16 controller on DMX. LOR only. I am only testing a 16 string CCR tree. Nothing else The guy who sold me the sequences said he has setup many Pixi 16 with DMX. He claims my controller is not configured right. This is where I got them. https://www.holidaysequences.com/ Edited October 25, 2019 by MikeA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeA Posted October 25, 2019 Author Share Posted October 25, 2019 39 minutes ago, Rick P said: One suggestion that is conspicuously missing from this thread is to consider running a LOR show director rather than a computer to run your show. They are significantly less expensive than a new computer and tough as nails. I've been using a show director since version 4 and been very pleased. I would consider the new N4-G4-MP3 to cover you for future expansion. I have tested running the sequence from both the sequence editor and show director. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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