Render one Model Just for Preview

[Gary]

Well, for those who are curious, I just did the test on my laptop at home with an actual stopwatch, and it took 60 seconds--give or take a second or two.

[Phrog30]

When I tested I didn't time it, but it was within a second or two. When I changed to a bars effect, it was immediate.

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[Gary]

When I tested I didn't time it, but it was within a second or two. When I changed to a bars effect, it was immediate.

If it was a second or two for me, I wouldn't be able to time it, either. That was the plasma effect? I don't get it... What kind of computer do you have that would render the effect 10 times faster than what I could consider a more than decent PC?

[Gilrock]

What are you calling a decent PC?  I thought you said it was a laptop.  Unless you're paying over $1000 for the laptop a desktop is generally going to blow it away performance wise any day.

[Phrog30]

When I tested I didn't time it, but it was within a second or two. When I changed to a bars effect, it was immediate.

If it was a second or two for me, I wouldn't be able to time it, either. That was the plasma effect? I don't get it... What kind of computer do you have that would render the effect 10 times faster than what I could consider a more than decent PC?

Yes, I was using your file which was a plasma effect. When I removed rotozoom it rendered immediately. Honestly, the rotozoom for that effect and that model doesn't make sense.

I use my work laptop, which is a Dell precision m4800. It's win7x64, i7 2.8ghz, and 16gb ram. I wouldn't buy this box with my money, I'm not big on Dell. Like Gil said, a desktop is more bang for your buck.

Compared to sequencers like Vixen 3, which really does need some horsepower, xlights doesn't require a massive machine, but in my opinion your specs are very weak. I would stear clear from amd and I recommend at least 8gb ram, preferably 16gb.

James

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[Gary]

What are you calling a decent PC?  I thought you said it was a laptop.  Unless you're paying over $1000 for the laptop a desktop is generally going to blow it away performance wise any day.

The PC I'm referring to is my work PC that I used for comparison tests that's about a year old with quad cores, solid state HD and 8 GB RAM. I use an older laptop at home for sequencing. This is my first year getting into pixels and xLights, and I was hoping to delay getting a new laptop for at least a year. I'd really like to stick to a laptop for being able to take it outside and tweak things in-person. Well, I had to do that with Vixen 2.1 for things such as lights coming on where I thought they were completely off in the sequencer (i.e. 1% power on an AC LED is pretty noticeable, but pretty well invisible in the sequencing grid), and emulating an RGB floodlight using a cross-hatch pattern in the Adjustable Preview leaves much to be desired to see the final colour result. I guess I'll see if I won't be doing that with the new xLights paradigm.

[Gary]

Yes, I was using your file which was a plasma effect. When I removed rotozoom it rendered immediately. Honestly, the rotozoom for that effect and that model doesn't make sense.

I use my work laptop, which is a Dell precision m4800. It's win7x64, i7 2.8ghz, and 16gb ram. I wouldn't buy this box with my money, I'm not big on Dell. Like Gil said, a desktop is more bang for your buck.

Compared to sequencers like Vixen 3, which really does need some horsepower, xlights doesn't require a massive machine, but in my opinion your specs are very weak. I would stear clear from amd and I recommend at least 8gb ram, preferably 16gb.

That rotozoom on the plasma effect was in there by mistake.

When shopping, would you even put extra emphasis on a faster CPU than more RAM? In the whole grand scheme of things, xLights does more in CPU processing than RAM usage, right? Looking at my Task Manager, xLights takes 200 MB with one of my sequences open that's nearing completion, where in comparison, I have a Chrome task that's 160 MB.

It's been many years since I've researched Intel vs. Cyrix, AMD, etc., but after your advice and some Googling, an Intel CPU is something to seriously consider.

[Gilrock]

The memory needed is directly related to how many channels and length of audio file.  We've had users that have hit the 3.5GB Windows limit.  Just get at least 16GB and then you won't worry about it.  I despise bargain shoppers.

[Gary]

The memory needed is directly related to how many channels and length of audio file.  We've had users that have hit the 3.5GB Windows limit.  Just get at least 16GB and then you won't worry about it.  I despise bargain shoppers.

I'm comparatively small potatoes at this point... around 8000 channels or so. The plan in the back of my mind would involve about 16000 channels, due partly to electrical power/amperage/wattage limits of my electrical outlets and I tend to gravitate to the "less is more" mantra. As they say, never say never, but I don't figure that I will want ever to go to P10 panels which would cause channel explosion; and if I wanted video, I'd consider using a projector of some sort, even though that presents its own set of challenges as well. 

When shopping for a laptop, do you think that the salespeople would balk if I asked to install xLights and do some rendering benchmark testing to compare  them?