glitching playback in preview window and on outputs

[perigalacticon]

I have found that a simple sequence I am using to set up my first show is glitching in the preview window when I'm playing the show.  This also shows up directly on the lights as it's playing.  This also occurs when I save the sequence and run it from my FPP.  In xLights setup tab if I deactivate the controllers [6x ESPixelSticks] the preview window still shows the glitches.  My Win10 PC shows 10% CPU and 74% memory usage.  I suppose the GPU could be inadequate, but haven't tested it yet.  Can anyone suggest further remedies to try?


P.S.  This is just a simple bars effect on 6 strings and it doesn't matter how I change the settings so far.  It seems to glitch every second or so.

[Gilrock]

You need to look at the FPS to the left of the timeline during playback and if it's not able to keep up that explains it.  For a 50ms sequence it should hover near 20fps.

[perigalacticon]

It's showing 19.8 steadily for all of the sequence except at the start and end 1-second fade transitions it changes rapidly I can't tell.  I changed the effect around but it's doing the cyclic glitch.  It's more like every second.  It just seems to pause for an instant every second and is more noticable if the effect is faster.

[perigalacticon]

I'm running 2019.68 64bit on a Win10 PC.  My CPU usage doesn't seem to change when I play the sequence, it's around 10-20%.  Memory use is around 75%.  GPU is a Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (from 2012 I believe).  I haven't have any problems playing video of any kind or any game but I don't play crazy graphics games.

What system hardware is important for xLights to run well?

[Gilrock]

Previews are only there when you design the sequences so its not guaranteed to have no lag.  xLights is not even in the picture when you run your show.

[perigalacticon]

I've been running it from xLights and from FPP.  Even if I close xLights I get the same 1 per second glitch when running it from FPP.  I tried multicast as well, the 1 per second glitch was still there and some additional glitching.

I attached a video of the glitch when running unicast from FPP:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1am88UpLXsMwN_ia9pxIXRT1iBRRyDV8M

I found a post from Keith explaining there is a once per second broadcast of a UI update, I think this might be what's happening, not sure why I have it and others don't?

[Gilrock]

It just looks like its what you sequenced.  Every time the effect is repeated with green in the middle it has the small hiccup.  Just put a single butterfly effect in a sequence for 30 seconds and see if it hiccups.

[perigalacticon]

Yes the butterfly doesn't seem to have the glitch as far as I can tell.  But when I added a longer strand with the butterfly it was glitching.  Do you think this is a computer problem or software problem or networking problem?

[Gilrock]

I don't know.  What do you mean you "added a longer strand"?

[perigalacticon]

I transferred the effect to a string of 200 pixels whereas before it was only running on a strand of 50.  And it was glitching pretty bad.  BUT WAIT! 

I got a 2nd router from Best Buy, a cheap Netgear AC1000.  I re-set up my RPi4 with FPP and re-set up my ESPS they are all connected to it and the butterfly now runs smoothly from either xLights outputs or from FPP on the RPi.  The bars effect still has the 1 second glitch!  This router has never seen a connection to the internet.  I haven't even set up the internet to it, just the show devices use it and my PC.  So, I think the glitch is in the software now, don't you? 

Very happy with the results of using a 2nd router for the ESPS so far.  Thanks for your help.  Are you running a show this year?

[Gilrock]

There are hundreds of us running without glitches.  Lag/glitches can be for a ton of reasons as you can find talked about in many threads.  Keith gave a good list about what to look for somewhere around here.  Its usually something on your computer or your network.

[perigalacticon]

Gilrock, thank you again, sincerely, because I probably wouldn't be able to do any of this without the support of others such as yourself.  I think Christmas light shows are amazing and the people that do them are incredibly talented.  I just wish to maybe provide some inkling of that for the people in my neighborhood.  I understand everyone has their glitches to iron out.  I'd be glad to help anyone in return!  Thanks again and good luck to everyone this year!

[kdigman]

Was this what you were seeing?  I am also getting a weird glitch with the bars effect.

[keithsw1111]

So you are seeing glitching on an esp based controller? If so. Get used to it. Reliability wise those things are really at the bottom of the heap. Not electrically. Networking wise. There is post after post on forums like this where people are trying to solve networking related glitches and lag with so much advice and counter advice it is almost impossible to work out what is true and not true.

Those that seem to have the most success are using quality wifi networking gear. Keeping the devices close and playing with unicast and multi case settings.

Even then when it gets to their show what worked in the shop develops a whole bunch of new issues.

I almost wish there was a way to exclude support for these devices. For the handful of situations that they make sense there are a hundred situations where they don’t.

[kdigman]

I'm just talking in Xlights on the house preview.