Shimmer and twinkle effects

[Ebuechner]

So I took your suggestion and I played it directly to the lights from the player it seemed to look a little better. Could this be partially a network problem? I'm running a dedicated gigabit Ethernet card on the computer on a static IP out to a Netgear gigabit switch then out to my controllers I have everything running on a static IP.

[Gilrock]

I'm not sure what Gil is expecting to see from the LMS file.

I wanted to see what the data looks like instead of guessing from a description where for several posts I couldn't tell if it was imported as effects or what.  But I'll quit looking at it since you and Keith are discussing how to fix it.

[Ebuechner]

I've continued to test back and forth with different combinations with the same sequence between Lor and Xlights.  I hate to say it but Lor is outperforming X lights when anything has to move fast or Shimmer.  Is Xlights not refreshing the network as much as light O Rama ? I even checked with my 6 Port Bridge on packets received. There was significantly less packets received using xlights versus Lor. I am not picking on Xlights at all in fact I want to move over to using it exclusively but I would like to be able to bump up its performance or know that there's a fix coming down the road.

[dkulp]

I've continued to test back and forth with different combinations with the same sequence between Lor and Xlights.  I hate to say it but Lor is outperforming X lights when anything has to move fast or Shimmer.  Is Xlights not refreshing the network as much as light O Rama ? I even checked with my 6 Port Bridge on packets received. There was significantly less packets received using xlights versus Lor. I am not picking on Xlights at all in fact I want to move over to using it exclusively but I would like to be able to bump up its performance or know that there's a fix coming down the road.

When you create the sequence, select 25ms instead of 50ms.   That will double your frames which could smooth things out for some of the fast moving stuff.   If you edit the raw XML, it's also easy to change it to 10ms if you really want, but I don't recommend it. 

LOR can go down to 10ms in SOME cases.  The problem is that a full DMX universe takes 21ms to send out so once you have any DMX things, going below 25ms makes no sense at all.     For the most part, we've always defaulted to 50ms as some of the older pixelnet stuff would only work at that rate plus some of the other technologies that were used (renard with Xbee's for example) would need significantly reduced channel counts.  50ms was always a decent compromise.  Most "normal folks watching the show" could barely tell the difference.   

[Ebuechner]

You're just saying that I'm way too picky

[Gilrock]

All the developers of xLights playback our sequences using the FPP because it kicks the butts of both LOR and xLights playback.

[bwinter]

For us newbies out there, can you explain how the FPP "kicks but" over the other players?

I'm aware that running a show off the Pi means that you don't have to keep a dedicated computer running the show.  But what are the other benefits?

[sean]

Running a show from LOR or xlights you have the Windows operating system underneath the code. When you run the show from a FPP it is running Linux. Linux is a better OS for being deterministic (there isnt as much strange "What is my computer doing" stuff). The FPP has been tested to being able to output 250K channels with no lag. This on a $30 computer. Here is a table showing the current SBC (Single Board Computers) that can run the FPP software http://nutcracker123.com/nutcracker/rgb_controllers/fpp_comparison.html

I started playing my show on the FPP back in 2013 because
1) It works
2) It does not tie up a computer for 8 weeks
3) You can control it with your phone
4) You can have hundreds of different kinds of sensors plug directly into it

Try playing a 100,000 channel show on xlights,LOR and FPP you will see the difference.,

What if your show is only 200 channels? Then use any of the above three and it works fine.

[bwinter]

Thanks Sean--so one of the big differences when running a "large" (100K channels+) show, is that there can be lag in Xlights/LOR that you won't have with FPP?

[sean]

Thanks Sean--so one of the big differences when running a "large" (100K channels+) show, is that there can be lag in Xlights/LOR that you won't have with FPP?

That is one, but there are so many more reasons to use the FPP computers.
1) There are not that many plug in interfaces for windows boxes, the boards you get are expensive. The raspberry pi and beagle bone were targeted to teh DIY community. Just look at some of these and notice how cheap.
https://www.adafruit.com/categories/35

They can ALL be integrated into the FPP., You want a light beam to launch a sensor, a pressure matt, a ultrasonic sensor, all easy and supporte don FPP, not easy on winodws.

2) You can control the FPP using a phone or ipad

3) Each fpp can drive a 1080p projector. The movie playing on this projector can be synced to +/- 1 frame to your running sequence.

4) You can have 1 master fpp and thousands of slaves. Each fpp can drive 250K channels and a projector. So how about a show of 250 million channels and 1000 projectors? This is supported today.
I run 1 master and 2 slaves (2 projectors: Virtual santa and garage door).

5) The FPP software on a beagle bone black can drive 64 panels (16x32) of P10. That is 32,768 nodes or 98,304 channels. No other software in our industry , that I am aware, can run 98K channels of P10.

6) Your show computer can be run on a small battery. Get the $5 raspberry zero and use a battery for a cell phone and you can run your show player for over 9 hours. You could have this on a person in a marching band, or dancers on a stage.every dancer would be a FPP slave maybe running from the master off stage.

So you see the FPP is special not just that it can run a show without lag, it has huge possibilities. I look forward to see what people have done this year. Thanks to Dave Pitts for inventing the FPP in 2013 and to Capt Murdoch and his team for improving and enhancing it these last few years. Dave handed off his FPP project to the capt in the fall of 2013. Dave no longer has anything to do expect to be a happy user.

[bwinter]

All good points that I hadn't realized yet.

I haven't played with FPP yet, as I would presume that I want the Rasp Pi 3, and it doesn't appear to be supported just yet.

Am I okay holding off purchasing a Rasp Pi 3 (I think it's still early in the season)?

[Gilrock]

No reason to wait for a Pi 3.  For the average show any of the older Pi's work fine.

[sean]

as gil says for 99% of the people running shows
Model B
Model B+
Model 2
Model Zero

All run over 100,000 channels.

At $30, just start getting a collection. I have 6 now. Last year I ran my 45K channels from a Model B+

Eventually ill get a model 3, but why do i need the extra power? If just playing a movie or lights, all work.
If you want to type a persons name and have it overlay-ed the current running show or if you want a virtual matrix you could use the extra horse power.

[bwinter]

But if I'm going to buy one new, shouldn't I get the most current?

My understanding is that the P3 has built-in WiFi.  That sounds like something I would want, no?

[sean]

yep, you will want the pi-3 eventually, just a couple of caveats
1) If you want to get started and learn about 95% of all the FPP stuff (how to configure, how to run, setting up playlists, schedule them , .etc.) you can started right now on the other models.
Will the pi-3 work right now, probably if you tweak. Learning now i think you want the stuff that is rock solid so you dont chase phantoms.
2) New releases for pi-3 can have bugs that you have to work through.
3) I dont use wifi on any of my FPP's. One cable to the switch in the garage and they are all on line. People do setup and run wifi, it was just one more thing to worry about , I chose to skip it. This means wifi is not that important to me

If you dont mind working through some of the early life cycle stuff, get a p-3