tbone; i dont think you understand how xligfhts works with ac lights. every rgb effect will work on ac lights. fire works fine on ac lights. You need to understand how xlights creates effects. we create 24 bit rgb effects with every effect. When you build an ac model you pick what color lights it has, say red. Now if you drop a bars effect that has red, white and blue the ac lights will react to the red component of the effect. If you drop a fire effect on ac lights, the red color will cause it to flicker.
Putting a video on an ac light will work, but will not be of much use. So although every xlights effect work, some dont make much sense (like text).
Here are the effects that work well on ac lights: on, off, colorwash, fire, strobe, twinkle, shimmer, spirals, bars, ramp up, ramp down, curtain, fan, marquee, pinwheel, single strand. so about half of our 40 effects work well.
Whole house effects work fine with ac lights. if you do a chase or bars fro left to right, models will turn on based on their location in your yard.
There are a number of people who have used LOR for 5 -10 years and only have ac lights. I have been told that they prefer sequencing ac lights in xlights. If you are having issues with ac lights I or others would be happy to help.