Vixen Sometimes Non-Responsive when Playing a Sequence

[Gary]

I have this problem once in a while where I'm sequencing a song, and constantly using F6 and F8 keyboard shortcuts to start and stop playback (faster than clicking the buttons in the button bar on the screen). Sometimes, pressing F8 doesn't work, and being impatient, I press it a bunch of times in frustration and annoyance to no avail. If I also start clicking to drag and move the sequence and Adjustable Preview window with no repsonse. The task manager shows Vixen running at around 70-ish percent. Then anywhere between 5 and 20 seconds later, the sequence stops playing, and all the windows are moved around, etc. as although whatever was sitting in the Windows event buffer (or whatever it's technically called) is suddenly released.

It happens on different sequences at different times, and then goes away by itself. Anybody else had this issue? It drived me crazy.

[sirloinofbeef001]

How does the puter work for all other operations? Sounds like it may be hogged up..

[Rainlover]

Gary,
I have fought that for a long time. I finally went to using 2 different adjustable previews, 1 for the house and trees and one for the mega tree. I only display 1 at a time and I am able to stop the sequence when I press F8. The only time I use both previews is when I want to look at the final product.
Also, my computer is an old P4 with 1G of ram.

John

[Gary]

How does the puter work for all other operations? Sounds like it may be hogged up..

I can't believe the fast response for my question that I posted just minutes ago.

The laptop I use is pretty old with a Pentium 1.79 GHz with just 512 MB of RAM running Windows XP SP2 (SP3 is a hog). It doesn't have anti-virus software on it to slow things down because it's used exclusively for Vixen (no Internet access, spyware, etc.). It's really quite good for what it does, except for these unexplainable fits is occasionally has.

[Gary]

I have fought that for a long time. I finally went to using 2 different adjustable previews, 1 for the house and trees and one for the mega tree. I only display 1 at a time and I am able to stop the sequence when I press F8. The only time I use both previews is when I want to look at the final product.

I didn't even know that you could have 2 adjustable previews!

[deplanche]

I have that same problem if I run Vixen on a laptop with battery power.  If I plug it in, it works fine with no lag.  But occasionally, when it is on battery power, it is slow to respond to the start/stop/pause commands. 

[jeffcoast]

Laptop CPUs will usually run at a lower clock speed when on battery power to extend the battery life, so it doesn't run out too quickly.

[Gary]

That explanation sort of makes sense, as I was sequencing when I was visiting my brother (I'm an early riser), and when I brought it home, I turned on the laptop and plugged it in, but the power bar was off. After I realized this, I turned on the power bar, the icon in the system tray changed to show that the laptop was plugged in and running at maximum performance, the battery started charging (from 80%), but it was still laggy for a bit but magically went away after a bit. Perhaps you don't get full performance when plugged in until the battery is back up closer to 100%?

But I'm pretty sure I also had this issue last year when sequencing, and the laptop stayed in the same spot all year. Who knows, maybe it wasn't plugged in, and I didn't consider that running on batteries it would be an issue at that time.

If I run into the issue again with a plugged in laptop with a 100% battery, maybe I'll bring up the question again.

[Gary]

I was sequencing again last night, with my laptop plugged in for the last few days or so, and it suddenly got laggy (i.e. F8 didn't work to stop playback). I checked the icon, the charge was at 99%, and a few mere moments later, it was back to 100% and everything was back to normal and fine again.

I guess that the charging cycles on and off. (?)

[sirloinofbeef001]

That doesn't make sense to me..how big is the harddrive and how much memory do you have?

[Gary]

It has a 28 GB drive, and less than 5 are used. I double-checked, and it has only 256 MB of RAM (I thought it was 512 MB). It would seem that 256 MB is sufficient since it works fine most of the time. I was doing a 12-hour sequencing marathon yesterday, and it was acting laggy for a minute or two here and there. I will make note of the CPU fan; it seemed to be on yesterday when I ran into the problem. Then again, I think it cycles on and off a lot anyways.

[jeffcoast]

256mb is not really alot of memory, and once it fills up, the computer will start using virtual memory, which is slow. If possible you might try upping the memory. 512 would be better, but 1000mb would be even better to keep the computer from slowing down when it goes to write virtual memory to the hard drive.

[sirloinofbeef001]

I agree with Jeff..need more memory. Its cheap these days..

[bcstuff]

Speaking of the fan, if it overheats, the pentium processor will throttle down and it will get very laggy.

The other thing is memory if cheap and easy to upgrade if its DDR, PC133 is a different story. I just checked prices of old PC133 and it has come down a little but still no where as cheap as DDR.

[Gary]

I'm at work now so I don't know my laptop's model specifically, but doing a search on Kingston's web site for another similar laptop here, it looks like adding 512 MB more memory would cost around $50 for my 5-year old laptop. No thanks. I'll deal with the occasional lagginess.