Etherdongle version 2 S/W

[peteandvanessa]

I've been having some issues with Light Lag with LSP 2.5 (details below)

Could anyone comment on whether the version 2 of the firmware for the Etherdongle might fix my light lag issues when running the LSP 2.5 Scheduler?


I'm running little under 5000 channels of LED Flexstrip and two sets of D-Light AC16's converted to DMX

Set up is a i7 Quad Core, 64Bit Win7 O/S, 16Gig RAM and dedicated Graphics card.

Connection is PC Laptop -> Router -> DLA Etherdongle -> Two DLA 16 Port Active Hubs - >DMX from Hubs - > 2 X AC16 D-Light controllers

Now I do NOT know whether the Light Lag is down to S/W, H/W or both

Some have suggested that changing to the latest Etherdongle firmware MIGHT help with the light lagging. I've been reluctant to do so, since I have most of my sequences working.


*************************Issues I'm seeing below****************************
So as most folks know I have the LSP 2.5 running my Halloween show since Oct 1st.

Now I did have one complex sequence that will run, but the lights lag the audio quite badly. Since I was already
running other sequences for Halloween, I just left that sequence out of the show.

Now I have two other sequences that are almost (but not quite) as complex as the one sequence that shows very bad lagging.
The two sequences would be marginal at best when running (mostly they would show light lag only during the first playback), after all the sequences
played through the first time, the two marginal sequences would settle into their groove and work fine.

Fast forward to last night.

Now usually I would load up four sequences each night and changed the sequences and the order, just to keep it fresh.

So, I thought I had the light lag issues fixed (learning from experience, about what would and wouldn't play)

So I loaded up six sequences (two of which were the marginal sequences that would show light lag but only during the first set of playback) by
loading two additional sequences into the scheduler.

So to be clear, there are two marginal sequences that sometimes show light lag, and four simpler sequences that I do know play reliably without lagging.

Show time came, and the show started. So all the sequences went through their usual first round of playback. The two marginal sequences
were much, much worse in lagging the music than usual, but I thought, ok, it's just them playing back though the first set. Right?

Wrong

Every time the two marginal sequences played back in the scheduler, they were awful, the lights lagged the audio from anywhere of three seconds to five seconds.
When they lag this badly another effect comes into play, where it looks like the scheduler is dropping commands to my LED Flexstrips.

Imagine a video playing back and the performance of the video is so bad that it's stuttering and constantly buffering, so you get some video frames coming through
but a whole lot of frames are being dropped. That's what my LED Flexstrips look like.

It was so bad I stopped the playback and purged all the sequences from the scheduler and re-built the playback with four sequences (that I know from experience, would play).

So, what have I learned.

1. More complex sequences will show light lag, the first time through the scheduler
2. Simpler sequences won't show light lag during playback
3. Medium complex sequences that are marginal in terms of light lag will show light lag during the first run through the show, but will settle down after the first run through
4. If you load more and more sequences into the scheduler, any marginal sequences, will show light lag everytime through the scheduler

[sjb]

Sounds like the same issue some people on LSP are referring to. They have a work around, but I am not sure if that would work for you as it sounds like an issue with the schedular.

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Hope it helps

Steve

[tbone321]

I would say that this issue is an LSP issue.  As long as you have a copy of the previous version of the firmware, feel free to flash in the new version and see what happens.  The firmware in the EtherDongle is not going to alter your show so if the new version doesn't help or actually makes it worse, you can simply flash back to the previous version.  If you don't have it on disk, you can read it from the ETD and export it to a file prior to flashing in the most recient version.

[frankr]

Just let me know when you want to try a full run on xLights....  Might be good to get a  comparison using xLights vs. using LSP to see if we can eliminate the ED as bein the source of the lag...

Frank

[peteandvanessa]

So I checked my ETD firmware and it was already running version 2 (I flashed it anyway with version 2 to be sure)

Frank - Let me upload all my sequences to your drop box, if you could convert them all and I can load into xLights this weekend and see if we can get me completely onto Xlights

[peteandvanessa]

So I reflashed the Etherdongle to version 2 (although I think I already had version 2 on it already)

I disconnected my PC from the router and connected it directly to the Etherdongle via Cat 5.

Fired up the LSP 2.5 scheduler and loaded 6 sequences. The show started, and the same issue with light lag, so the ETD F/W and Router had no effect on reducing the Light lag.

Now I do know that the sequences that are showing light lag are the ones that use the color slide macro. Some of the problem sequences make use of the color slide macro heavily, and some less so, but all the sequences that use the color slider show light lag.

The more sequences you load into the scheduler the worse the light lag gets.

The sequences, that do not use the Color slider macro, show NO light lag.

[tbone321]

Then I would suggest that this problem has nothing to do with the ETD.  The ETD simply outputs what it gets and since multicast is a UDP connection, you can't say that the dongle is holding up the PC because in UDP, the PC doesn't confirm and doesn't care if the other side is getting the packets. 

[urthegman]

So I reflashed the Etherdongle to version 2 (although I think I already had version 2 on it already)

I disconnected my PC from the router and connected it directly to the Etherdongle via Cat 5.

Fired up the LSP 2.5 scheduler and loaded 6 sequences. The show started, and the same issue with light lag, so the ETD F/W and Router had no effect on reducing the Light lag.

Now I do know that the sequences that are showing light lag are the ones that use the color slide macro. Some of the problem sequences make use of the color slide macro heavily, and some less so, but all the sequences that use the color slider show light lag.

The more sequences you load into the scheduler the worse the light lag gets.

The sequences, that do not use the Color slider macro, show NO light lag.

Pete, I have one of my sequences that has over 10 color slider macro's but I didn't create them ALL using layers, since there was repetition in the sequence, I copy pasted some of them, maybe that helps???