The QM2000 and livepro stuttering issues

We have all have it once a while, stuttering of the laser output when using livepro and multiple QM2000's

Please share your setup, how often you have the problem, and any information that could help finding the cause.

Information so far,
It happens on Win XP and Win 7
It happens when using mutiple qm2000
A reboot most of the time fix the issue.
Livepro is using 100% cpu load on one core.
Also visble in the laser preview
Also seems to happen with showtime


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5VhYBrwXGg

Ay more info?

It might be worth anybody experiencing this issue to check their Windows event log for an event ID 4226... just a hunch...

Tidbit: CPU usage is 100% (LivePro.exe) when it decides to get the shakes.

I've never had something like that. But I never used more then one QM.Net and i'm running XP on a mac. If you like we can do some tests with a couple QM's on a mac and see if the same problem is still there.

Posting to follow..

Same problems, the carrot man summed them up spot on :-)

I've ran XP on a Mac (Bootcamp) with anything from 2-5 QM's. Still can occur. It wasn't a massive issue, just reboot and it's gone. Only occurred every couple of months.

Ik you look closely to this this video of one of the big guys you can see the stuttering at least 20x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcs_Ba-sQ4Q

This show was done with showtime and timecode, so the problem also seems to be with showtime.

Just a few points.

1. LivePRO uses a means of threading that will fool the CPU percentage indicator of Windows. It will always show as 100%, no matter what. The LD2000 Network application uses the same method of threading and sometimes Showtime does too. Even though it shows as 100%, it may be using 10% or less. Windows "percentage of CPU" indicator can be easy to fool...

2. You might try various preview settings. There are settings for enhanced reality, regular preview, and even preview priority settings. See if that makes a difference.

3. If you're hardware is a QM2000.NET (as opposed to QM2000 installed in a PC or FB3), several people have noted problems with certain types of network adapters in laptops. I forget which ones are suspicious, but it's been found that in some cases, getting an external USB to network adapter cures the problem.

4. There was also a problem with certain versions of Windows and multi-processor usage. We recently made a change to overcome that problem. Have you tried the very very very latest version of LivePRO? The version I have on my PC is build 2021.

Best regards,

William Benner

also try turning off the preview window, I don't use it and I have never run into a stuttering issue

Yesterday we had another production with 4 QM.net's, the latest livepro b2022 and a brand new Dell XPS latop and we had stuttering all over the place.

I tested the show with 2 QM.net's and there was no problem, but with 4 QM.nets it was one big drama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Jzi1iDQsg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by flecom

also try turning off the preview window, I don't use it and I have never run into a stuttering issue

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Would be interesting to post more info about your setup, like how many qm.nets running what brand PC and brand NIC etc etc.

Well that's a bummer! I don't have multiple QM.Nets (Yet, want to buy a second) so can't do some tests. But when does the problem starts to show up? When you start up or when your having it on for a while? Or just random?

question mccarrot can you run wireshark during the moment ur experiencing the lag (run wireshark when the lag is going on during operation)

And run it when the lag is not going on during operation.
Could u send me a logfile or a screencap of that activity.
I want to look at it.
Maybe there is some interesting findings to get from it which can tell us what is exactly going on.

Just got home from Decibel. It's an festival for the harder styles like Defqon. When it got dark they fired up the lasers at the mainstage. 4 RGB an 10 or 15 green. I watched for stuttering. I could only count 1 or 2. So they where lucky. I thought well with 1 or 2 stutters there will be more but not this time.

I bought a new Dell Inspioron laptop (with Realtec NIC, I7 and W7), thursday evening I tested livepro with 1 QM.net and everything was fine, last night I had a how with 2 QM.net's and stuttering all over the place.
we swapped to another PC with windows XP (and Intel NIC) and everything was fine.

I think we can eliminate the networkswitch as it works fine with another laptop.

Any tips how I should start testing to find problem?

Dell huh?

You really should at least try the USB to Ethernet adaptor.

There are known issues withe the on board network in Dells. In most cases, I have seen it just completely disconnect.

I'm not convinced that this will solve your issue, but if using a Dell, I highly recommend the adaptor.

Could someone test with more then 1 QM on a 100MB full duplex network?
Configure the onboard nic to 100MB full duplex also instead of leaving it on auto negatiation.
The Qm's are build with a 10/100MB nic, which could be the problem for the new nic's.
I've seen the same sort of problems in the field during my dayjob.

During a long testing session this weekend i finaly got smooth output on my Dell laptop.

1. The QM.net seem ot have problems with auto negotiating. Switching it to 100mbit half duplex on the pc Nic reduced stuttering a bit, but did not solved it completly, It also looks like some qm.net do have this issue and some don't. This is probbably due to different versions of the wiznet develpment boards used on the .net board.

2. I tested with the same setup in beyond, and with beyond i could not reproduce the stuttering.

3. Changing the setting in livepro from calculate points in livepro to calculate points in qm.net finaly solved te stuttering. This was only when using realtec nic, intel nic did not have this issue, neither does beyond.

Conclusion:
qm.nets have issues with auto negotiating.
The LD2000 software got issues with some Nics, changing to calculate points in qm.net solves this.

Loads of QM(?)stutter in the avicci performance in the ziggodome this saturday, in an otherwise flawless show.
And boy, I'm so ocd at this.