pulse problem from card

P

paul

Member
To Bill.
I dont no if any one else has had this problem.
when you have the preview window open and viewing as audience scan and smoke enhancement on that you get a pulse problem on the out-put from the card(using diode lasers)put the mouse arrow over the pre-view window and watch it flicker, when you shut down window it disapears on the out put from the laser.
i thought i was having problems with lasers but have tracked it back to the preview window.
is this just my card or have other people experienced this?
 
Hi Paul,

I hate to keep saying this but... time to look at those help files again...

Here's the deal. You have (at least) two outputs from Showtime. One of them is the preview window, one of them is the laser. If you use both simultaneously *something* has got to take priority (provides smooth output).

A long time ago, a decision was made that if you have the preview window open, then it is the preview window that takes priority. This makes perfect sense because if you have it open, it must be pretty important that this window provide smooth output, i.e. during programming sessions when you are not even using a laser.

Now, if you have a relatively slow computer or a crappy video board, then this "prioritization" will cause the laser output to flicker. If you have a *really* slow computer or video board, this flickering may actually look like pulsing. This will be especially noticable with Enhanced Reality Preview.

The Ehnanced Reality Preview is a relatively new feature that allows you to view both graphics and beam effects with incredible reality. The latest version allows you to view infinite beams, complete with the appearance of realistic fog. Our system now computes wind speed, wind direction, fog density and other factors to give an extremely realistic view. BUT!! There is a price and that price is that you have to have a decent video board that supports OpenGL well. If you have a $25 video board, things may be down right jerky but with a decent video board, they are extremely smooth and it will NOT interfere with laser output.

Bottom line, get a decent video board. I use a GeForce4 here at Pangolin, but there are lots of great ones on the market for not too much money.

You do have two other options. One is not to use the Enhanced Reality Preview and the other is to simply close the preview window when you are running the show for real.

Bill
 
The speed of the computer is fine, the video "board" (or integrated video on the mother board) makes the difference. Hayden's computer here is "only" 1GHz, but he has a decent video card, and so he can do Enhanced Reality Previews at around 120 frames per second.

When I had an NVidia TNT2 video board it would only go around 2 frames per second with textured fog. :rolleyes:

But when I switched to the GeForce, I can't even count how many frames per second!! :N

Bill
 
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