[QLab] sluggish performance

[Christopher Ashworth]

On Nov 13, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Vincent Olivieri wrote:
>
>>> In tonight's run, I noticed slow-down of the sounds. whenever there
>>> were
>>> more than 4 sound files running at once.
>>
>> What do you mean by slow-down here?
>
> For periods of 4 to 6 seconds, the pitch drops and the tempo slows  
> down by
> about 10%, as if I were manually slowing the spin of a reel-to-reel  
> tape
> deck.

This is, as they say, highly unexpected.  Does the console log show  
anything?

/Applications/Utitlies/Console.app

I'm really stumped by the pitch drop behavior, as I frankly have no  
idea at the moment how that could happen.  On the QLab side of things  
it should either work or drop out entirely.  Is there any chance this  
could be something downstream of QLab (i.e. in the driver)?  Anyone  
here experienced anything odd with the Digidesign mBox Pro?

>
> Ah, I'll try that.  The video cues are all full-screen with a little  
> bit of
> manipulation in QLab.  Only one video cue at a time is visible on  
> the second
> display, so even though both cue lists above would look the same to  
> the
> audience, if QLab keeps the image up until it's told to take it  
> down, then
> the first cuelist would actually have three videos displayed (C on  
> top of B
> on top of A) at the same time, whereas the second cuelist only shows  
> one at
> a time.

Ah, yes, so this will help.


>>> I'm running QLab 1.3.1,
>>
>> One thing to check is that you're using the most recent version of  
>> the
>> Video Cue, as some of the recent updates did optimize some of the
>> memory allocation, which reduced the time it takes to load video
>> workspaces.  Even with those optimizations, it's not perfect, but  
>> it's
>> worth checking to make sure at least those optimizations are  
>> available
>> to you.
>
> I'm not sure if I am or not.  I was current as of a couple of weeks  
> ago, but
> experience (with software in general, not QLab specifically) has  
> taught me
> to never upgrade once a show has been teched unless you know for  
> sure that
> the upgrade will help and not hurt.  Has anyone had any bad  
> experiences with
> the current video upgrades?  If not, I'll upgrade.

I agree completely on the wisdom of staying with the system you teched.

Rather than upgrading now, you could go to the update manager ("Cues"  
--> "Install/Update Cues...") and just check on whether there is an  
update available or not, for informational purposes.  But actually  
doing the update is, I agree, something to hold off on unless  
absolutely necessary.  Just on general principles.

-C