Will disabling channels lead to better performance?

RichG
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Will disabling channels lead to better performance?

Post by RichG »

Mainly a question for Dave, but thought others could benefit from the answer.

I'm revising my lighting rig and creating some new presets for it. I tend to disable and zero out channels I don't use in the hopes that this will lead to better performance. I'm not sure if is actually the case though. In a simplified example, if I'm controlling one RGB light on Ch 1, 2, and 3 and don't care about the other 509 channels, then I would think the software would transmit info for Ch 1, 2, and 3 and not send anything for the other 509 channels... therefore it would be able to loop faster on those first three channels.

If I think of it in midi Note On/Off terms, midi data is only transmitted on a change. Transmitting ALL Note data repeatedly would clog the data stream. Does DMX (and thus DMXIS) work the same way... or does it send 512 channels worth of data repeatedly?

and IF DMXIS only transmits on a value change, would it be better to make sure unused channels are set to a constant value (Osc Type = Off)?

On a related note, can WireShark be used for DMX? I might be able to discover all I need by analyzing a few traces.
Dave Brown [admin]
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Re: Will disabling channels lead to better performance?

Post by Dave Brown [admin] »

The DMXIS software itself manages this for you - in general, it works exactly as you have described, where only the active channels (those being changed via manual adjustment, oscillator/sound tracker activity, or MIDI/host automation activity) actually affect the CPU load in any significant way.

So, in general you won't see any noticeable CPU improvements by manually disabling channels in your presets.
Dave Brown - db audioware
Author of Show Buddy Setlist | Show Buddy Active | ArtNetMon
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