G-Force 3 is bloated and slow

[blueshifter]

I'm not posting this to start a flame war, but I just want to make a plea to the development team to address a trend in the software - a confrontational headline should get some people looking at this.

But I have a serious point - the app is just not trippy anymore. It doesn't flow. The transitions are terrible. It is constantly throwing up some pointless flow field that kills the buzz.

To see what i'm talking about, pull up an earlier version (built in iTunes visualizer, for example). Immediate hypnotic effect, primarily because the framerate is twice that of GF! The flow field transitions are almost unnoticeable, they are so smooth.

Think about it, remember why you started this, to create a synergistic effect between music and visuals; not to impress each other with "what a fancy, fractal, mathematically complex recursive image i've created!".

Sometimes, less is more.

[Stick]

second that. it seems that, for the 1.5 years I've been using it, each new version claims to have streamlined something, but in the end it just runs slower!


so, blueshifter, and others,
which, in your opinion, version had the best balance between speed and beauty?

also, is it possible to run versions older than 3.x as screensavers?
I've got my older computer sitting in the corner with G-Force on, 24/7, but it is pretty choppy (I've got the res down to 640x480 to compensate).



and, unrelated question:
does the screensaver call the "standalone" app, and use the same settings? If I have the audio source setup in standalone, will it be the same as a screensaver?

[andy55]

> the app is just not trippy anymore. It doesn't flow.
> The transitions are terrible. It is constantly throwing
> up some pointless flow field that kills the buzz.

I strongly beg to differ. In fact, many edits made to it over the years have been to enhance G-Force's general continuity and flow (ex, editing many FlowFields by hand to decrease flow speed and removing configs that are visually discontinuous in some way).

As for your comments 'pointless flow field' and 'transitions are terrible', please be specific. If you think about it, those comments/descriptions don't really offer any insight into what you'd rather see. Try being more specific regarding your commentary and I'd be happy to discuss this further. We get tons of super-positive feedback each day, so in general I'm really confident about G-Force's progress.

>To see what i'm talking about, pull up an earlier version
>(built in iTunes visualizer, for example). Immediate hypnotic
>effect, primarily because the framerate is twice that of GF!
>The flow field transitions are almost unnoticeable, they
>are so smooth.

There's a couple issues at hand here. Firstly, you need to say what hardware you're running on. Because Apple's built-in version is well, built-in, they can take some nice performance shortcuts that I can't (until G-Force moves to OpenGL). Second, there are many visual quality factors and added features that make today's G-Force vastly superior to what's in iTunes. To name a few: anti-aliased line drawing, 1x1 FlowField transition resolution, over a hundred new configs, and improvements that come with the new computation engine that have yet to be fully tapped. From your frame rate description, it sounds like your machine is struggling more than most. If you're on Mac OS X, this is most likely the case--x86 happens to crunch G-Force a lot better than PPC does.

In any case, check the standalone version of G-Force out to get a better gauge of its potential speed (without iTunes getting in the way).

> Think about it, remember why you started this, to create a
> synergistic effect between music and visuals; not to impress
> each other with "what a fancy, fractal, mathematically
> complex recursive image i've created!".

...and the mission hasn't changed a bit. Of all the config submissions I get, I typically accept only a very select few, so I'm extremely sensitive about what goes into the look and feel of G-Force. Submissions that are too similar to existing configs or submissions that don't work well with the existing feel of G-Force don't get bundled with G-Force. Many, many hours have to go into reviewing new submissions and it's a very intense process for me. So, long story short: watch G-Force 3.1.1 for an hour or two at 30 fps and I'd be curious to see if you still feel that G-Force flows less than it used to. If your preferred frame size doesn't support 30fps, try resizing to a smaller frame size.

As for wanting the "old G-Force experience", this is precisely what we created the Themes feature for in the G-Force Toolbar (and if you have Mac OS--it's coming soon!). If you select the "Mellow" theme in the Toolbar's "Themes" pane, you will not see some of the more recent, faster, crazier configs that you don't like (while another person may love those configs). Try to keep in mind that everyone has has different tastes, so that's why we gave you the ability to customize it exactly to your liking (via the G-Force Toolbar themes feature). To demonstrate how to use themes, we created "Mellow" and "High Energy" themes (the "Factory Default" theme has everything turned on). Also, perhaps you want to precisely mimic a certain version of G-Force that you like. You could do this by turning off configs that weren't in that version and saving it as a new theme. And, again, if you have Mac OS X, we're still working on the toolbar and it'll be out soon. It's currently in alpha, so if you'd like to get a copy to play with, just email me and I'll add you to our alpha list.

Andy

[willrob]

I'm on a MacOX 10.4.3 system and my immediate feeling after upgrading to 3.1 was that things wee smoother. That was with the base set of configs that come with 3.1.

Then I started added my older configs and discovered that I was getting a lot of error messages and the flowfiled unsions were as smooth. I suspect this has a lot to do with those oldr configs being out of tune.

The main reason I moved my old flow fields and wave shapes over was to support the scripts I had created that called on those configs.

[willrob]

Now that I've downloaded the 3.1.1 update, I can compair what's included and what I used to use:

Flowfield: 276 included; I have 600 extra!
WaveShapes: 232 included; I have 317 extra
ColorMaps: 230 included; I have 364 extra, plus 183 I made myself.


Virtually all of these extra items came from the G-Force Extras web page:

http://soundspectrum.com/g-force/extras.html

I'm assuming the xtra colormaps can be safely used (aesthetics aside); but the xtra flowfields and waveshapes have the irritating ability to call up error codes. So it looks like I'll have to write a script that calls them up a few at a time so I can tell which really work and which don't.

[andy55]

second that. it seems that, for the 1.5 years I've been using it, each new version claims to have streamlined something, but in the end it just runs slower!

This is an issue that interestingly crosses over into the world of computing theory... If you look at the increase in the total number of pixels (ie, frame area) on the average display device over the last few years, the curve is more sharply curved than the average CPU performance curve during the same period (this is a result of the fact that the total pixels is essentially the square of the frame size while the increase in a CPU's performance has been, on average, proportional to its enhancements). The net result is that frame buffer data sets have essentially been increasing at a faster rate than the CPU/GPUs can crunch the added pixels. For example, if you run a first person shooter (Q4, BF2, CoD2) on even the fastest CPU and GPU currently available at a mid-to-high resolution, you're lucky to get a non-choppy frame rate. I don't care what CPU and GPU you have, try playing Battlefield 2 at 1920x1200 with high quality settings and it'll crawl on you. Now consider that you can buy display devices that have *twice* as many pixels (Apple's 30" is 2560x1600, for example). In other words, the trend from the last couple years is that the ratio of CPU/GPU performance to the number of display device pixels is decreasing.*

So why do I bring all this up? Chances are the slow-down you speak of is more a result of the fact that 1-2 years ago, the ratio of your frame area to your CPU performance was higher (because you're probably running a higher res now than you were a couple years ago). Now, if you've had the same exact hardware for the last few years, then my arguments definitely don't hold for your case. However, don't discount that fact that OS overhead/bloat takes its toll (Mac OS 10.4, I'm looking at you!). Project "mercury" isn't too far off now, which will bring G-Force to OpenGL, so there's plenty of hope for the future, even if you don't plan on buying faster hardware anytime soon.

In addition, G-Force 3.x has some great features that weren't available a couple years ago (FlowField Unions, sprite auto-fit scaling, denser FFT and PCM evaluation, anti-aliased line drawing, and much more intensive configs that users have submitted).

so, blueshifter, and others, which, in your opinion, version had the best balance between speed and beauty?

That's a great question (and one of the things I tried to ask in my other posting in this thread). I've been doing this for over five years now and the answer probably won't come as much of a surprise: everyone has different ideas of beauty. Some people live for fast, rip-roaring pixel flow while others hate it. Some think slow, lazy pixel flow is boring and lame while others thinks it's the most beautiful thing they've seen. I personally am somewhere in the middle and try to keep G-Force at a good in-between the two extremes. The good news is that with the G-Force Toolbar, you can use the "Themes" feature to enable only the configs that you prefer.

also, is it possible to run versions older than 3.x as screensavers? I've got my older computer sitting in the corner with G-Force on, 24/7, but it is pretty choppy (I've got the res down to 640x480 to compensate).

One option that I recommend is for you to make a new theme containing only the configs that you like (using the G-Force Toolbar) on your older computer. Select that theme while the toolbar is connected, either minimize the toolbar or exit it, and now your G-Force will just be using the configs that you selected.

and, unrelated question: does the screensaver call the "standalone" app, and use the same settings? If I have the audio source setup in standalone, will it be the same as a screensaver?

No, they use different prefs. If you want to have the screensaver use the same audio source currently selected in the standalone app, transfer the 'A_in' pref from your standalone prefs to your screensaver prefs.

Good luck with things!

Andy


* Interestingly, this net-result slowdown phenomenon occurs whenever the operation to be performed is O(N^2) or worse. For example, if a CPU is running a matching algorithm (typically O(N^2) or worse) and the number of elements is doubled, the CPU performance would have to at least quadruple in order for the matching algorithm to run at the same speed. Many data centers/services are facing this problem (and this is partly why Google needs its tens of thousands of servers to function, even if most of their indexing algorithms are O(N*logN)--the data sets never stop growing).

[andy55]

Folks that have an interest in the issues raised in this thread will mostly like the posts in this thread as well:

http://forums.soundspectrum.com/viewtopic.php?t=889

andy

[JayPro]

See, this is why I'm in awe of the program.

Because I'm in awe of people who can hold forth on concepts for which I have little to zero aptitude (for our purposes: advanced math and computer science/programming) and from that extrapolate the magnificence we sometimes take for granted in G-Force.

And as its "daddy", Andy will ultimately (and, to a certain degree, with our input) choose to regale us with its myriad wonders in whatever fashion he chooses. This I've come to appreciate all the more when he stated in the previous post that hours on end go just into *selecting the effects* that go into each subsequent build.

Taking this into account, I'm inclined to be twice as fascinated with his understanding about computers and math and how it allows him to see things in GF that most of us--even the "computationally" adept in our ranks--cannot, even if we try.

That said, I'd also like to opine on a few things, spme of which I've said before, but warrants repeating.

Even though GF, in its pristine, "user-unedited" form and sans tool-bars and V-bars what-have-you, is a basic look into one man's perception of the beauty of math, it's important to understand that this one man has the depth of character and soul to respect the individual user's desire to change it.

As you know, he's opened up an archive from which we can select effects that have either been in the program before or never at all.
Never mind the fact that this is one of the most versatile, easily adaptible music vis apps ever.

I personally like my GF with as many effects as I can pick up. From the hectic to the sublime, from the guady to the grand, I prefer an environment wherein no clue exists as to what will come next, be it a sweet dream coming down from a legalized, pixel and color-driven meth rush or a drive through hyperspace stopping dead in its tracks.

And every possible state of mind in between. In short, variety and lots of it.

There's been a definite hesitancy on my part to go beyond 3.0 at this juncture and yes, I've stated before that one of the two reasons is the problems VectorC is likely to still have with a lot of my effects. Someday soon, I guess I'll finally have to give 3.1> a whirl and cross my fat fingers.

But I do believe that the other reason will be that IMO the toolbar and VBar are bells and whistles--albeit nice ones--that someone with a jones for autopilot mode (hint ) will tend to find a wee bit gratuitous.

Mind you, I'm not denigrating (sp?) all the effort that is yet being made to perfect it; this is just my worthless opinion.

To show you all how "old school G-Force" I fancy myself, I truly believe that the one thing that I've always wanted to see change is the font used in the console (*not* the font used in track/album title sprites and the like). IOW, when I hit the V key and I see that tacky, anorexic Monaco font, I want to hurl.
The thing, though, is that I like to keep it on to see if everything works, i.e. all the flowfields are okay.

I babble too much........

[brightblack]

I might be waaaay off the mark here, but is any of this tension and subjectivity coloured by the 3.0 pricing scheme? Just curious.

Personally, I think GF3.x looks better than ever, and the bits I don't like...I...er...delete *cough*.

Some of this will undoubtedlty come down to usage too. I have used a limited commercial license for GF3 at live shows (on a PC) with some local bands at benefit gigs here in Tokyo, and I think it just gets better and better for that. However, on my Mac at home I have it running with iTunes, and that alleged 8bit pallet doesn't seem all that it once was. I do think andy is correct in his screen real estate/frame discussion, that we generally expect more, but I think even Andy did take the point that most of the recent 'hot tech' advances are in graphics card, not CPU speed. So then, when are we going to this OpenGL version?

If I was to list my 'unhappiness' with GForce 3, it would actually be more with the toolbar (yeah, i know), it just wasn't what I hoped for (which is maybe too much of post for here). However, I do respect that I'm a very small part of the market, but since we now all effectively 'rent' our GForce Platinums now, financially, I wonder if people who don't get what they want will revert to free mode, and re-subscribe again when the features they want emerge?

OK, now I've got way off topic. The summary is, I think it's good this question was asked because I too was a little disappointed by 3.x, but maybe for different reasons, and I think Andy and JayPro's replies have been useful and responsible, and we should take it as a *very healthy* thing that this discussion is happening in such a civilised manner.

[andy55]

I might be waaaay off the mark here, but is any of this tension and subjectivity coloured by the 3.0 pricing scheme?

Not at all, and I guess I'm not even sure the 3.0 pricing scheme relates to this discussion. Also, for the record, 'tension' isn't the best word... I just wanted to be thorough in my previous posts (because they're useful to refer people to in the future when they ask related questions).

Some of this will undoubtedlty come down to usage too. I have used a limited commercial license for GF3 at live shows (on a PC) with some local bands at benefit gigs here in Tokyo, and I think it just gets better and better for that. However, on my Mac at home I have it running with iTunes, and that alleged 8bit pallet doesn't seem all that it once was. I do think andy is correct in his screen real estate/frame discussion, that we generally expect more, but I think even Andy did take the point that most of the recent 'hot tech' advances are in graphics card, not CPU speed. So then, when are we going to this OpenGL version?

Thanks for acknowledging my points, and now that I know you have Mac OS, I should mention that I'm looking into a bug that Mac OS user reported that when one changes MaxY from unlimited (ie, a large number) to just two less than the height of the fullscreen res, there's a noticeable speedup, indicating that there may be a Mac OS performance issue going on when the GF frame height matches the display height. Note that I haven't confirmed/reproduced this issue yet, but if I do or get any updates on it, I'll post to this thread asap. In the mean time, try setting MaxY to 2 less than your fullscreen res height (ex, 766).

If I was to list my 'unhappiness' with GForce 3, it would actually be more with the toolbar (yeah, i know), it just wasn't what I hoped for (which is maybe too much of post for here). However, I do respect that I'm a very small part of the market...

Ah, that makes more sense then. For what its worth, we're dying to add commercial features to the toolbar, such as on the fly text, graphics, and effects. We've been searching high and low for a solid, talented Windows developer--they're tough to find. The second we get one, Toolbar commercial features are a top priority.

but since we now all effectively 'rent' our GForce Platinums now, financially, I wonder if people who don't get what they want will revert to free mode, and re-subscribe again when the features they want emerge?

This is an inaccurate perception that we're trying to fix. Any user that pays for G-Force can use it for life. It's just that they can only get new updates for a year. That's a big difference from, say, G-Force "shutting off" and not working after a year of use.

OK, now I've got way off topic. The summary is, I think it's good this question was asked because I too was a little disappointed by 3.x, but maybe for different reasons, and I think Andy and JayPro's replies have been useful and responsible, and we should take it as a *very healthy* thing that this discussion is happening in such a civilised manner.

I couldn't agree more. I like to be kept on my toes and know what users think--both good and bad. In fact, 'bad' is often better since it provokes a discussion that gets to the real issues. Sure enough, it sounds like what you really crave is added commercial functionality to the toolbar (and I personally can't wait for us to finish our job search so we can get that project rolling!!).

In any case, thanks for the good discussion and hopefully there is a fixable issue in the midst that may boost 8 bit mac os fullscreen performance (if this issue is real, it was probably introduced in 10.4 if I had to guess--most stuff like that was).


Andy

[andy55]

second that. it seems that, for the 1.5 years I've been using it, each new version claims to have streamlined something, but in the end it just runs slower!


so, blueshifter, and others,
which, in your opinion, version had the best balance between speed and beauty?

also, is it possible to run versions older than 3.x as screensavers?
I've got my older computer sitting in the corner with G-Force on, 24/7, but it is pretty choppy (I've got the res down to 640x480 to compensate).



and, unrelated question:
does the screensaver call the "standalone" app, and use the same settings? If I have the audio source setup in standalone, will it be the same as a screensaver?

Somewhat good news on this front for users that use WMP... I've been researching why the 3.1.x has been getting lower frame rates on WMP that older versions despite all the nifty speedups in 3.x. Turns out that in order to address thread starvation problems in G-Force seen on particular hyperthreading machines, I was padding how much G-Force was sleeping each frame. This solved the HT issues but it was unfortunately having a large impact on middle-tier and lower PCs. I have reduced this padding significantly in hopes that the HT issues won't reappear and that everyone gets the high frame rates that they deserve.

So, in short, in GF 3.1.3 due out around the end of January, WMP users can expect a big jump in frame rate.

In a perfect world, we would have done more QA to uncover this earlier, but we're doing the best possible given our resources available and the minimum requirements for human sleep. As we grow and get more sets of hands, we'll be able to improve on QA.

Thanks,
Andy