My laptop is dual core, but far from state of the art. I have ~450 Sprite files occupying 45M. More than occasionally, I have a slight pause right before the sprite displays. Anybody else experience this? I can circumvent the issue in scripts using strategically placed 'CacheConfig( );' statements. I also think that sometimes a flowfield is NOT executing as smoothly as I might expect ... but I can't be absolutely sure of this condition. My processor is NEVER pegged at 100%. Thanks for any feedback.
j
GF4 Sprite loading
Moderators: BTT, andy55, b.dwall, juxtiphi
so NOBODY else is seeing this? 
Since when using scripting, i.e., 'CacheConfig( );' I can minimize/eliminate the issue, I am finding it pretty hard to believe it is strictly a problem with my [hardware] setup... but I guess I might be running right up against the limit. I would THINK it would be easy enough perform a (pre-)Cache [non-time critical] operation sometime just prior it initiating the operation itself. On the other hand, a 100M cache doesn't seem THAT unreasonable nowadays ... and just cache everything...
also if you haven't checked out my youtube Traffic Video (Parts 1, & >>2<<), be my guest . Yeah I KNOW that you are gonna see Drug Rehab advertising... what can I say
. It certainly doesn't show off all the great capabilities of GF4, but I was done WITHOUT scripting (for the most part), and I am pretty happy how it turned out ... what the heck, it is ONLY 17 minutes out of your life 
!!
Since when using scripting, i.e., 'CacheConfig( );' I can minimize/eliminate the issue, I am finding it pretty hard to believe it is strictly a problem with my [hardware] setup... but I guess I might be running right up against the limit. I would THINK it would be easy enough perform a (pre-)Cache [non-time critical] operation sometime just prior it initiating the operation itself. On the other hand, a 100M cache doesn't seem THAT unreasonable nowadays ... and just cache everything...also if you haven't checked out my youtube Traffic Video (Parts 1, & >>2<<), be my guest . Yeah I KNOW that you are gonna see Drug Rehab advertising... what can I say
. It certainly doesn't show off all the great capabilities of GF4, but I was done WITHOUT scripting (for the most part), and I am pretty happy how it turned out ... what the heck, it is ONLY 17 minutes out of your life !!
jerohm,
I very much enjoyed watching Part 1 of the Traffic video. You have good musical taste my man. Stevie Winwood is one of our best musicians and, to top it all off I noticed three of my ColorMaps in the mix, thank you.
I was not however able to access Part 2 so if you want to give a link I would love to watch that also.
The WaveShape you used for the most part of the 'show' I don't recall seeing before, can you enlighten me further.
As for your problem with 'Sprites' I have not experienced any problem myself. I hope one of the more knowledgeable members of the Forum can help you out.
Regards BTT (UK)
I very much enjoyed watching Part 1 of the Traffic video. You have good musical taste my man. Stevie Winwood is one of our best musicians and, to top it all off I noticed three of my ColorMaps in the mix, thank you.
I was not however able to access Part 2 so if you want to give a link I would love to watch that also.
The WaveShape you used for the most part of the 'show' I don't recall seeing before, can you enlighten me further.
As for your problem with 'Sprites' I have not experienced any problem myself. I hope one of the more knowledgeable members of the Forum can help you out.
Regards BTT (UK)
Thanks ... Traffic, Part II, in my opinion, is better (just as good anyway) than Part I. , If you do a search, there are a few more videos under the ID, "carman200l" (long story). I have found they sometimes have trouble playing through the "My Channel" page, so you are best going to each individual video page. My musical tastes are all over the map, so you MIGHT not like everything! (P.S., Curse YOU, WMG!! 
)
The videos are pretty much a proving ground for my own learning curve, so tend to be kinda self indulgent and monopolized by whatever I am working on at the time (NOT an attempt to exploit GF4 capabilities to their fullest - maybe for some other day). The 'star' of the Traffic video is one of my first Waveshapes "JRM\Dendrite.txt", using Bob Covey's "Lightening Strikes" (also SEE particle mod is Waveshape Construction thread) as the starting point. It was first released ~3.94 ... and evolved with GF4.0. It is currently under still yet ANOTHER elusive transformation. I am attempting to 'normalize' its reactivity, NO matter what music is thrown at it. He 'likes' Low Spark better than a lot of other choices. Also, some Flowfields prove NOT to be the most flattering. MY ultimate goal is the attempt to keep him more organic, than electric, but there may be a plasma ball spinoff sometime in the future.
I almost exclusively use the Standalone version and there is NO DOUBT that both cores are being utilized (my fan runs constantly when GF4 is active for any length of time). I read some were having an issue with the Winamp plugin NOT taking complete advantage, so I tried it myself (& WMP too). While I experienced that the max frame rate dropped and CPU utilization ~60%, the action was OVERALL smoother! ... slower, but more even!. No longer were my Sprite pauses nearly as noticeable/annoying. Timing between frames, seemed to be kept more in check (read: equal). Although a better computer would most likely help my situation, my gut tells me that the multiple core scheduling strategy is LESS THAN ideal / NEEDS to be optimized (... Andy!, hint,hint!
).
j
[First Gen Dual Core/XP32,sp3]
Update
I am reasonably confident I got down to the bottom of MY sprite issue. Prior to GF4, I used to disable all the FlowFields, with the exception of '(Empty)' during development. With GF4, if you do that and exit ... well, don't do it! But if you just HAVE TO TRY IT, when you restart... it won't! [Fix: Kill it & go to where the Flowfields are stored, copy one & rename it to (pretty much) anything ... upon a subsequent restart, it will be new to GF and be enabled ... allowing startup to proceed normally.]
Soooooooo ... now I would just select '(Empty)', and turn the FlowField slideshow OFF (RED). It basically WORKS, but seems to screw with timing and NOT just with my Sprite issue ... If I just leave the slideshows ENABLED (GREEN), thing seem to work correctly... but I reserve the right to be WRONG and retract my conclusions .
Updated Update
The problem is MORE complicated ... but most likely brought on my incessant 'u'-ing. I am very
)The videos are pretty much a proving ground for my own learning curve, so tend to be kinda self indulgent and monopolized by whatever I am working on at the time (NOT an attempt to exploit GF4 capabilities to their fullest - maybe for some other day). The 'star' of the Traffic video is one of my first Waveshapes "JRM\Dendrite.txt", using Bob Covey's "Lightening Strikes" (also SEE particle mod is Waveshape Construction thread) as the starting point. It was first released ~3.94 ... and evolved with GF4.0. It is currently under still yet ANOTHER elusive transformation. I am attempting to 'normalize' its reactivity, NO matter what music is thrown at it. He 'likes' Low Spark better than a lot of other choices. Also, some Flowfields prove NOT to be the most flattering. MY ultimate goal is the attempt to keep him more organic, than electric, but there may be a plasma ball spinoff sometime in the future.
I almost exclusively use the Standalone version and there is NO DOUBT that both cores are being utilized (my fan runs constantly when GF4 is active for any length of time). I read some were having an issue with the Winamp plugin NOT taking complete advantage, so I tried it myself (& WMP too). While I experienced that the max frame rate dropped and CPU utilization ~60%, the action was OVERALL smoother! ... slower, but more even!. No longer were my Sprite pauses nearly as noticeable/annoying. Timing between frames, seemed to be kept more in check (read: equal). Although a better computer would most likely help my situation, my gut tells me that the multiple core scheduling strategy is LESS THAN ideal / NEEDS to be optimized (... Andy!, hint,hint!
).j
[First Gen Dual Core/XP32,sp3]
Update I am reasonably confident I got down to the bottom of MY sprite issue. Prior to GF4, I used to disable all the FlowFields, with the exception of '(Empty)' during development. With GF4, if you do that and exit ... well, don't do it! But if you just HAVE TO TRY IT, when you restart... it won't! [Fix: Kill it & go to where the Flowfields are stored, copy one & rename it to (pretty much) anything ... upon a subsequent restart, it will be new to GF and be enabled ... allowing startup to proceed normally.]
Soooooooo ... now I would just select '(Empty)', and turn the FlowField slideshow OFF (RED). It basically WORKS, but seems to screw with timing and NOT just with my Sprite issue ... If I just leave the slideshows ENABLED (GREEN), thing seem to work correctly... but I reserve the right to be WRONG and retract my conclusions
. Updated Update The problem is MORE complicated ... but most likely brought on my incessant 'u'-ing. I am very
Thanks to 69Voltage's post ...
I was alerted to GF4.0.1 which seems to have (all but?) cleared up MY sprite loading pauses (and also addressed a small Toolbar 'controls' issue). I have also been playing around with a core balancing program 'CPU-Control' that may also be partially responsible... too early to may any definitive conclusions ... yet. My point is that even though the release notes only mentions Apple fixes, it is probably worth your time to download it for Win based machines also, and draw your own conclusions. more random thoughts later ... maybe...
I am pretty sure you are correct. Monitoring individual cores, as opposed to the CPU as a whole, is somewhat challenging ... I haven't found a good tool to show all the relevant info without switching between monitoring screens. One thing that is for sure, you can tie up an individual core (100% utilization) without pegging the CPU to 100%. I am told XP still does a better job at multi-tasking than even 7, but people aren't necessarily developing with XP in mind as a priority. I don't have any HDMI displays, so I am somewhat reluctant in upgrading my laptop ... and losing the S-Video connection... but those i5/i7s look awful tempting!
j
j
I just installed Version 4.01 and can confirm jerohm's bug concerning the vanishing of all elements (waveshapes, flowfields, colormaps, particles and sprites) if the elements are unchecked.
I naturally clear (uncheck) all elements for a fresh start at programming config files. But, as jerhom pointed out, if your clear all your elements... or even if you leave one element checked in each category, (as shown in the above photo) the next time you reboot GForce, it won't work correctly:
The next time you boot:
1)The tool bar will not appear when you boot GForce ...even if you have checked it to start with gforce.
2) When you double-click the Tool Bar to get it going, none of the elements will appear in their respective categories. Not even the few you left checked. All will be gone.
If you saved a new Theme when you had only one element checked in each category, and if you now "load" that theme, the problem remains and the ToolBar remains unpopulated.
Jerohm is also correct that the fix is to load a new Flowfield, forcing GForce to update itself. However, this is tricky, because if you add a new flow field and reboot, all is then well. This will force the population of the ToolBar. Jerohm mentioned changing a file name for his fix.
But if you then delete that new flowfield from the list, and then reboot GForce, that change will not cause GForce to update and correct itself. If you then add back that previously deleted flowfied, the one that had fixed the problem before, GForce will still not refresh its list and will remain "broken."
I don't know if this problem applies other elements, such as WaveShapes and ColorMaps. I've only played with FlowFields thus far.
I did discover that once GForce is "broken", the link between the toolbar and StandAlone is also broken, and it can't be reestablished by simply checking that box in the ToolBar that says "Start Tool Bar when GForce Loads." It won't remain checked during rebooting, as shown in the photo below.
Before unchecking elements, all is well.
After unchecking elements. The command to "Start ToolBar with GForce" will remain unchecked.
I naturally clear (uncheck) all elements for a fresh start at programming config files. But, as jerhom pointed out, if your clear all your elements... or even if you leave one element checked in each category, (as shown in the above photo) the next time you reboot GForce, it won't work correctly:
The next time you boot:
1)The tool bar will not appear when you boot GForce ...even if you have checked it to start with gforce.
2) When you double-click the Tool Bar to get it going, none of the elements will appear in their respective categories. Not even the few you left checked. All will be gone.
If you saved a new Theme when you had only one element checked in each category, and if you now "load" that theme, the problem remains and the ToolBar remains unpopulated.
Jerohm is also correct that the fix is to load a new Flowfield, forcing GForce to update itself. However, this is tricky, because if you add a new flow field and reboot, all is then well. This will force the population of the ToolBar. Jerohm mentioned changing a file name for his fix.
But if you then delete that new flowfield from the list, and then reboot GForce, that change will not cause GForce to update and correct itself. If you then add back that previously deleted flowfied, the one that had fixed the problem before, GForce will still not refresh its list and will remain "broken."
I don't know if this problem applies other elements, such as WaveShapes and ColorMaps. I've only played with FlowFields thus far.
I did discover that once GForce is "broken", the link between the toolbar and StandAlone is also broken, and it can't be reestablished by simply checking that box in the ToolBar that says "Start Tool Bar when GForce Loads." It won't remain checked during rebooting, as shown in the photo below.
Before unchecking elements, all is well.
After unchecking elements. The command to "Start ToolBar with GForce" will remain unchecked.