High FPS on LEDs
  • mad-matt
    garageCube team
    Posts: 1475
    Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2013 5:50 pm

    High FPS on LEDs

    by mad-matt » Mon Jan 29, 2018 5:32 pm

    A few tips on people who'd like to drive LEDs at high FPS using MadMapper and a pixel controller like Advatek Pixelite. I know Advatek Pixelite could drive at 100 FPS any LED types and I heard that with latest firmwares, it can run at higher FPS if the LEDs plugged on an output support more (depending on how many pixels are connected on this output and the LED protocol - WS2811, APA102...). So generally you could go higher.

    Generally running at 60 FPS is enough. All you have to do on MadMapper side is to set the ArtNet mac FPS to 60. Be sure to use latest MadMapper (we improved synchronization between graphics engine and ArtNet output in 3.2.X)

    If you want higher FPS, you can increase the max ArtNet FPS but you need MadMapper engine to run faster.
    For that there are two options:
    1- collapse the UI so that the previews are no more visible
    2- disable previews vertical synchronizations (or the engine is locked on MadMapper UI screen VBL, so generally 60FPS), to do so:
    on Mac, in application Terminal: defaults write com.garagecube.MadMapper doubleBufferredPreview 0
    on Windows, in cmd.exe: REG ADD HKCU\SOFTWARE\Garagecube\MadMapper /f /v doubleBufferredPreview /t REG_SZ /d 0

    This will only work if you have no video projector in MadMapper (or you would have tearing on video outputs).

    To view the engine FPS,
    on Mac, in application Terminal: defaults write com.garagecube.MadMapper logFPS 1
    on Windows, in cmd.exe: REG ADD HKCU\SOFTWARE\Garagecube\MadMapper /f /v logFPS /t REG_SZ /d 1

    Of course if you're playing a movie at 30 FPS at normal speed, the engine will not run faster. It only renders a frame if there's a reason for it. Using an animated material, MM will run at maximum FPS (if you removed preview double buffering, or if previews are collapsed).

    Cheers!
  • daviddenker
    junior Member
    Posts: 4
    Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2019 9:35 pm

    Re: High FPS on LEDs

    by daviddenker » Tue May 21, 2019 3:13 pm

    Hey guys, that topic saved my ass.

    I'm running madmapper with three artnet nodes and send the data with unicast.
    Before disabling previews vertical synchronizations I could run animations only with ~15fps if I increased the Maximum Artnet FPS the LEDs responded supper laggy.
    After disabling previews vertical synchronizations I could set Maximum Artnet FPS to 60 and it's super smooth.
    Maybe this "hacky" registry-param could grow up two a small and tiny toggle switch in the preferences/misc ;-)

    Cheers David
  • mad-matt
    garageCube team
    Posts: 1475
    Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2013 5:50 pm

    Re: High FPS on LEDs

    by mad-matt » Tue May 21, 2019 10:13 pm

    Normally disabling vertical sync should have an effect if the DMX output frequency is higher than screen frequency. But if you're on Windows with an AMD card, vertical sync could be an issue, which will be solved in MadMapper 3.7.0 (about to be released, beta on yourspace). Is that your case ?
  • daviddenker
    junior Member
    Posts: 4
    Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2019 9:35 pm

    Re: High FPS on LEDs

    by daviddenker » Tue May 21, 2019 11:34 pm

    We are Running on a Windows System zwing a NVIDIA P5000. I had the same issue on 3.7.0 and 3.6.8
  • mad-matt
    garageCube team
    Posts: 1475
    Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2013 5:50 pm

    Re: High FPS on LEDs

    by mad-matt » Wed May 22, 2019 8:44 pm

    Going from 15 FPS to 60 FPS by disabling VSync is weird. Many people are using MM on Windows with nVidia and have not reported that. We personally have a bunch of PC laptops and desktops in the team and never saw that.
    Maybe you changed settings to force vertical sync in your nVidia control panel. At startup, MM already shows 3 OpenGL contexts (input preview, output preview & media preview). If each context swap blocks until next VBL, you'd be blocked to 20 FPS, so it's almost matches the FPS you're reporting. Bu that should not happen.
    If you disable VSync you might get vertical tearing... Don't you ?

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests