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Jeff Miller

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Posts posted by Jeff Miller

  1. ADDENDUM:

    I am using the computer names of course. But today I learned a lot more about this issue.

    Changing the frequency works because when you then go online it pushes out the modified show to the display computers. Today I was able to run the show from the production computer at both 60hz and 59.94hz in sync. However, if I change the frequency and then go online, but start playing the show too early, apparently one of the display computers is getting the changed frequency and the other isn't and it plays out of sync (even with the production computer).

    Now, still, if I have the show at 60hz and I play it from the production computer with good sync, once I make either of the two display computers the master and try to play the show it is out of sync. You can clearly see that one starts playing and the other starts a few seconds later. When this happens, even though the lagging computer jumps up roughly to the current frame, it is always a small bit behind. In my test bed in my office, I never saw this, even when they did not start simultaneously.

    I am happy to report that I found some updated drivers for the graphics card and this problem may have been eliminated. I am still frustrated by not understanding why it would run in sync with the production computer keeping time, but not when either display computer keeps the time. I wish I knew more about why this could be different.

  2. I have a show running on two display computers. There are 9 screens. 5 on one Display Computer, 4 on the other. Watchout 6.3.1. Planar screens and extenders.

    The show was set to 60hz framerate. The two computers would play together, but be slightly out of sync. By less than half a second. I discovered if I used the Preferences in Watchout Production and set to 59.94hz, it played in perfect sync. When I take this same show and use Autostart to have one computer drive the show without the Production computer, it goes back out of sync. I tried switching which one is the master, and it is always out of sync. If I put the production computer back in and run from that with 59.94 then the sync is back to perfect.

    Can anyone tell me what the difference could be between Production computer running it versus running it without? Any suggestions as to something else to try?

    Thanks

    -Hi Ho

    Jeff

  3. I have a complex Show on 4 display computers. Unfortunately, 2 of the computers have the new AMD WX9100 card and are not always stable. I have done a lot of work to keep them happy, but still there is an occasional hiccup and Watchpoint crashes.

    Watchdog catches it and restarts Watchpoint. Watchpoint enters the show. However it just stays on a single frame and does not run with the rest of the cluster. Is this the usual behavior? Is there any  way to configure the cluster such that it will be picked back up and resync?

    One other note on this. In order to get the WX9100 cards to run, I had to remove Jump cues entirely. So my main timeline is a composition with a pause cue. Then the composition is put on looping and free running. I suspect that when the errant display computer comes back up it seems to start the show, but then pauses. It is as if it now ignores the looping and free running of the composition.

    Any thoughts or advice?

     

  4. Thank you for posting @piccinaezio

    It is nice to know I am not alone. I am currently still working with 2018 Q4 drivers. It works, but I am severely limited as to what I can do in the show if I want it to be stable (run for 24 hours reliably). I ran a show on 2 of my display computers with Nvidia P5000 and P6000 cards for 36 hours clean. I put the same show on the AMD WX9100 computers and it crashed one of the display computers after running 15.5 hours. No logs, no dumps, no indication of why. All the screens on that computer show "no signal" although the computer still seems to be on. Nothing will bring them back. I have to power button off and start it again.

    That said, I did make a show that is playing 2 mp4 movies on each of 2 machines with WX9100 cards, each driving 6 HD screens and it ran for over 24 hours, so I know it is possible.

    So now I am stuck in a cycle of making one small addition to the show and trying to run it for 24 hours to find out if it is stable. Basically just trial and error.

    I was unable to get the WX9100 to playback HAP movies. (Nvidia display computers do it fine -- same show on the WX9100 would not). Do you have any special settings on the HAP?

     

  5. UPDATE: We upgraded graphics cards to the AMD FirePro WX9100. We were running a show on 2 computers. After a period of time ranging from 4 hours to 12 hours, one of the display computers freezes in playback for ~33 seconds and then all signal is lost on all 6 screens. The computer is still on, but does not respond to anything and there is no way to get video signal back. Had to use power button to shut off.

    Because of this I went back to 2017q4.1 drivers as suggested above. I am currently running long term test on this. However, with Watchout 6.3.1 and these AMD 2017 Q4.1 drivers I can not get WATCHPOINT.exe to run properly. It shows logo, shows the taskbar, goes black, shows the logo in an endless loop. I can get WP.exe to run and see the logo with info on display IP and name. With both computers running WP.exe I am running the show and it seems to be performing correctly. I don't know yet it if it will prove stable.

    I am back to the original question: Why will WP.exe run, but not WATCHPOINT.exe? Does anyone have any advice as to what I could look into or try? Thanks.

     

  6. I have a show that runs on 3 computers. Watchout 6.3.1

    Dell 7920 Rack
    Intel Xeon Silver 4114 2.2GHz, 3.0GHz Turbo, 10C, 9.6GT/s 2UPI, 14M Cache, HT (85W) DDR4-2400 1st
    Windows 10 Pro for Workstations (4 Cores Plus): Fully Tweaked with Dataton guide
    2.5" 512GB SATA Class 20 Solid State Drive
    16GB (2x8GB) 2666MHz DDR4 RDIMM ECC
    AMD FirePro W9100, 32GB, 6 mDP, (7920 Rack)

    The show is a ~3 minute cycle. The show ran for 21.5 hours and then the computer that launched the show (the master) logged the following in the watchdog log:

    { "date" : "2019-01-11", "time" : "7:29:26:984", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "WATCHPOINT stopped responding" },
    { "date" : "2019-01-11", "time" : "7:29:32:001", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "Starting WATCHPOINT" }

    The WATCHPOINT log has nothing in it around this time. I had a video camera running to watch the show and it is clear that at the end of the 3 minute cycle it went back to the beginning (play cue jump). The other 2 computers started playing the cycle again, but the master failed to start it again. It then dropped to the Watchout Logo. It then restarted the show.

    Here's the part I don't understand. When this master then restarted playing the show, the other two computers then freeze on their current frame and don't advance anymore. Meanwhile the master now plays the show alone. Is there a way I could change this behavior so that the other 2 would synchronize again?

    I also checked all Windows logs and could find no entries anywhere around 7:29. Is there any other things I could look at to see why it suddenly stopped?

  7. Here is what I am working with:

    Dell 7920 Rack
    Intel Xeon Silver 4114 2.2GHz, 3.0GHz Turbo, 10C, 9.6GT/s 2UPI, 14M Cache, HT (85W) DDR4-2400 1st
    Windows 10 Pro for Workstations (4 Cores Plus) Multi - English, French, Spanish
    2.5" 512GB SATA Class 20 Solid State Drive
    16GB (2x8GB) 2666MHz DDR4 RDIMM ECC
    AMD FirePro W9100, 32GB, 6 mDP, (7920 Rack)

    WATCHOUT 6.2.2

    I have completed modifying the Windows 10 with the Windows 10 Enterprise Tweaking Guide.

    I can run WP.exe. It runs as follows: 12 seconds all screens go Black. 18 seconds all screens go back to desktop. 42 seconds all screens show WATCHOUT logo and their IP and display number. There is nothing in the log file.

    WATCHPOINT.exe fails. It shows the following: Logo screens show on all screens, 5 seconds later bottom bar shows, 6 seconds later, bottom bar gone, 2 seconds later all screens flash to black and then show logo screens again. Cycle repeats more than 9 times (I assume it is infinity). Log file shows:

    { "date" : "2018-12-06", "time" : "11:52:43:061", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "Starting WATCHPOINT" },
    { "date" : "2018-12-06", "time" : "11:52:53:062", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "Time out while waiting for WATCHPOINT to start up" },
    { "date" : "2018-12-06", "time" : "11:53:01:818", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "Starting WATCHPOINT" },
    { "date" : "2018-12-06", "time" : "11:53:11:819", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "Time out while waiting for WATCHPOINT to start up" },
    { "date" : "2018-12-06", "time" : "11:53:18:877", "severity" : "information",
    "message" : "Starting WATCHPOINT" },

    Once WP.exe has started things, I can run shows, go online with production computer. However, behavior is spotty. Sometimes when 2 movies are supposed to be playing, one of the movies doesn't play. Worse, the display computer can occasionally drop out of WATCHOUT. I am following the engineering adage "fix what you know is broke" so I would like to get WATCHPOINT.exe to start cleanly (and not use WP.exe)

    Does anyone have any suggestions or clues as to what might be happening or what I could look into? Thank you for your help.

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