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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => SR Forum Archives => Lighting FUD Forum Archive => Topic started by: Zach Zaba on January 23, 2011, 03:38:21 PM

Title: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: Zach Zaba on January 23, 2011, 03:38:21 PM

I've been having trouble finding specs for what is needed to confidently set up a PC DMX set up. I'm more used to audio softwares that spell out exactly what's needed but as a general rule what am I looking for:

1GB or 2 GB?
Processor Speed?

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: Ray Cerwinski on January 23, 2011, 09:41:28 PM

Depends on the actual software....

What do you plan on using?

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: Zach Zaba on January 23, 2011, 11:16:14 PM

Most likely Freestyler but wouldn't most of the softwares be about the same as far as system requirements.


Anyone else care to share their set up (laptop, interface/ software)



thanks

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: James Feenstra on January 24, 2011, 02:14:02 AM

as with anything computer based, the faster the better

it will really come down to how much data you're processing at once

if you're running 80 moving fixtures, dl2/3s, media servers, LEDs and a bunch of other stuff, you probably want something as fast as you can possibly get

if you're running a couple of par cans and moving lights, it really doesn't matter

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: waldo [Casey Williams] on January 24, 2011, 03:08:58 AM

I would guess it is very much dependent on the software and how much GUI whistles and bells it has.

The DMX spec is 250kb per second, for a full universe. That is not a lot of data. So for the simple task of just putting out the DMX signal, that is a lot less taxing than listening to an audio file on your laptop.

My second guess is that turning off wi-fi, optimizing your machine, etc, are more important than simple processor speed.

waldo

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: len woelfel on January 24, 2011, 07:41:17 AM

The ones I've seen aren't very resource intensive.  But more processor power and more memory are never bad things.  However, some companies MAY not have written theirs to work with Win7 so that may be an issue.  Most of them will run Win XP just fine.  I found a Dell notebook with XP for about $350 at Micro Center 6 months ago.  

There's 1 or 2 that run on Macs but I don't remember which ones.  

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: Matt Dittman on January 25, 2011, 09:24:13 AM

I am running our shows off of an Acer Aspire One netbook with no issues at all.

If you think you might want to run mp3's off of it, though... you might need a little better specs. I get some occassional skips playing mp3's... but the DMX software (Freestyler plus Bome's Midi Translator) runs just fine.

Title: Re: Dmx Laptop Specs
Post by: Matt Dittman on January 27, 2011, 03:16:48 PM

I run freestyler on a basic Acer Aspire One netbook with no issues, using an Enttec Pro interface. Works fine for lighting, but I don't think a visualizer will work (I never use one, I'd rather set up my lights and see them working when I program it).