FlexControl falls behind with more than 2 slices open

Asher - K0AU

FlexControl works fine with two slices. Add a third slice and the RX slider falls behind the FlexControl. Close slices and normal function is restored. FlexControl is on Com12 with Microbit USB driver on ports 8,9,10,11. Tried moving FlexControl up to Com20 and behavior stayed the same.

Ken - NM9P

I have the sluggish FlexControl problem on a 6500 with only 2 pan windows open when the pan windows have too large a frequency spread, or if I have stretched them over both monitors, or parts of both monitors. In some cases, it was several seconds behind. Again, normalizing the window size and/or narrowing the frequency spread set things right. Is this a 6500 problem, or a graphics adapter limitation on my computer?

WA6FXT Mike

It sounds like a computer issue, to me. More H/P less trouble.

WA6FXT Mike

An update. My Mac MINI (i5 2.5GHz 8GB ram), Win7 Ultimate in Bootcamp and runs four slices on two bands with no slow down. YMMV

Tim - W4TME

Asher - can you describe when it is sluggish? Rotating the knob slowly to tune in a signal or spinning the knob to cover a lot of frequency spectrum at one time? Are the slices all in the same panadapter or in multiple panadapters?

Asher - K0AU

I can reliably reproduce the slow response on my system with: 1. Start SmartSDR v.0.13.10 with the standard 20m panadapter with a single RX slice 2. Click on "new panadapter". Bandswitch the second panadapter to 15m. Click on +RX in the 15m panadapter. 3. Click on "new panadapter". Bandswitch the third panadapter to 10m. Click on +RX in the 10m panadapter 4. Click on +RX in the 20m (first) panadapter. At this point I'm watching 15 and 10m for openings, spotting DX on one frequency on 20m and checking for other activity and/or using the second 20m slice as a transmit offset. Any slice I choose as the focus (yellow cursor) now falls behind the FlexControl knob whether I'm tuning fast or slow. I'm running Windows 8 64-bit on a Sony Vaio laptop (Intel i7/2.2GHz/6GB) with a 1920x1080 external VGA display. Keyboard and mouse connect to a USB hub. COM8-11 are RRC1258 virtual serial ports. I'm using COM10 to tunnel rotator serial control COM12 is the FlexControl I have tried removing the RRC1258 drivers and rebooting. No change in FlexControl behavior. Also tried moving the FlexControl to COM20. No change in FlexControl behavior.

WA6FXT Mike

Have you tried reducing the video resolution? It might have problem at the higher resolutions. Just a thought. My setup is running SSDR on a 1600x1200 display with the desktop on the 1280x720 monitor. Mike

Ken - NM9P

Using v. 15.3 software and a Fujutsu laptop with Core i3 processor and 6 GB memory. I have SmartCAT and SmartSDR running and the knob is sluggish at the screen edges whenever the pan is required to move. It happens even if the FRS is turned down to 9. It is dramatically worse if I have two pans open. It doesn't matter if I have the screen maximized or only half of the screen showing. Though it is worse with full screen. Am I just under powered? Set up screen reports full graphics acceleration. (It seems to do it more than it did in v. 13.

K6OZY

I've seen where the SmartSDR seems to buffer movement inputs when I get to the edge of a panadapter and it starts panedge tuning. I'll keep spinning the knob and the panadapter slides properly, but when I stop tuning, SmartSDR keeps tuning beyond where I stopped.

Richard G7EIX

I've noticed this on an Fujitsu TH700 i3 with Intel HD Graphics that has no dedicated GPU and relies upon the CPU for cycles - if I expand the window to fill the screen I see sluggishness when the panadapter is scrolling at the screen edge - it's as if its trying to catch up. In the middle of the window, no issue at all - only when scrolling off the edge. On one of my other dev boxes with a GeForce GTX 680 installed I never have this issue - smooth - in time with no lag at all. This is of course a very fast GPU and the acceleration is phenomenal. I put it down to WPF and GPU performance.

k0eoo

I experienced the same sluggish, time lagged behavior with my 6500 when I was running my older core2duo. If you call up windows task manager and watch CPU performance while you are tuning you will see if its the PC or something else. With my core2duo CPU performance would hit 100% when I would try and move the knob too fast. I upgraded to a i5 quad core 3.9GHz machine with very good graphics card and spinning the knob fast only moves the CPU usage to 14% at most. No sluggish behavior with the faster PC. Dennis, k0eoo

K2CM

Only see sluggishness when I spin the knob rapidly.

WA6FXT Mike

Same here. Only when I spin the dial.

Tim - W4TME

When you spin the FC knob, it will queue up tuning commands and enable acceleration. The acceleration is not linear due to the shaft encoder used in the FC, but it is close. Also it looks like that the spectrum display repaints after the slice has changed frequency is probably the reason for the lag. As others have noted, with an adequate video card that is able to do fast rendering, the display anomaly is not seen. You may want to consider a video card update.

Asher - K0AU

I don't think this is solved yet! If I open three panadapters with one slice in each pan, the FlexControl keeps up. Now add a second slice in any of the pans (for split operation). FlexControl falls behind, even turning it slowly. I'm running on a new quad core i7 2.2MHz, 6GB Sony Vaio with an Intel graphics 4000 adapter. If we think the problem is GPU performance, then very few notebook or small profile desktop computers will run SmartSDR. I can't reduce video resolution (currently at 1920x1080) because I'm already running out of screen real estate with all the ancillary control and logging software. This problem isn't a show-stopper, but I'd strongly recommend profiling the software and at least coming up with a minimum computer spec to run the software. I hope a thin client doesn't need a gamer video card to keep up.

Eric-KE5DTO

There is definitely a performance issue in the client when tuning a slice on a panadapter with other slices and it seems to get worse with more slices.

Asher - K0AU

Phone SS. Pan is wall-to-wall with signals. FlexControl is falling behind with a single slice. What's a solid spec for a computer that can keep up with multiple monitors? i5? i7? 8GB? 16GB? Intel HD graphics? GeForce 650? Any suggestions on a no fan micro ATX solution?

Tim - W4TME

Are you "spinning" the FlexControl or just rotating it quickly?

Asher - K0AU

In this case tuning slowly. I was tuning up the band to pounce on CQ callers. I improved FlexControl performance by turning display updates down to 10 fps, but I couldn't open a 2nd pan to watch adjacent bands. The contest ergonomics were pretty rough: I needed to keep Windows focus on the N1MM input window, so I needed the tuning knob to work. I can buy a better windows machine, but I need some specs to help get there. A small, quiet machine that drives two big screens. I'm a big fan of the radio signal path architecture, but I'm starting to think you need a 3-tier rather than a 2-tier control architecture. SS showed a stack of critical issues that need to be solved for contesting.

Greg

I didn't have any problems with the flex control at all. My big headache that led me to only doing a few hours in this contest was the mic input. I am using an electret mic to the front panel connector for its bias. I could not select the accy line in input with the MIC selection to play recorded messages. Lots of other things but stuff already brought up. 73 Greg