12/24/2005 1:33:43 PM

I'm not sure if this is a warning to others or not...

I went up to church this morning to install the Christmas Eve and Sunday am programs.  I hadn't had a chance to look for new updates lately and wanted to see the Christmas Goodies.  So I installed the updates.

Suddenly everything was slow and locking up.  Running video backgrounds now locks up the system for a few seconds, sometimes it just freezes up during transitions.

Fortunately I have two computers there (we run just one projector, though...) and the "old" version (installed a month ago) works just fine.

Has anyone else had this experience?

These are two brand new computers - screaming fast with all the goodies and duel video cards (I forget which but it's one that's recommended).  Until this morning we've had no problems...until we installed the updates. 

We do have the latest video drivers (since that seems to be the answer to every question).

Help?

John

12/24/2005 4:02:03 PM

Well, that is one frequent solution.  The other one is if you have a hyperthreaded system, is hyperthreading turned off?

12/25/2005 6:21:23 AM

I thought we were having problems when I first installed the latest upgrade, but it was only with the Christmas Lights pro-module. Everything else worked well.

I spent some time with Tech Support on the phone and we figgered out that I hadn't turned hyper-threading off. Since I've turned hyper-threading off, the updated SSP has been fine.

Once I was having a problem and ended up having to reinstall the graphics engine. You may want to do that. You can force it to reinstall certian components. Since the graphics engine and Direct X were both upgraded, it could be that one of those needs to be reinstalled.

12/27/2005 7:05:01 AM

Joel,

I actually had re-installed the entire program and that didn't do it. I tried to uninstall the Christmas Goodies but the "uninstall" button doesn't highlight under the area where I can uninstall Promodules.

People more knowledgeable than me don't want to turn off the hyperthreading. Any other thoughts?

John

12/27/2005 7:24:51 AM

 Isn't there a specific reason why hyperthreading must be turned off?

12/27/2005 7:46:06 AM

What is that reason?

12/27/2005 9:11:55 AM

SongShowPlus 5.5 was not written in such a way that it behaves well on a machine with hyperthreading on. I don't know the exact reasons. I just know that 5.5 was much happier when I turned hyperthreading off.

12/27/2005 10:16:33 AM

Hyperthreading, and dual core for that matter, both create problems for DirectX and its subcomponent DirectShow.  In order to avoid lockups with SongShow Plus 5.5 and early you must turn it off.  For most applications there is little to no benefit for having hyperthreading enabled anyway.

Version 7 is fully compatible with hyperthreading and dual core systems. 

So in this case the two options are:
1. Turn off hyperthreading
2. Upgrade to the version 7 beta. 

What reasons do the church members have for not wanting the HyperThreading dissabled? 

12/27/2005 11:12:51 AM

Hyperthreading is Intel's way of making a single processor behave like it is more than one processor.  Currently (5.5) SongShow Plus officially does not support multiple processor systems.  A multiple processor system introduces issues that require substantial re-architecturing to handle correctly.

Most current commercial applications are unable to take advantage of hyperthreading, and many will fail unexpectedly with this feature on.  A general purpose machine with hyperthreading on is at some degree of risk.

Hopefully this clears up the "why" - and the choices available are nicely outlined by David. 

12/27/2005 12:00:36 PM

I guess we'll be turning off hyperthreading.

I think the persons reasoning for not wanting to turn it off was "we paid for all this power..." But if it can't work well with others, then it's got to go.

Thanks for all your help.

12/27/2005 12:40:36 PM

For the folks that don't want it turned off, just let them know turning it off won't reduce the power of the computer at all. 

To take advantage of what little benefit HyperThreading offers the applications would have to be written specifically for it.  As most applications aren't capable of using it, you won't be loosing anything by turning it off. 

1/3/2006 1:42:09 PM

How do you find out if you have hyperthreading and how do you turn it off if you do have it?

1/3/2006 2:28:15 PM

One way to tell is by starting up task manager and going to the performance tab. If there are two CPU graphs, then you have hyperthreading on or a dual core or dual CPU machine. I was setting up a machine at work with 2 hyperthreaded CPUs and it had 4 CPU graphs.

To turn hyperthreading on or off (or to REALLY check it's setting) you have to go into bios (machine set up) when the machine boots, before windows starts. Usually by pressing F1 or F2.

Once in the bios settings, look for performance settings or something like that. There should be on screen instructions for changing the settings.

Then save the settings and exit.

1/3/2006 3:28:48 PM

I really don't think we have it, but we could I suppose.  I'll have to check when I get back to church.  Of course, I spent 2 hours after updating the driver trying to fix the computer.  I never did get it fixed so at least rolled back to the old driver.  Ugh! 

1/3/2006 7:52:18 PM

According to David, Hyperthreading was introduced on Pentium IV processors faster than 2.4 GHz.

1/3/2006 7:59:16 PM

Hmmm, I'll have to check.  We have a Pentium IV processor that is 2.0 GHz. 

1/4/2006 5:15:45 AM

Then you don't have hyperthreading.

1/4/2006 6:24:36 AM

. . . and I'm glad!

1/4/2006 6:29:08 AM

Which driver???

1/4/2006 8:22:50 AM

We have the Nvidia GEForce 5600 installed so I went to their website and downloaded the latest driver.  After that, the screens shrunk and everything got all messed up.  I couldn't figure out how to make the screen size larger to fit our sanctuary screens so I was pushing buttons and somehow the display monitor got switched to the one in the booth and the sanctuary screens were showing me what I should see in the booth and I couldn't see that far and it was just a mess.

1/5/2006 12:26:12 AM

I have seen this happen before after updating drivers at times.  Particularly the issue where the outputs get switched.  In this case, I just switch the cables.

1/5/2006 5:12:42 AM

You have?  I thought it was something I did!  I don't know how I would be able to switch all the cables because we run them through a mixer.  It gets complicated. 

1/5/2006 9:24:58 AM

You should be able to just switch the two on the back of your computer.

You should also be able to drag the boxes around in the Display Settings tab and get the layout you want. But sometimes that does take a while. And I know, for some reason, it's different between nVidia and ATI. They all want to grab more control than they need to, now that WinXP does dual screen so well.

1/5/2006 11:22:01 AM

I'm pretty sure I cannot just switch them on the back of my computer, but I could be wrong.  The only output from our computer is an SVideo cable that goes to our mixer.  We also plug into our mixer the DVD Player and sometimes a camera feed.  From our mixer we have several outputs.  Two go to each projector and one goes to the tv that we use as another monitor.

1/5/2006 11:53:22 AM

Ah!! I didn't realize you were only sending s-video to your mixed. I figgered you were sending VGA to the mixer, as well as your monitor.

1/14/2006 8:13:30 PM

Karen, you may have already solved this problem, but in case someone else comes across it -- I just updated my NVIDIA drivers and made the mistake of choosing "typical" installation when the system rebooted. My monitors were switched and even going into control panel and moving them could not get the configuration correct. After trying everything for about an hour, I removed the drivers and reinstalled, then picked "custom" at the reboot screen. From that point it was very simple to configure the displays properly.

Ron

1/14/2006 9:09:12 PM

Ohhh, that makes sense!  I probably chose typical installation.  When I get some more time, I will definitely try to reinstall it once again.