Closed CShark closed 1 year ago
Have you checked the performance/latency of ArtNet vs. USB/FX5 clone? Especially when you want fast operations or quick changes on many channels some interfaces have issues.
I was thinking about implementing the protocol used by digital enlightenment for their USB interface as it allows selecting an operation mode and the protocol seems to be optimized for performance.
Not yet. It is a little slow registering the USB Network driver compared to e.g. a mouse (takes a hot second), but after that I can't see any visible/perceivable lag at all. Theoretically a 150MHz core clock / 70MHz peripheral clock should be plenty fast compared to four times 30KiB/s using DMA. I do want to get the USB enumeration faster anyway, so I'm planning to do some profiling. Will include some USB-Packet to DMX-Output analysis in that session then.
But a quick test looks good. Did fire 512 channels on all four universes and got no visible latency or stuttering when trying to quickly flash a fixture.
Regarding fx5 and digital enlightenment: the fx5 is just a commercialised version of the digital enlightenment device. And I had a couple of gripes with those devices.
You can reset them pretty easily though, that's why I put up with them. But I would advise against using their input ports.
Add an alternative firmware that emulates an ethernet card and provides ArtNET support to be even more flexible and don't have to rely on janky fixes to plugins on the software.