#Software Failure
34 messages in this thread
Help!! I keep getting dumped out of Lightwave. I'm rendering a simple
animation and my Amiga crashes after a few frames.
Screen reads:
red flash
Software Failure Error: 8100 0005 Task: 0023ECD0
I'm new at this and don't know Amiga DOS that well.
I have 13 meg and GVP '030
Thanks Wes
Wes,
Describe the scene, the rendering mode, LW version, AmigaDos version, number of
points and polygons (and objects). This should help someone determine the
problem better.
Brent
Brent –
my scence is simple but the problem has occured before.
Here's the problem and my info….
Amiga crashes during rendering of an 8 text object rendering of 120 frames.
free mem 5453
8 objects
2 images 1 fract refl. 1 framestore
1 light
points 2185
polygons 1626
51088 poly. cap.
Error Message 8100 0005 task: 0023ECD0
LW version 2.0
Hope this helps. Helps me that is……
wes
Wes: That free memory figure bothers me. Does the crash happen on even
simpler renderings? Try just rendering an empty scene. Make sure nothing else
is running (Modeler, etc). This will give you the maximum amount of free RA
free RAM. If okay, keep adding things and rendering (lowest resolution shou
should be fine), so that the free mem drops in increments. If you near the
edge of free memory and it starts crashing-it's time for some more GVP RAM.
How much RAM do you have, incidentally?
Hope this helps a bit…
Trent Johnson
ReAnimators
Thanks Trent,
I have 13 meg.
Wes
Good luck Wes. 13 MB shouldn't be a problem…hmm…
TJ
Trent
I finally got the animation done. But almost ten tries and 2.5 days for 120
frames is a little too much. I will start from scratch and see if I can
isolate the problem. If anyone out there has a brain storm I would love to
hear it.
Wes
I just got off the phone with NEW TEK .
They say I'm probably having a communication error between the
Amiga/Toaster/Sanyo. They said to do two things.
First- inactivate my fast ram on my GVP'030.
Second- Save frames to Ram then send to tape and the single frame controler
should delete the frame.
I think I can handle the first thing but I have no idea how to do the second.
Does anyone have any ideas? What do these answers look like?
Thanks Wes
Wesley,
Is the 13 megs of memory all 32-bit memory on the GVP board, or do you
have some 16-bit memory on another board ? I had an almost identical
problem recently until I got rid of my 16 bit memory and upgraded to all
32-bit memory.
Jim I don't know. I'll check where the ram is. I bought this thing used and I
assume that it is all on the GVP. All of the slots (I think) are open after my
TBC.
Wes
p.s. High Res Rendering mode
wes
Are you saving RGB or Frames?
To disk or to tape?
My toaster crashes regularly when rendering to tape or playing frames to
tape. I don't think it likes talking to my BCD 2000A. Triggering record
with the joystick works fine.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Kent-
To tape. Sanyo to bw exact. I thought that might be the problem. I really
hope that I wont have to trig every frame. I want this thing to do anims while
I do other things like sleep.
Wes
Yeah, I was afraid of that.
I believe the sanyo has the BCD installed in it, so it may be the same
problem I have.
If your render times are fairly constant, you could set up a simple delay
command, something like LOOP150;TIME180;APND1;LEND. The number after TIME
is supposed be increments of .1 sec, but for me it was more like .25.
This (sort of) worked when extracting JPEG files using pegger and
rendering as a foreground sequence. The images came up roughly 40 sec
apart, but the variance in deJPEG times was too big to be totally
reliable.
If you don't have Pegger, I strongly recommend getting it. It will vastly
increase the number of frames you can save. I get about 26 RGBs per meg.
This will at least allow you to sleep while you render, and reduce the
amount of time you spend waiting to hit the joystick button.
I have been meaning to follow this up with BCD, but my day job keeps
interfering with my toaster-related activities. If I find a better
answer, I'll let you know.
You might also post an inquiry to Jonathan Hirschman 70274,2526. He is
developing a single-framing utility for the Sanyo and BCD called GroVer.
Last I heard, he was looking for beta testers.
Best of luck,
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Kent,
Funny you should mention GroVeR 🙂
We had a lot of problems with Toaster support. We decided to start with the
Toaster 2.0 software, which was a mistake. It seems that it just doesn't work
the same way that the 3.x revisions do, at least when used with ADPro…despite
what ASDG said in their manual and communications to us.
Our 3.x trials start tomorrow. Hopefully, beta testing is not very far
off now – maybe only a few days. And, GroVeR has a delay feature that might
solve your problems.
Jonathan
Any chance I can still beta test? I was in over my head for a while
trying to get something in for the Amiga Gang tape. Needless to say,
having to trigger the majority of frames with the joystick became
tiresome. Any utility that would help, even a buggy beta one, would be a
godsend for me.
Anyway, if you still need a tester, I can send you my BCD directory list.
Thanks.
BTW, since I take it you do have a toaster now, does it crash when you do
similar things? Sans GroVer, of course.<g>
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Kent,
You are still on the Beta list; things should start moving *really* soon…I
mean it this time 🙂
No need for the BCD directory – BCD finally came through for us.
In terms of crashing…why would I bother with sequencing out of LW when I have
GroVeR 🙂
Jonathan
Jonathan-
Do you believe that the problem is a time or delay issue? I render to tape and
I thought the record comand has a delay type feature to allow the machine to
put the image on the tape?
Thanks Wes
Wesley,
We will look into this a bit, but I have no answer now. GroVeR does the job OK,
but requires ample disk space for your frames (unless you want to JPEG them,
perhaps using the ASDG Sentry program), *and* Toaster 3.0 or better.
Jonathan
Kent Thanks
Is there a resolution or quality dif between rgb and framestore. Also I have
been rendering to tape not to my hd and then to tape. Does this cause
problems?
Thanks I will look into Pegger.
Wes
P.S. My day job gets in the way too. The nerve of this company………. 🙂
Wesly,
Does your Lightwave crash only when rendering to tape. How about when
rendering framestores?
Later, Jim
Jim
Nope never crashes on a framestore.
Wes
Wes,
There are folks around who know way more than me, but I'll go out on a
limb here.
My understanding is that RGB retains slightly higher quality because it
hasn't been translated into an NTSC signal prior to storage. RGB files
tend to be smaller than FSs, sometimes by a lot. FSs are usually about
700k, where my RGBs usually come in at about 330k before Pegging.
The only problem with rendering to tape is wear on the deck. On my
AG-7750, the wear ratio between the capstan (I think) and the heads was
weird because I had been rendering to tape. Some components require
replacement after a certain number of hours (on the AG). My dealer
recommended rendering to disk, and then dumping frames so the deck wasn't
sitting around waiting on LW to render. I don't know if this applies to
the Sanyo.
Note: the Pegger manual says extracting JPEGs to FS will show
artifacting, though I didn't see any on tests JPEG'd at 85% quality. I
didn't notice any artifacting on RGB at the same setting during 1 minute
of animation.
Lastly, Jim Broek suggested trying the Talk command to stop the serial
port from talking back to the toaster. My BCD manual says TALK0 is the
power up config, but that the software sets TALK1 when it is run. I'm
going to try TALK0, TALK1, and TALK2 tonight. I'll let you know.
Good Luck.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
PMFJI,
Framestores that are either compressed or saved under the 3.xx software
are compressed, and now, in my experience, are much smaller than their
twin IFFs (RGB).
I have found some artifacting through my use of Pegger, even at 90-100
settings. Try rendering a frame with some kind of gradient background fog,
so that a subtle range of color is generated in the image. JPEGing this
and decompressing it will show some wierdness within the hue spread.
Just wanted to offer whoever needs it some info from my experience 🙂
Stephen Bailey
Sawyer & Bailey Film and Video CIS # 72773,2451
Stephen,
Re: Framestores vs. RGB… Hmm, I tried it out and you're absolutely
right. A LW image rgb saved came to 492k, and the FS was 344k. I started
saving RGB only under 2.0 to save space, and didn't check it under 3.x til
now. Thanks for the info.
Re: JPEG Are you seeing artifacting in a still or a moving image, or
both? I know there is artifacting, but I havent' noticed it to be a
problem on an animation recorded on S-VHS. I do see it in the stills.
Also, the Pegger manual says that decompressing a JPEG as a Framestore
will show more artifacting than decomp'ing to RGB. I checked this, and it
was noticibly true.
I'm still in the hobbyist stage, not trying to make a living at it, so I
suppose my standards are lower.
Thanks for the post and the info.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Check out the Pegger update in lib10 of Amigaarts. This upgrade solves the
framestore decompression problem quite nicely.
Jim Roof
Kent,
RE: Artifacting
Yes, I'm talking about viewing a still from an animation. To be honest, I
haven't gotten too much use out of Pegger since I installed a PAR board.
Just exchanging one type of compression for another, I suppose. I hope to
set-up a way in which Pegger could start up and snoop my brush directories
on boot-up. Then, my storage base (i.e. precious HD space) could be
reduced, without having to constantly decompress brushes for use in
Lightwave.
You're right about JPEG–>FRAMESTORE. YUCK! I always generate full 24-bit
IFFs. They hold up through the ringer. I think the thing about attaining
the highest quality revolves around the amount of use the imagery will
get. From editing, dubbing, processing, etc. Seeing a chunky CG in full
BetaSP quality is a bummer. 🙂
Stephen Bailey
Sawyer & Bailey Film and Video CIS # 72773,2451
Wes,
Good news (so far)!
The TALK2 command seems to fix my problem. So far I've run off 100 frames
without a hitch. Just insert it in your setup string, e.g.
TALK2;EDTP5;EDOTXXXX.
Working like a charm. Hope it works for you. All thanks to Jim Broek, he
had the answer.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Thanks Kent and Jim,
I'll try that new string. Is Sanyo's version of bcd going to need any
adjustments?
Wes
If you've got the Sanyo VTR with the built in BCD, make sure you turn the
"TALK" off. 'TALK 2" I believe, the Toaster doesn't like to have info coming
back up from the serial port.
Later, Jim
Thanks, Jim.
I'm going to give that a try. It really sounds right to me. I'll let you
know.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Jim,
I tried out TALK2 and it seems to fix my problem.
Thanks a bunch for the tip. I can't measure the amount of time you've
saved me.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot
Kent, No Problemo…I kind of stumbled on that one in the manual. And started
turning the "Talk" off, just in case it 'might' cause problems. So I've had it
included in my Sanyo startup script since day one. I guess the BCD manual
doesn't do as good a job at describing Toaster performance peculiarites as the
Sanyo Version of the BCD.
Later, Jim
Jim,
I got my BCD in '91, and haven't upgraded the software since. (hanging
head in shame). My manual only mentions the TALK command in an obscure
place and doesn't even offer a "2" option, only TALK0 and TALK1.
I guess it's just the manual, 'cause the command works. I suppose I
should pursue an upgrade, but at least it's working now.
Anyway, thanks again.
Kent Lidke
Helo Pilot on AutoPilot