honza66
Hello, I have recently purchased VDJ v3.4....I'm using laptop with Intel Pentium M 1.86Ghz, 1GB RAM and 128 MB Mobile Intel 915GM video chipset. The problem is when i do transition between 2 videos, the 2nd video always freezes and the music continue, thank god. So then i have to go to CONFIG/VIDEO, uncheck USE HARDWARE ACCELERATION, click OK and then i go back again to check USE HARDWARE ACCELERATION so the video can go smoothly. Does anybody know what could be the problem? I have noticed that this happens usually after 2hours of playing.Thx Honza.
Inviato Tue 02 May 06 @ 8:50 pm
djderricke
Sounds like your video card doesn't have enough memory to handle moving all the pixes around. 256mb of video memory is really needed.
Inviato Tue 02 May 06 @ 10:03 pm
honza66
Yeah, probably so. I was gonna try it on my desktop...just didn't have time yet. Even though VDJ tech. support thinks 128Mb is enough. Thanks.
Inviato Wed 03 May 06 @ 1:29 am
Dj-Los
Hi,
For the intel 915, try not using hardware acceleration at all.
Also, for power options use always on or desktop, this will use less cpu to run vdj.
Let us know, Dj Los.
For the intel 915, try not using hardware acceleration at all.
Also, for power options use always on or desktop, this will use less cpu to run vdj.
Let us know, Dj Los.
Inviato Wed 03 May 06 @ 2:22 am
A Man and His Music
I am using a nVidia 6600gt w/128mb, and it works fine for me. You say you experienced this after time. Maybe this is a heat problem. What else has changed, after 2 hours? What is your laptop sitting on? What cooling methods are you using?
Inviato Wed 03 May 06 @ 8:48 am
retgree
I have also recently installed VDJ in a new toshiba notebook with Intel 915GM video chipset, 128 mb memory.
I have problem with video. after 1 hour working with VDJ the monitor became dark with no way to restore it. need to reboot system.
maybe there are some problem with this video card.
today I'll try to REDUCE THE HARDWARE ACCELERATION.
In Windows XP, select START > SETTINGS > CONTRL PANEL > DISPLAY. Select the 'SETTINGS' tab, click on the advanced button. Select the tab labeled 'TROUBLESHOOT'. Move the slider all the way to None, click on OK or CLOSE, and restart the computer.
bye.
I have problem with video. after 1 hour working with VDJ the monitor became dark with no way to restore it. need to reboot system.
maybe there are some problem with this video card.
today I'll try to REDUCE THE HARDWARE ACCELERATION.
In Windows XP, select START > SETTINGS > CONTRL PANEL > DISPLAY. Select the 'SETTINGS' tab, click on the advanced button. Select the tab labeled 'TROUBLESHOOT'. Move the slider all the way to None, click on OK or CLOSE, and restart the computer.
bye.
Inviato Wed 03 May 06 @ 9:45 am
djsherz
I'd strongly recommend some extra cooling to anybody who uses a laptop. I bought one at a computer fair for £20, it's just a big metal heatsink with a couple of fans in it, that the laptop sits on - makes a huge difference as well, my lil' Toshiba gets nowhere near as hot as it used to, which is good for stability, and also puts less physical stress on internal components.
Inviato Fri 05 May 06 @ 2:36 am
Chris Davis
This issue of Virtual DJ has been posted many times and know one seems to have an answer other than guesses. I wish to add to that. I do not support the theory of heat causing issues as that would cause the whole computer to crash. I have had the problem since buying the program 6 months ago. I run p4 3200hz with 1g ram. Nothing else is loaded, it is fully dedicated to virual DJ. Last time it froze, after around 5 hours of operation, i checked CPU usage and it was at 100%.
This has got me thinking the Virtual DJ might be causing Memory leakage. This is where the program does not release all the used memory on each transition. This keeps adding up until there is no more memory left.
So After a period of time the CPU will be running at say, 92%. When virtual DJ trys to load the next song, and needs another 20% of CPU power, it is not there and Virtual DJ freezes up. Everyone has always reported in this forum says that it happens on loading the next song. This would also explain why the existing song continues to play as soon as it freezes, the drain on power is not there allowing the loaded song to finish . The more RAM you run, the less likely you will notice this problem because it may take the leakage 10 hours or more to use up 2g of memory. Your gig is well over by then.
So if anyone suffers this problem again, can you open the windows TASK MANAGER (ctrl, alt, del) and check the performance and report the result in this forum. It may also be worth while checking the usage during your gig to see if it increasing as the night goes on. If it is leakage, as I suspect we can get the Dev Team to check it out.
DJ Cee Dee
This has got me thinking the Virtual DJ might be causing Memory leakage. This is where the program does not release all the used memory on each transition. This keeps adding up until there is no more memory left.
So After a period of time the CPU will be running at say, 92%. When virtual DJ trys to load the next song, and needs another 20% of CPU power, it is not there and Virtual DJ freezes up. Everyone has always reported in this forum says that it happens on loading the next song. This would also explain why the existing song continues to play as soon as it freezes, the drain on power is not there allowing the loaded song to finish . The more RAM you run, the less likely you will notice this problem because it may take the leakage 10 hours or more to use up 2g of memory. Your gig is well over by then.
So if anyone suffers this problem again, can you open the windows TASK MANAGER (ctrl, alt, del) and check the performance and report the result in this forum. It may also be worth while checking the usage during your gig to see if it increasing as the night goes on. If it is leakage, as I suspect we can get the Dev Team to check it out.
DJ Cee Dee
Inviato Fri 05 May 06 @ 6:32 am
A Man and His Music
Chris Davis, wouldn't this affect ALL machines, not just laptops, or just a few machines? I only have 1g of ram, and can run 15 hours of audio and video. I also am on line, WMP is open, can scan all 5 hard drives, and Zone Alarm runs a scheduled spy-ware/virus scan. Your theory sounds good, and may be correct, but as a scientist, if you can't repeat this in all machines, how does your memory leak theory pan out?
Inviato Fri 05 May 06 @ 9:02 am
Chris Davis
At last, rejoice, I have a temporary fix for freezing during transition...read on
OK I'm the first to admit I was wrong. The high CPU usage rate was due to the hardware accelerator being turned off. However I have been desperate to find a solution to the Freezing during transition problem since I first got VDJ v.3 . I couldn’t understand why it happened to a few people and not the majority of users, and to me all the time. I knew it could not be a wide spread problem otherwise these forums would be full of complaints, instead there are just a couple of threads.
There have been plenty of suggestions that it was hardware, memory, sound cards, excess heat, laptop and more. I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING. I have had a computer shop bench test my desktop computer, a P4 3200 and we have upgraded the memory to 2Gig, changed the video card from 128 to 256, put in top of the range gaming video cards, and changed brands including ATI and Nvidia. We changed the video accelerator settings, reloaded VDJ v3.4 onto 4 different computers including AMD 64 and P4 3500. I deleted files that were involved in the freeze, change settings in VDJ’s config, and we still had the freezing during transition. To satisfy our scientist DJ Man and his music, here is the problem being repeated time and time again on 4 different desktop computers. 2 of us have spent 2 solid weeks trying to get this fixed, and failed. I was still confused as to why this is happening to me, and a few others around the world, and not everyone.
This problem is random, in that you don’t know if it will happen in 1, 2 or 3 hours but sure enough, it will freeze.
I run my VDJ exclusively on Automatic Mixing. I disable Auto BPM, and I always use Force Fade at 2.4 sec. This is because I work a venue that wants rock music and want the full song. We run the video output to a TV or projector. In our test, we would load 6 hours of MPG video files, and let VDJ3.4 mix the songs. Always it would freeze after about 1 to 3 hours. Strangely, it was only VDJ that froze, not the computer. Therefore we were able to select Ctrl Alt Del, and under Applications and close VDJ. Restart the program and continue another test. Because it was not the computer that froze, only VDJ the computer tech was convinced the problem is a software issue, not hardware.
In a last effort to solve the problem I spent 3 days, sitting in front of my computer watching VDJ to find out exactly when it freezes.
First, by watching the freeze, I discovered it actually happened AFTER transition. The song would come to the fade exit point, the next song would start up, the fader would cross to the other side, the old song would drop off and the next song would commence to load. The fade entry point and the fade exit point would show up. THIS IS THE POINT IT FREEZES. Normally the song would continue to load with green and blue in the progress bar but this does not happen. All graphics stop, the mouse and keyboard become inactive on VDJ (but not on the computer) but the newly commenced song’s audio continues to the end.
This was repeated time and again but strangely not if a TV was disconnected. Also it also does not happen if I change Fame Setting to Auto BPM enable and Force Fade disable.
I remembered reading in the manual, that VDJ does not decode the song that is hidden, to save on computer memory. To get a smoother transition you can tick the decode when hidden box. So that must mean that when a new song commences playing, it begins to decode at the same time the next song starts to load. So I thought I would try ticking the box so that the hidden song was decoded and ready to play before the next song tried to load and see if that made a difference.
What I have discovered is that if the decode while hidden box is ticked, I do not have freeze issues. I beleive freeze on loading for most DJ’s does not happen because they use VDJ program live, mixing song to song with the program or connected hardware. By the time they load the next song, the new song is already decoded and playing. Likewise, using Auto BPM to mix for you, allows the hidden song to commence long before the next song is loaded.
But for me, my pub used the program to play songs day and night, on auto mix, with Auto BPM disabled, and the other FAME settling enabled, including force fade at 2.4 sec. Plus the TV is connected and on. The files played are MPG video. I have had all the test computers running for 72 hours now without a hiccup. Problem solved at last. I do not understand why the problem appears random. A song that caused a freeze one time would not the next time it came up. What I do know is that the freezing occurs when ever I used the settings discribed above. I hope the development team reads this and experiment to produce the same results I have and produce a fix in next release.
Stop the freeze, and tick decode while hidden on the video tab in VDJ's config.
OK I'm the first to admit I was wrong. The high CPU usage rate was due to the hardware accelerator being turned off. However I have been desperate to find a solution to the Freezing during transition problem since I first got VDJ v.3 . I couldn’t understand why it happened to a few people and not the majority of users, and to me all the time. I knew it could not be a wide spread problem otherwise these forums would be full of complaints, instead there are just a couple of threads.
There have been plenty of suggestions that it was hardware, memory, sound cards, excess heat, laptop and more. I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING. I have had a computer shop bench test my desktop computer, a P4 3200 and we have upgraded the memory to 2Gig, changed the video card from 128 to 256, put in top of the range gaming video cards, and changed brands including ATI and Nvidia. We changed the video accelerator settings, reloaded VDJ v3.4 onto 4 different computers including AMD 64 and P4 3500. I deleted files that were involved in the freeze, change settings in VDJ’s config, and we still had the freezing during transition. To satisfy our scientist DJ Man and his music, here is the problem being repeated time and time again on 4 different desktop computers. 2 of us have spent 2 solid weeks trying to get this fixed, and failed. I was still confused as to why this is happening to me, and a few others around the world, and not everyone.
This problem is random, in that you don’t know if it will happen in 1, 2 or 3 hours but sure enough, it will freeze.
I run my VDJ exclusively on Automatic Mixing. I disable Auto BPM, and I always use Force Fade at 2.4 sec. This is because I work a venue that wants rock music and want the full song. We run the video output to a TV or projector. In our test, we would load 6 hours of MPG video files, and let VDJ3.4 mix the songs. Always it would freeze after about 1 to 3 hours. Strangely, it was only VDJ that froze, not the computer. Therefore we were able to select Ctrl Alt Del, and under Applications and close VDJ. Restart the program and continue another test. Because it was not the computer that froze, only VDJ the computer tech was convinced the problem is a software issue, not hardware.
In a last effort to solve the problem I spent 3 days, sitting in front of my computer watching VDJ to find out exactly when it freezes.
First, by watching the freeze, I discovered it actually happened AFTER transition. The song would come to the fade exit point, the next song would start up, the fader would cross to the other side, the old song would drop off and the next song would commence to load. The fade entry point and the fade exit point would show up. THIS IS THE POINT IT FREEZES. Normally the song would continue to load with green and blue in the progress bar but this does not happen. All graphics stop, the mouse and keyboard become inactive on VDJ (but not on the computer) but the newly commenced song’s audio continues to the end.
This was repeated time and again but strangely not if a TV was disconnected. Also it also does not happen if I change Fame Setting to Auto BPM enable and Force Fade disable.
I remembered reading in the manual, that VDJ does not decode the song that is hidden, to save on computer memory. To get a smoother transition you can tick the decode when hidden box. So that must mean that when a new song commences playing, it begins to decode at the same time the next song starts to load. So I thought I would try ticking the box so that the hidden song was decoded and ready to play before the next song tried to load and see if that made a difference.
What I have discovered is that if the decode while hidden box is ticked, I do not have freeze issues. I beleive freeze on loading for most DJ’s does not happen because they use VDJ program live, mixing song to song with the program or connected hardware. By the time they load the next song, the new song is already decoded and playing. Likewise, using Auto BPM to mix for you, allows the hidden song to commence long before the next song is loaded.
But for me, my pub used the program to play songs day and night, on auto mix, with Auto BPM disabled, and the other FAME settling enabled, including force fade at 2.4 sec. Plus the TV is connected and on. The files played are MPG video. I have had all the test computers running for 72 hours now without a hiccup. Problem solved at last. I do not understand why the problem appears random. A song that caused a freeze one time would not the next time it came up. What I do know is that the freezing occurs when ever I used the settings discribed above. I hope the development team reads this and experiment to produce the same results I have and produce a fix in next release.
Stop the freeze, and tick decode while hidden on the video tab in VDJ's config.
Inviato Thu 11 May 06 @ 3:07 pm
Chris Davis
Thanks ACW-DJ
As I said, I have tried every possible setting. The only thing that stopped the VDJ program freezing was ticking decode while hidden.
note: Freezing only occured with force fade.
Anyway I am now very happy with the performance of VDJ. I have done 3 gigs with no issues and great performance.
I trust the development team can look at the program at some stage to fix it.
As I said, I have tried every possible setting. The only thing that stopped the VDJ program freezing was ticking decode while hidden.
note: Freezing only occured with force fade.
Anyway I am now very happy with the performance of VDJ. I have done 3 gigs with no issues and great performance.
I trust the development team can look at the program at some stage to fix it.
Inviato Fri 19 May 06 @ 4:48 am
djcel
"decode while hidden" enable consumes more CPU as two videos are decoded instead of one. That's why you get better results in your case
Inviato Fri 19 May 06 @ 10:34 pm
honza66
Thx guys for all that.... I tried almost everything you wrote here and it didn't fix the problem...I think it might be the heat or memory usage. Last time it happened when I was using videoeffects instead of music videos so I know it’s not the file. And also I’ve noticed when I’m using video, that the song I’m putting on the other deck is loading slowly and that's when it usually freezes, with video disabled it takes only 2sec to load. So I’m gonna try extra fan and memory upgrade to 2GB. I have a gig tomorrow so let’s hope it won’t crash. Thx again, I will let you know.
Inviato Sat 20 May 06 @ 1:54 am
A Man and His Music
Chris, glad to see things have worked out for you. It's too bad you had to go through all that, just to find out that "decode while hidden", was your fix.
Inviato Sat 20 May 06 @ 10:11 am
Chris Davis
Honza66,
When a file is slow loading, what type of file is it, mpg, vob, mp3?
Let me know.
When a file is slow loading, what type of file is it, mpg, vob, mp3?
Let me know.
Inviato Sat 20 May 06 @ 7:29 pm
honza66
Hey Chris, any file is loading slowly when the video is on. I have upgrade memory to 1.5GB and put external fan underneath, I was playing for 5hours and it didn't freeze. So I guess that was the problem.
Inviato Wed 24 May 06 @ 6:22 am
Chris Davis
Honza, I have tried many CPU's and although VDJ will run on lower power CPU's you really need to be at P4 3mhz or greater to be on the money. I have tried lower power, like AMD sempron 3mhz, but if you try to analyse and play video at the same time there is not enough power. Adding more than 1g SDRAM did not make any difference in performance during my testing. Time to upgrade...
Inviato Tue 30 May 06 @ 6:22 am
jasontgrove
I have been using VDJ since 2005 and have NEVER had any luck with my video. No matter what, I can't go one night where it doesn't lock up and I have to do the "uncheck video" then turn it back on.....
I now have a Dell 6400 Inspiron with core duo and 2gbs of ram......and STILL the same problem. I've upgraded to 4.0 and STILL have the same problem. By reading and searching through these posts I've come to realize that Virtual DJ's "internal video decoder" does not work well with ANY Intel integrated video controller. Sometimes videos will be fine, other times they won't. It seems to only FREEZE when using Divx encoded videos (Mpeg-4). I switched my internal video decoder from vdj to "windows media video" and the freeze problem is completely gone. Only thing is, it has to use the external video decoder and will lockup the deck for up to 1 minute while it pre-loads.
The ONLY alternative to this freeze problem, for anyone with an Intel video card, is to TURN OFF Hardware Acceleration.
Very unfortunate that this issue wasn't addressed in 4.0. Also my findings on this problem are only my theory and opinion of the problem. It's sad because almost every decent notebook pc comes with an integrated piece of crap video card, unless you order a customized video card when buying a new pc.
I'm to also assume that this is both the same issue for desktop users with Intel video cards.
Not sure why though, the videos play fine with any other program.....it's a stupid software or driver issue.
:::crosses fingers that somehow Atomix will find us a better solution then just turning off hardware accel....by doing so, the cpu usage sky-rockets!:::
I now have a Dell 6400 Inspiron with core duo and 2gbs of ram......and STILL the same problem. I've upgraded to 4.0 and STILL have the same problem. By reading and searching through these posts I've come to realize that Virtual DJ's "internal video decoder" does not work well with ANY Intel integrated video controller. Sometimes videos will be fine, other times they won't. It seems to only FREEZE when using Divx encoded videos (Mpeg-4). I switched my internal video decoder from vdj to "windows media video" and the freeze problem is completely gone. Only thing is, it has to use the external video decoder and will lockup the deck for up to 1 minute while it pre-loads.
The ONLY alternative to this freeze problem, for anyone with an Intel video card, is to TURN OFF Hardware Acceleration.
Very unfortunate that this issue wasn't addressed in 4.0. Also my findings on this problem are only my theory and opinion of the problem. It's sad because almost every decent notebook pc comes with an integrated piece of crap video card, unless you order a customized video card when buying a new pc.
I'm to also assume that this is both the same issue for desktop users with Intel video cards.
Not sure why though, the videos play fine with any other program.....it's a stupid software or driver issue.
:::crosses fingers that somehow Atomix will find us a better solution then just turning off hardware accel....by doing so, the cpu usage sky-rockets!:::
Inviato Fri 25 Aug 06 @ 5:18 am