SLMC

luketemplar · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 314 Location: United Kingdom

This guide is under construction - please add your suggestions/corrections and I will ammend the post as we go. I have cut and pasted suggestions from http://slmc.myfastforum.org/about241.html by other forum users. Hopefully one of the admins can help with deleting or archiving the thread and leaving the finished post up only.
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Skips and Jumps in the stream:
PATTERN: isolated occurence for only certain members of the audience
CAUSE - CLIENTSIDE - most likely due to stream constantly rebuffering due to bandwidth limitations
SOLUTION - tell the listener to go to Edit>Preferences>Network and edit their bandwidth settings. Consider reducing it to half and toggling it from there. If this doesn't help with the problem, consider switching to a faster ISP.

PATTERN: occurs for all listeners, worse when singing
CAUSE - PROBABLY at the musician's end. Consider the following suggestions.
1) Stream quality setting
- Check quality setting on stream
If you're getting skips, ask the performer to check the quality setting on the stream. Any higher than 64K is going into dangerous territory unless s/he is getting red-hot performance out of the line.
[Silas Scarborough]
2) Network problems
- Minimize bandwith usage by other programs/computers on the LAN
Many people are running home LANs. If another computer on that LAN is doing something, that will suck up bandwidth and cause drops. Consider dropping the bandwidth you're allowing SL to consume when you're performing so the audio stream will have a better shot. If you have been using Skype, make sure it's shut completely off.
[Silas Scarborough]
- Consider using a wired connection if you are on wireless
It's impossible to do a flawless non-dropping show with wireless. No matter what, there's always going to be times where the signal disappears and that'll always cause the sound to drop. Even if you had your computer sitting directly ontop of the wireless modem..
[Doubledown and Distilled]
- Consider changing your modem if you have an old one
[Nad]
3) Computer computing power
It takes a huge amount of compute power to run SL, not so much to run the stream, and a gigantic amount if you're using on-board effects for your audio. For example, you might be adding a touch of reverb, compression, or whatever to your signal before you send it out. Every bit of on-board signal processing that you're doing is increasing the chance of stream skips.
- optimize your computer RAM - aim for 2GB
- If you have a dual-core process on your PC, ensure SL is assigned an affinity to only one.
- cut SL bandwidth down to about 200K.
- consider using a second computer to stream
[Silas & Lucius]
4) Shoutcast vs Icecast
Consider also the music protocol you are using as Icecast 2 is said to be less CPU-intensive than Shoutcast.
[Silas]
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Tessira2 · Joined: 20 Sep 2007 Posts: 170

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:24 am Post subject:

I have 1 gig of mem, and no dual core (for the computer I use SL on and also stream) and I never have a problem. But what I do before streaming is CTRL-ALT-DEL and end processes on most things running that don't need to be.
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Distilled1 · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 392 Location: Chicago

my dual core hasent had any issues in a long time, is this still an ongoing issue? I run it on both and dont see any change setting it to (1) used to months ago though.

duoCore2 2.13ghz
4 gb R
nvidia 7900gtx

I will have to check tonight if it makes me run at 150+FPS on (1 core) like it used to I was faster than the Sim could run LOL
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Kim Seifert · Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 199 Location: Ohio

Here is a tip I hope will help some. It has helped me immensely. Of course, it is for PC's, not Macs.

I use winamp to stream my music and, as Luke said, SL is a major resource hog and completely towers over winamp. So I give winamp a little boost by making it a priority in the processes. To do this, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up your task manager, click on the processes tab and find the exe file for your program. For me, that is winamp.exe. Right click that and choose priority, then click on Realtime. Make sure you are on stage when you do that though because SL balks at being second and you lag more.
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RayW · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 564 Location: Twin Cities, MN

Oh, and Kim, you had given me a similar great tip before. So, I played around with SimpleCast, setting it to "Fast." Well, I got down to a 5 sec. stream dwell (lag/delay/etc) that way, where before it usually was 30 sec. BUT, gotta toggle the puppy to higher quality, kick the stream, toggle back to Fast and connect. Bingo!

Need to check with more than 3 people listening, though, to see how it's received at the client. Maybe they have to turn their media off and on, too.
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