Rockit vs Toshiba

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SoftJock Rick

SoftJock Rick

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Dec 29, 2006
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www.softjock.com
Just an FYI...

I've talked to two customers this week, who purchased new Toshiba laptops in the last couple weeks, and they are having skipping issues with Rockit, and other audio apps.

Best I can tell, some pre-loaded software on these machines (3 machines total), is interfering somewhere, although I do not have one to test.

They come pre-loaded with lots of junk, demo apps, fingerprint reader software and other stuff on them, so it's a long process to weed out each application, until we find the magic fix.

As soon as I figure out what it is, I will let y'all know... :)
 
A few years back, the (at the time) new PCDJ Red VRM software had the same issue while running on certain Del Inspiron laptops. They were never able to tie it down to a definitive resolution, but it was assumed it was a chipset compatability problem.

I have no doubt Rick will sort this out.

Don't forget...those that go the laptop route...have the laptop dedicated to its DJ duty and get rid of all that nice extra cr*p they so lovingly put on for us to enjoy.

I run mine as naked as possible and I've never had a single problem.

Hmmmm,....something tells me that "running naked" concept is not new to Rick....
 
LOL Dunlop. Come to think of it Rick I noticed it but only on a couple songs. I thought I just ripped em wrong. Will find out Friday with my CDs ready in case of any blip. LEts not tell Joe C lol.
 
Based on some good advice I received, when I first got my DJ laptop, a Gateway, I used the recovery discs to "wipe" the machine clean and start over. With Gateway, at least, the recovery discs do not "restore" all the trialware and other junk, just the OS. I have no idea if that's true with Toshiba, but it couldn't hurt.
 
Don't know if the Toshibas do that...?

My Acers don't -- they reload all the same junk.


What I've gone to doing, is just buy a fresh retail copy of Windows (Vista Ultimate usually), and formatting the drive, and installing from scratch. Only one icon on the desktop, and about 35 processes going. Fast as heck!

Costs more -- but absolute clean install. Vista runs fantastic when installed that way.

BTW, if you do that, don't buy the OEM version -- yer locked into one computer, and can't move it (without hacking). Get the retail version, and pony up the cost for quality gear :)


People will spend thousands for a new speaker or mixer, yet won't pay a couple hundred for a clean OS, which runs all their neat new mixers and speakers -- go figure, take care of the limbs, but not the brain... :sqerr: :sqfrown:
 
Rick, is the cpu usage spiking during the skipping? As you know my troubles with trying to use the Windows folders, I get the cpu maxing out and skipping on my Acer. I have to create RockIt playlist folders that mirror my Windows folders (largest folder only has 800 songs in it) to eliminate the problem, but that creates additional work when adding new music. I would like to only use the Windows folders and create the playlists folders like they were designed. I'll be watching this thread.
 
SoftJock Rick said:
Don't know if the Toshibas do that...?

My Acers don't -- they reload all the same junk.


What I've gone to doing, is just buy a fresh retail copy of Windows (Vista Ultimate usually), and formatting the drive, and installing from scratch. Only one icon on the desktop, and about 35 processes going. Fast as heck!

Costs more -- but absolute clean install. Vista runs fantastic when installed that way.

BTW, if you do that, don't buy the OEM version -- yer locked into one computer, and can't move it (without hacking). Get the retail version, and pony up the cost for quality gear :)


People will spend thousands for a new speaker or mixer, yet won't pay a couple hundred for a clean OS, which runs all their neat new mixers and speakers -- go figure, take care of the limbs, but not the brain... :sqerr: :sqfrown:
Click to expand...

I'm a scared kitty.... I am too afraid to touch ANYTHING with the OS for fear that I won't have a working computer when I am finished.
 
Papa Deuce said:
I'm a scared kitty.... I am too afraid to touch ANYTHING with the OS for fear that I won't have a working computer when I am finished.
Click to expand...

If you follow the prompts Papa it's actually pretty easy...Lets not tell this to the folks I have paying me for installs though :sqerr:
 
Rick,
I think it is not only Rockit problem.Years ago(my first laptop)was a Toshiba Porige3110 and i had no problems with it.Next one was also a Toshiba(dont know the modell anymore)but it was 15,4 inch and had a big problem with it and VDJ.I sell it fast and buy an Acer.
Problem with Toshiba was latency and sometimes just like that it stops in the midle of a song.I cant make a gig without at least once the music stops.
So im not an expert for computers but it was enough Ramm and the procesor was fast enough and Toshiba was stoping.Nobady cant explain me why(even not at service)so i buy another Brand-no problems with the same VDJ.Now i have a custommade laptop.
 
Hank mind sharing the items and how to disable for the technically impaired? Thanks in advance doe that and my other request.
 
Randy A said:
Rick, is the cpu usage spiking during the skipping? As you know my troubles with trying to use the Windows folders, I get the cpu maxing out and skipping on my Acer. I have to create RockIt playlist folders that mirror my Windows folders (largest folder only has 800 songs in it) to eliminate the problem, but that creates additional work when adding new music. I would like to only use the Windows folders and create the playlists folders like they were designed. I'll be watching this thread.
Click to expand...

Randy - same issue...using the "explorer tree" in Rockit, rather than the library tab, or genre playlist. If I had a song from "current" playing and dragged a song from "current" to the other deck....it would stutter

The "tree" feature, or lack thereof is the only thing that prevented me from using Rockit. I sort by genres..
 
thatmusicguy said:
Randy - same issue...using the "explorer tree" in Rockit, rather than the library tab, or genre playlist. If I had a song from "current" playing and dragged a song from "current" to the other deck....it would stutter

The "tree" feature, or lack thereof is the only thing that prevented me from using Rockit. I sort by genres..
Click to expand...

Yes, I have had and heard of explorer tree issues. Not on my Toshiba, but my older HP. I think that's a memory/bandwith issue and not a software one. You can also just omit that feature by editing the skin to your liking.

Jon Tuck said:
Hank mind sharing the items and how to disable for the technically impaired? Thanks in advance doe that and my other request.
Click to expand...

By right clicking on any program installer or exe, you can choose to run it under XP parameters. You can also disable other annoyances by turning of Vista's "User Account Control" (UAC) See Here
 
Hank - Rick and I had discussed this....I think it's a known issue.....We're talking desktops and new laptops...

What I was looking for was the ability to use have a tree's library, like with Virtual DJ...there a whole complicated process as to why.....I could set up playlists of each genre..as well.....

Jon - Also - Start Menu - Right Click "My computer"...click "advanced settings" Performance - set it to maximum performance
 
After you uninstall the crap that the manufacturer loaded on your PC, you may want to clear the uninstall and other clutter in your registry using something similar to ccleaner. If do you use ccleaner, I recommend unchecking the options except for look for updates.

This like all other cleanup applications is not for the faint hearted. Try it on a backup machine first. Always read through the analyze output to make sure it isn't cleaning something you want, like cookies or app history that you rely on. Most important, don't run it for the first time on a machine that you need to use that night.
 
Maybe some pics would help here.

Rick, I hope you don't take this as negative towards you or RockIt. I'm trying to figure it out and what's causing the issue and maybe others here are having the same troubles as well or may be able to help isolate the problem.

Here is how I would like to be able to use RockIt. This is using the Windows tree library. Updating music and adding it to the RockIt library would be very easy. I like to create folders for different genres or 'Best of Music'. (Elvis is there because I recently purchased a bunch of his music and that's what I have to do to successfully load it into my library. Laura Wedding was a bunch of music that I purchased for one of my weddings. Again, had to load it into a different Windows folder to be able to load it into my library successfully.)

rockitsp.jpg

Here's how I have to run it because if I run it as the pic above, my cpu usage clocks immediatetly to 100% and stays there and the folders take several seconds to load, alot of times causing skipping. You see, I've just duplicated all my Windows folders as RockIt playlists folders. These load super-fast, but adding new music is a pain.

rockitsp3.jpg

My Acer laptop system is:
Windows XP Pro
2.0 ghz, 80 gig hd, 1 gig ddr2
Very little items running on this laptop. It's a gig machine that's been cleaned of bells and whistles. The problem exists when I'm using the local hard-drive or an external. There is no noticeable improvement either way. It also chugs on my desktop, but not as bad.
 
Now, I know you guys like to use it like that, but let me explain why it does what it does, and how it was designed to be used...


The My Computer browser in Rockit, was not even part of the original software -- I added it as a convenience, to find an occasional track, that might not be in the library. As it displays tracks, it has to read and parse each tag, and it also does a filename parse -- meaning, that if your drive is slow, fragmented, etc., it will go slowly, and use lots of CPU time. If you are using an external, it will go even slower.

I have one laptop, which is incredibly slow on its hard drive reads and writes (and is very much fragged), and it occasionally spikes as well. On all my other computers, with fast internal SATA and EIDE drives, it flies, although still not even close to the library, in terms of speed, but it doesn't bog down the CPU.


The library, on the other hand, was designed to be very fast -- vectoring everything in memory, and all the tags and filenames have already been parsed properly. Clicking on Artist, Album, Genre, Year or BPM, will automatically tree the information in a split second, in the library tree window. That is how it is designed to work :)

Duplicating your folders within Rockit's library, defeats the purpose of the library (which I spent almost 10 years getting to work extremely fast).


Now, since you guys are absolutely intent on making Rockit into Virtual DJ, you can duplicate your folders as playlists if you like, and it is simple to update them: delete the playlist, and create new playlist from a folder -- takes a couple seconds :)

If you are really intent on using the Windows Explorer like tree, why not use the real thing? You can run Explorer right alongside Rockit, and drag and drop into queues, decks, etc... For example, you can do something like this :)

rexplorer.gif



There's also a couple tweaks you can do to Rockit, if you want to help speed up reads (in the INI file):

UseFilenameParsing can be set to 0 (zero).

DisplayBadLinks should be set to 0 (zero).
ShowAllFiles should be set to 0 (zero), unless you also want it to look for video and image files.
 
I simply don't use the trees within rockit. I keep my music folder open to the right, double click and drag. I use windows to search (but I know where my files are). I drag request and upcoming songs into the automix cue. Not with this skin, but the same idea.

rockit.jpg


I use my PCDJ the same way. I never load my library into the software. It takes too long to load on opening.
 
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