very low FPS using zwo asi120mm camera and sharpcap 2 and firecpture

[red dwalf]

hi all,

just purchased a zwo asi120mm camera for use as a guide camera and a good planetary camera, i`ve tried having installed all the software including sharpcap 2 and firecapture 2.3.2 new version i dont seem able to get more than 1 or 1.5 FPS, surly i`m doing something wrong but it seems to be the same in both programs, as soon as i turn down the exposure slider the camera either hangs with no FPS or capture error in firecapture, any ideas or settings i`m missing please.

im using windows xp desktop pc and only plugged the camear into the usb port on the back of the pc, no other cables have been used yet, i.e. active usb cables or powered usb hubs.

many thanks 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

What exposure time have you set (and at what level does it crash)? At longer exposures, the frame count drops dramatically, but at low exposures, as you have tried, it should not crash. Which version of the ASI driver do you use? I have had my ASI120 and ASI130 working under Sharpcap and Firecapture (recent versions) with the latest drivers.

I also had a low frame count on a very old laptop with a USB 1.1 port, but I guess that that should not be a problem here.

[JamesF]

It's not at all fast at full resolution either.  Reducing the frame size can make a big difference.

James

[Pete Presland]

Reducing frame size has a huge effect on frame rates. I did some lunar landscapes and they were quite slow.deselecting 16 bit helps as well, but if you are doing planets the smaller the frame the better.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

It's not at all fast at full resolution either.  Reducing the frame size can make a big difference.

James

At full res I get something like 15-30 FPS, I seem to remember (8 bits)

[red dwalf]

thanks for the help, all the drivers i plucked from the zwo website, downloaded driver for camera version ASI120MM 2.0.0.910, sdk, and ascom for the guiding.

the frame preview seems to hang when the exposure is less than 0.69 seconds in sharpcap, below this nothing at all, above this and still only 1 fps, i have reduced the frame size also to very small, 320 x 280 or something like that only once did the frame rates rise to fast levels and never been able to repeat this.

very very annoying

[rwg]

Hi,

for SharpCap, make sure that you have the ASI SDK installed (third download on this page : http://www.zwoptical.com/Eng/Software/). This allows SharpCap to talk direct to the camera rather than through DirectShow. Once you have it installed, the camera will appear twice in the Cameras menu - choose the top one (the bottom one will use DirectShow still).

Please make sure you are on the latest version of SharpCap - install 2.0.816 from the web site and allow it to update to 2.0.832 - the 832 update has a performance fix for ASI cameras which helped me get better frame rates.

Try turning *down* the turbo USB control for the camera - basically this controls how hard the camera driver tries to squeeze extra traffic through the USB port. Turning it up usually gives you higher frame rates, but if you go too high the camera will start freezing and stuttering and suddenly the frame rate will go very low!

Make sure your exposure is short - if you have a 0.5s exposure you will only get 2 frames per second!

Last but not least, make sure you are using a USB 2.0 port - you should manage 30fps at full resolution when everything is working correctly (8 bit colour or mono). If you are using a USB 1.1 port by mistake then I'd be surprised if you even got 1fps!!!

hope this helps,

Robin

[JamesF]

Try turning *down* the turbo USB control for the camera - basically this controls how hard the camera driver tries to squeeze extra traffic through the USB port. Turning it up usually gives you higher frame rates, but if you go too high the camera will start freezing and stuttering and suddenly the frame rate will go very low!

That's a good point.  Empirically I found around 45 to be a good setting for this whereas the default is something like 90 which causes torn and misaligned frames all over the place.

James

[rwg]

James,

the changes I made between SharpCap 2.0.816 and 2.0.832 allowed me to turn this value up from about 45 to about 80 without getting any glitches - this increased my real world frame rate from ~22 to ~30 at full resolution. It turned out that the ASI SDK did not like the sequence I was using to call it and by changing that sequence just a bit a lot of the problems went away.

That being said, the optimum value for the Turbo USB setting does depend on your hardware - different USB chipsets can cope with different load levels. On my laptop I have to set the turbo value to about 65 rather than 80 on my main PC.

cheers,

Robin

[red dwalf]

thanks all for the replys i will try these settings out,

hoe can you find if your usb ports are usb 1 or usb 2 ? i`m fairly certain they are usb 2 never had any problems like this before using webcams for instance

[rwg]

hoe can you find if your usb ports are usb 1 or usb 2 ? i`m fairly certain they are usb 2 never had any problems like this before using webcams for instance

http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3/~/how-do-i-know-if-my-pc%E2%80%99s-usb-ports-are-level-1.1-(slower)-or-2.0-(faster)%3F

Robin

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[Guest]

More and more people seem to be having problems with these ZWOPTICAL cameras, I went for the QHY version, so i will see how that runs when it arrives

Olly

[knobby]

And some of us aren't :-)

[JamesF]

More and more people seem to be having problems with these ZWOPTICAL cameras, I went for the QHY version, so i will see how that runs when it arrives

I can't say as I've seen reports of problems that were definitively down to ZWO.  It is possible that there have been a few driver issues certainly, as they've been actively developing it and adding new features, but my experience is that it has been very stable on both Win7 and Linux.

I've just run a test with FireCapture on Win7 and with my own capture application on Linux and both got 15fps at full frame resolution with the traffic setting at 45.  At a setting of 80 I can get up to 22fps, but do get some broken frames.  I think that's down to the USB bus on the PC as there's a fair bit of other stuff on it.  I notice the QHY5L-II has a USB traffic setting too.  I hadn't realised before now as I've only used it as a a guide camera thus far.  I might have to have a play with that later.

James

[red dwalf]

ok i think i`ve sussed the problem out, i unplugged all of my usb plugs and the camera flew using firecapture, not tried it using sharpcap yet, still trying to get it to update,

i plugged every usb device back into the pc one at a time, keyboard already plugged in, bluetooth dongle, x box wireless receiver, then plugged in the powered usb hub that sits on the mount, frame rates fell unless i use the smallest possible image size, something like 120 x120, even with the powered hub off or on the frame rates were poor.

now i`m sort of stuck as to what to do next, of course i still need to run the mount, guide cameras and other gear that`s on the mount, can i buy a better usb 2 pci card that i could fix into the back of the pc ? would it make any difference ? 

i also have usb ports on the front of the computer and i`ve plugged the zwo asi 120 into these ports but still the same effect.

[red dwalf]

i need to add to the above that the turbo usb settings need to be turned down to not much over 40 on both firecapture and sharpcap for me to get images without them jumping all over the screen.

just tried it in sharpcap and it has a lot better frame rate than it did, still not updated it to the new version above as i can`t see a button to press to check for updates.

[SkyGibbon]

After getting it running, test again after each device you plug back in. Go one by one.

My setup seems require a certain procedure to get going correctly. Atik 314 fired up first, then it has to be snapping photos. While it is looping 1 sec shots, I then have to plug in my guiders usb connection. Then finally my mounts serial to usb connection. Start guiding software after all that. I am then good to go . Any other combo other than this, my cameras and mount flake out instantly. I also try and plug them back in exact same ports as not to get my com ports changed on me. When I don't want the headache, I will just pull out another computer to guide with seperately.

Sounds to me maybe your usb ports are getting swamped or there is a conflict somewhere.

What are the specs of your computer?

[stoffe]

Checkout your USB port when your camera is connected with USBVIEW that you can find if you google it. It is a free program that can tell you what speed and how your USB devices are connected. In Linux, use lsusb command.

[red dwalf]

thank you all i`ll try that, have set the camera up on a laptop with sharpcap 2 and am now getting better frame rates, god knows what the desktop problem is, driving me mad

[riklaunim]

Did you tried FireCapture for comparison?

[red dwalf]

no as yet, i had sharpcap 2 on the laptop already and i just wanted to see if it wasn`t the camera that was playing up,