Are you getting a noticeable Speed increase from Core processors?

[The Remote Guy 13]

Hi. I can't seem to find any posts commenting on the speed increases of the new Core processors. Can someone give me an idea if it is even noticeable going from an EA 3 processor?  Does anyone even know which chips they are using? I can't say I notice any kind of lag now but just wondering if anyone finds the Core processors more snappy. 

[Andrew luecke]

Especially for remote support, its fairly obvious immediately when a system is underpowered (takes ages to load, and sometimes screws up during driver upgrades)

Depending on the reason for the delays, an upgrade may help too if you're running a lot of devices. 

If you have badly written drivers with Spinlocks, drivers which are blocking (such as the old houselogix ping driver which delays ALL drivers every time it pings for a few seconds), a lot of outdated drivers or inefficient drivers,  this can cause a lot of issues too (as our development frameworks get better, things tend to become more efficient too).

So the answer is, it REALLY depends. If your system is at 0% CPU usage full time and the issue is spinlocks/blocking code, nope. If its because you have a lot of drivers, yes.. 

 

 

If the reason you're asking is because you are on the market for a processor, I'd recommend the CORE immediately.  Our Upcoming ELK M1 Gen 2 driver will actually run a lot faster on Core / CA10 (but irrespective, it will run faster for EVERYONE). There seems to be a lot deeper changes on the Core Processors too than the switch from Intel, to ARM Architecture. Also, they're much newer too. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if Snap starts releasing features which preside on Core Only

 

 

 

[RyanE]

12 hours ago, Andrew luecke said:

houselogix ping driver which delays ALL drivers every time it pings for a few seconds.

Worse than that (and not only Houselogix's ping driver, all of them used the same method), it would block Director for those few seconds.

*Nothing* was happening on the system in those 3 seconds, which caused even worse issues, not to mention all the commands and requests that got backed up during that time then had to all execute, causing a huge load on the system...

Unfortunately, cooperative multitasking is not very forgiving of stupidity.

RyanE

[penn65000]

6 hours ago, RyanE said:

Worse than that (and not only Houselogix's ping driver, all of them used the same method), it would block Director for those few seconds.

*Nothing* was happening on the system in those 3 seconds, which caused even worse issues, not to mention all the commands and requests that got backed up during that time then had to all execute, causing a huge load on the system...

Unfortunately, cooperative multitasking is not very forgiving of stupidity.

RyanE

We have two homes w C4. EAs in both and both run by ca10. I’m into having the latest hardware but the features for Core don’t give me any reason to upgrade. And we had two core 1s put in in one home and they’re bug-ridden. One “major”feature was 4K OSD. It doesn’t work. Had to be downgraded. Awful. Not even a major new feature and it was botched. OSD also locks up and the Core1s lock up randomly and have to be rebooted each night with a watt box (one min delay) our platinum dealer had to add on their dime. EAs were fine and were speedy. Also awful- no outdoor motions avail anymore. They show on C4 website but they stopped making them. Major home automation with no outdoor motion?

[msgreenf]

13 minutes ago, penn65000 said:

We have two homes w C4. EAs in both and both run by ca10. I’m into having the latest hardware but the features for Core don’t give me any reason to upgrade. And we had two core 1s put in in one home and they’re bug-ridden. One “major”feature was 4K OSD. It doesn’t work. Had to be downgraded. Awful. Not even a major new feature and it was botched. OSD also locks up and the Core1s lock up randomly and have to be rebooted each night with a watt box (one min delay) our platinum dealer had to add on their dime. EAs were fine and were speedy. Also awful- no outdoor motions avail anymore. They show on C4 website but they stopped making them. Major home automation with no outdoor motion?

core1 issues you are talking about are fixed in 3.3.3

[The Remote Guy 13]

13 minutes ago, penn65000 said:

We have two homes w C4. EAs in both and both run by ca10. I’m into having the latest hardware but the features for Core don’t give me any reason to upgrade. And we had two core 1s put in in one home and they’re bug-ridden. One “major”feature was 4K OSD. It doesn’t work. Had to be downgraded. Awful. Not even a major new feature and it was botched. OSD also locks up and the Core1s lock up randomly and have to be rebooted each night with a watt box (one min delay) our platinum dealer had to add on their dime. EAs were fine and were speedy. Also awful- no outdoor motions avail anymore. They show on C4 website but they stopped making them. Major home automation with no outdoor motion?

Thank you for your insight. 

[penn65000]

4 minutes ago, The Remote Guy 13 said:

Thank you for your insight. 

My pleasure. And no noticeable speed increase. In fact less fast if you count the downtime from locking up and failing on OSD. 

[The Remote Guy 13]

5 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

core1 issues you are talking about are fixed in 3.3.3

The on screen display is fixed, and no freezing?

[msgreenf]

14 minutes ago, The Remote Guy 13 said:

The on screen display is fixed, and no freezing?

Correct 

[Cyknight]

To be clear: you're not going to see any increases by replacing ea series with Core series when they're running under a CA10. Any major increases would be only truly noticeable when the MAIN controller gets replaced. (Apart from the fact that the CA10 is far more capable to begin with)

[Andrew luecke]

6 hours ago, penn65000 said:

We have two homes w C4. EAs in both and both run by ca10. I’m into having the latest hardware but the features for Core don’t give me any reason to upgrade. And we had two core 1s put in in one home and they’re bug-ridden. One “major”feature was 4K OSD. It doesn’t work. Had to be downgraded. Awful. Not even a major new feature and it was botched. OSD also locks up and the Core1s lock up randomly and have to be rebooted each night with a watt box (one min delay) our platinum dealer had to add on their dime. EAs were fine and were speedy. Also awful- no outdoor motions avail anymore. They show on C4 website but they stopped making them. Major home automation with no outdoor motion?

You mean Outdoor Motion Sensors I assume? SnapAV doesn't manufacture a lot of devices (they also don't manufacture Retrofit light bulbs as an example). 

Control4 like the other products we develop for though, does an excellent job of integration, which allows you to embed a range of manufacturers products. It's not a bad practice however, to use something like a Z2IO and standard motion sensor imho though (or if you want something non-snap which is cheaper a Shelly I4 or similar, which can hook up 4 sensors via wifi). 

Another option would be to use AI on security cameras potentially, or other methods (depending on what you're trying to accomplish specifically)

In regards to the CA10, Cyknight is correct. CA10 is always a primary Controller (because its an EXTREMELY fast processor). Your CORE units would be configured as Slave/Secondary units (or IO/Video/Audio outputs/inputs basically). So, the processor in your secondary units doesn't REALLY matter much since the main CA10 does all the work (the drivers and project isn't copied to the slave controllers either) . That being said though, they need to be capable of running the same OS. 

Basically, if we detect performance issues on a CA10 on a customers system. You 100% have a serious driver bug, or a bad network. On a Core Series, unless you have a VERY large install maybe similar. On an EA1/CA1 running as Primary, I have come across some larger systems which perform better on faster processors depending on whats running

[penn65000]

4 hours ago, Andrew luecke said:

You mean Outdoor Motion Sensors I assume? SnapAV doesn't manufacture a lot of devices (they also don't manufacture Retrofit light bulbs as an example). 

Control4 like the other products we develop for though, does an excellent job of integration, which allows you to embed a range of manufacturers products. It's not a bad practice however, to use something like a Z2IO and standard motion sensor imho though (or if you want something non-snap which is cheaper a Shelly I4 or similar, which can hook up 4 sensors via wifi). 

Another option would be to use AI on security cameras potentially, or other methods (depending on what you're trying to accomplish specifically)

In regards to the CA10, Cyknight is correct. CA10 is always a primary Controller (because its an EXTREMELY fast processor). Your CORE units would be configured as Slave/Secondary units (or IO/Video/Audio outputs/inputs basically). So, the processor in your secondary units doesn't REALLY matter much since the main CA10 does all the work (the drivers and project isn't copied to the slave controllers either) . That being said though, they need to be capable of running the same OS. 

Basically, if we detect performance issues on a CA10 on a customers system. You 100% have a serious driver bug, or a bad network. On a Core Series, unless you have a VERY large install maybe similar. On an EA1/CA1 running as Primary, I have come across some larger systems which perform better on faster processors depending on whats running

I mean these https://www.control4.com/solutions/products/sensors/

Work outside under eaves and no longer produced yet on website. There is no replacement. Believe me i and my dealer have looked. 

[The Remote Guy 13]

While I do appreciate the replies and info, I don't understand why only one person answered my question. Which essentially was if upgrading from an EA controller  has anyone noticed any speed increases. I only see reference to driver problems and CA10s... So I will have to take away that there is no speed increase, in fact possibly slower. 

[penn65000]

29 minutes ago, The Remote Guy 13 said:

While I do appreciate the replies and info, I don't understand why only one person answered my question. Which essentially was if upgrading from an EA controller  has anyone noticed any speed increases. I only see reference to driver problems and CA10s... So I will have to take away that there is no speed increase, in fact possibly slower. 

Found this using Google (I’m not a dealer just end user) https://www.control4.com/docs/product/control4-software/dealer-release-notes/english/latest//control4-software-release-notes-rev-ap.pdf

[The Remote Guy 13]

5 minutes ago, penn65000 said:

Found this using Google (I’m not a dealer just end user) https://www.control4.com/docs/product/control4-software/dealer-release-notes/english/latest//control4-software-release-notes-rev-ap.pdf

Thank you. Looks like they fixed quite a few bugs. 

[penn65000]

7 minutes ago, The Remote Guy 13 said:

Thank you. Looks like they fixed quite a few bugs. 

Time will tell!

[The Remote Guy 13]

3 minutes ago, penn65000 said:

Time will tell!

Yes. And time will tell what CORE Lite is. Perhaps small boxes to put behind the  television. 

[msgreenf]

There are reasons beyond speed to upgrade to core.  The new Zigbee and Zwave chips are huge

[wnpublic]

27 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

There are reasons beyond speed to upgrade to core.  The new Zigbee and Zwave chips are huge

Because they support all the third party zwave and zigbee devices ?

[msgreenf]

9 minutes ago, wnpublic said:

Because they support all the third party zwave and zigbee devices ?

For Zwave yes

[wnpublic]

12 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

For Zwave yes

It will be great to get access to all this stuff then. 
https://products.z-wavealliance.org/regions/2/categories

thats what you meant, correct?

[Time2Jet]

1 hour ago, The Remote Guy 13 said:

While I do appreciate the replies and info, I don't understand why only one person answered my question. Which essentially was if upgrading from an EA controller  has anyone noticed any speed increases. I only see reference to driver problems and CA10s... So I will have to take away that there is no speed increase, in fact possibly slower. 

“Director” - in the simplest of terms is the program that runs your system, executes the commands given via interfaces and programming, runs the drivers scripts etc.  in other words, your CA-10 is the brain.  Some other tasks are handled by your secondary controllers (EA or Core), like your zigbee mesh, Ryff audio if you are using native audio and OSD (in the case of the Core1,3&5 - 4K) also on the case of the Core3 & 5 relay(s) and contact(s) and  Zwave.  Head to head, the Core controllers are more powerful than their EA counterparts, but that’s simply the new electronics.  
 

Aside from the above differences, there is much more in store for the Core series once further OS versions are released.  
 

All of that said, unless you need to integrate all of the 3rd party zigbee devices and zwave devices (remember that even though Control4 is migrating to zigbee 3.0 and a current zwave protocol, specific device drivers for certain devices may or may not be offered natively -I assume a bunch of 3rd party drivers will come as well to cover devices Control4 doesn’t include natively), there is not a good enough reason to upgrade “today”.  A lot of our Control4 audio clients are interested in the new DACs (allegedly better), but on a typical distributed audio system the sound improvement won’t be that noticeable if at all.  Clients that run a (or an few) audiophile quality zones, may benefit.  
 

Don’t waste the money at this point unless something specific calls you.  Wait until the new Core magic powers are released.  And at some point (I don’t see it anytime soon), the EA’s will no longer be supported.  But for now, we know they are good up to OS3.3.  To be fair, not everyone jumps on new OS releases.  We have very happy clients still running OS2 systems.  

[Time2Jet]

14 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

For Zwave yes

So long as there is a driver available.  Control4 is doing a good job with generic Zwave drivers for things like lighting etc.  For a lot of us, this is a big step for Control4 to open up many more device mfrs and protocols.  Prior to the latest Core/Zigbee 3.0/Zwave updates, Control4 was said to support over 13,000 devices.  I imagine that has/will increase drastically with the new Core launch.  

[msgreenf]

14 minutes ago, wnpublic said:

It will be great to get access to all this stuff then. 
https://products.z-wavealliance.org/regions/2/categories

thats what you meant, correct?

yes, there are new universal drivers for device types - a lock driver - a contact - a light - etc. so you use those with any Zwave device (with a core controller)

[The Remote Guy 13]

9 minutes ago, time2jet said:

“Director” - in the simplest of terms is the program that runs your system, executes the commands given via interfaces and programming, runs the drivers scripts etc.  in other words, your CA-10 is the brain.  Some other tasks are handled by your secondary controllers (EA or Core), like your zigbee mesh, Ryff audio if you are using native audio and OSD (in the case of the Core1,3&5 - 4K) also on the case of the Core3 & 5 relay(s) and contact(s) and  Zwave.  Head to head, the Core controllers are more powerful than their EA counterparts, but that’s simply the new electronics.  
 

Aside from the above differences, there is much more in store for the Core series once further OS versions are released.  
 

All if that said, unless you need to integrate all of the 3rd party zigbee devices and zwave devices (remember that even though Control4 is migrating to zigbee 3.0 and a current zwave protocol, specific device drivers for certain devices may or may not be offered natively -I assume a bunch of 3rd party drivers will come as well to cover devices Control4 doesn’t include natively), there is not a good enough reason to upgrade “today”.  A lot of our Control4 audio clients are interested in the new DACs (allegedly better), but on a typical distributed audio system the sound improvement won’t be that noticeable if at all.  Clients that run a (or an few) audiophile quality zones, may benefit.  
 

Don’t waste the money at this point unless something specific calls you.  Wait until the new Core magic powers are released.  And at some point (I don’t see it anytime soon), the EA’s will no longer be supported.  But for now, we know they are good up to OS3.3.  To be fair, not everyone jumps on new OS releases.  We have very happy clients still running OS2 systems.  

Great. Another CA10 post that doesn't answer anything I asked. I give up. Perhaps I didn't word my post properly.