constant startup tone (reset.wav)

[stirling]

When I startup UCCNC (V1.2047) on my laptop, the startup tone plays forever. (It's fine on my desktop, just does the two bleeps). At the moment I've just renamed reset.wav so there's no startup tone but obviously that's not a proper fix. Any ideas?

Thanks

[cncdrive]

I do not have any ideas, nobody ever reported such issue and the code is the same from the very start of the UCCNC development.
And the tone is played by OpenGL (OpenAL), so maybe it's a hardware bug in the openAL implementation on your computer.

[stirling]

OK - not a lot to go on there to try to help me solve the problem. Maybe you could advise how I can start checking something? anything?

[ger21]

Try updating the video drivers.

[cncdrive]

I can only give the same advice as Gerry, try to update the video drivers and the audio drivers.

[dezsoe]

Did you try to reinstall OpenAL? You can uninstall from Add/remove programs and UCCNC installer will install again.

[stirling]

Try updating the video drivers.

Unfortunately I can't find much in the way of video driver updates. (The laptop is an Acer Aspire 5600 with Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family, Driver date 28/11/2005 V6.14.10.4436).

That said, excuse my ignorance but why would VIDEO drivers have anything to do with a sound problem?

I can only give the same advice as Gerry, try to update the video drivers and the audio drivers.

Again, I can't find much in the way of audio driver updates. (Realtek High Def Audio (wooo!) driver date 27/02/2006 V5.10.0.5224).

Did you try to reinstall OpenAL? You can uninstall from Add/remove programs and UCCNC installer will install again.

Tried this but no difference sadly. However if I just delete openAL and don't re-install UCCNC again then there's no sound at all (from UCCNC but other apps that use sound are fine) which is an improvement I suppose.

I guess the laptop is just too old which is a shame because otherwise it appears to run UCCNC OK.

Just a quick question though: I'm a bit unclear as to why openGL and openAL are used at all. openGL seems overkill for the relatively simple graphics used in a motion controller and using openAL just for nothing more than a simple bling, bling at startup seems even more overkill. Not critisizing, just asking.

[cncdrive]

"relatively simple graphics" that was funny.
Did you try to update tens or hundreds of textboxes or labels with as high as a few tens of Hz using the standard Windows GDI+ graphics?
And because you can design your own GUI you could place even thousands of DROs on the same screen.

It will just simply overload your computer with GDI+ and the worse is that it may work on some computers without too much overload and not on others.
OpenGL using hardware accelerated graphics which is basicly that you define a 3D space with your eye or camera looking at your scene from a defined point and view angle and orientation etc.
And then you place primitives like lines, triangles in your scene. You can also render them with images etc.
The UCCNC works like that, you just see the graphics flat and parallel of the screen because the camera and viewing angle and orientation and rotation etc. is setup so you see it like that...
OpenGL can render millions of lines and triangles and images on them without even loading your computer's CPU, because lots of things can be processed and happen directly on the graphics card.
You even have the freedom to decide several things to where and how to be processed.
And for the toolpath view you need OpenGL or DirectX anyways. And we decided OpenGL instead of DirectX, because it is platform independent in case if we will want to move to other OS platforms in the future.
So, using OpenGL is not at all an overkill for this type of application.

OpenAL is using the sound library built into OpenGL.
We used OpenAL to avoid the Windows-madness when sometimes Windows notifying you about sounds and showing you popups and icons on the taskbar about that the device or software wants to make sound etc.
With OpenAL this can be simply avoided.
And is why you need to install the proper OpenGL Windows drivers for your graphics card, because then Windows will know how to talk the OpenGL lanugage with your graphics card including how it can make OpenAL sound.

[stirling]

I'm sorry if you perceived my question as a criticism, as I said in my post that was not my intention. I'm just trying to get UCCNC to work without issues is all.

On one PC it is so painfully slow that it's really unusable and on the laptop where it appears to otherwise run fine there's this annoying sound issue. Both systems to the best of my knowlege meet the minimum requirements layed out in the user guide so I'm just seeking some help before I decide I need to buy an alternative PC. Then if I DO need one, I'm trying to understand what I need to be aware of before I buy.

I guess I'm just one of those old timers who have been spoiled by Mach3 running on just about anything including a brick.

[cncdrive]

I did not take it as critism, I just thought it is funny, because you said "simple graphics" while the graphics algorithms of the UCCNC is very complex.

I don't think mach3 can run on a "brick" anymore. Since there were a recent Windows update it fails to run on many systems.
And once the Flashplayer will become fully obsolete and no more supported (it is going to that direction already) it will be hard to run it on anything.

Basicly any new computer with the minimum requirements listed will run the UCCNC.
Old computers are harder to advice what are good enough, because older architectures differs in lots of things.
Not only the CPU speed is the important, there are things which most motherboard and computer manufacturers not even publishing.
But again new computers with the current PC architectures should all do the job if they fit the datasheet listed minimums.
And one thing which I recommend however it is not an absolutely requirement is to try to get a computer with dual or duo core, that always make a big difference in the overal performance of computers compared to single core CPUs.