Multicell Parameter count far too high?

I'm patching a new show file with a lot of multicell fixtures. I've come up on my patch limit far too soon. The reason is that multicell fixtures take up far too many parameters. As far as actual addresses patched, I should only be at 2,180 out of 4,096, but my "patched parameter" count is 4,274.

I did some poking around and multicell fixtures are to blame. The biggest offender I've come across is the Clay Paky Sharbar in RGBW Shape mode. It is 54 DMX addresses, but the parameter count is 183. It's murdering my parameter count. (Not to mention the other mystifying issue that cell 6 controls the master intensity). This is not true for the non-MC profile, which is 54 addresses and 54 parameters. The Mac Quantum Wash Extended is 33 addresses. in MC mode, it takes up 36 parameters.

What's going on here?

0 Druuka over 7 years ago

The Parameter count doesn't cause the console to stop outputting channels. The Patched Address count is the one that is limited by your license. The parameter count includes virtual attributes that are created in the console. This count is included to help show how much processing your console is doing. You shouldn't see any errors or warnings about being over your count unless your Address count is over.
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0 rriegner over 7 years ago in reply to Druuka

This image is of my system About screen showing 4274 under both "Patched Addresses" and "Defined Parameters" using multicell fixtures:

And this one is after repatching all the fixtures to their non-MC standard profiles, showing only 2180 defined parameters and patched addresses, which is the correct number of actual DMX addresses used:

Note these screenshots were taken on my offline editor. My console is limited to 4096 outputs.
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0 Zach6439 over 7 years ago in reply to rriegner

For the screenshots; both fixture profiles are 54 address profiles, one is multi-cell one isn't, correct?
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0 starksk over 7 years ago

Hi rriegner,

Can you try updating your fixture library to 2.7.0.75 or later and either start a new show and patch fresh or save a copy of your show and then update the fixtures from the library in the copy to see if it resolves the count discrepancy?

I suspect that you're running into a bug in the fixture library where the cells carried the definitions of the parts from the master along with them. This was corrected in library version 2.7.0.75.
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0 rriegner over 7 years ago in reply to Zach6439

Yes, that's correct. The original profile contained all the same parameters, but under one channel. The new MC profile contains the same number of parameters, but broken out into the new cells feature.
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0 rriegner over 7 years ago in reply to starksk

I have just updated to Fixture Library 2.7.0.75. I've noticed that there are several new multicell profiles that are appended "MC2" so I tried those first. That brought my patched parameters count down to 3920. It's a start, and brings me under my limit, but the core issue is still present.

I then went back and tested with the "MC" profiles in the new library, and the patched parameters is down to 4250. Again, improved, but not by much. And still not under my limit.
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0 starksk over 7 years ago in reply to rriegner

Can you either post or send me your show file so that we can investigate this further?
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0 rriegner over 7 years ago in reply to starksk

Here's a link to my show file using the MC profiles from library 2.7.0.75, not the new MC2 profiles:

www.dropbox.com/.../WMW-Opera-MC-Fix2.7.0.75 2018-06-06 18-16-01.esf

It appears the Clay Paky SharBar is the worst offender. Should be 54 parameters/addresses, but each takes up 183 somehow.
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+1 starksk over 7 years ago in reply to rriegner

Thanks for the show file. Unfortunately, this is a bug with Multi-Cell fixture count implementation. It has been captured as RND 0047114: Multi-Cell fixtures are reported as using more addresses than they really use.

Until the fix is released, the only workaround is to use the non-Cell version of the fixture personality.

Sorry for the troubles.
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0 rriegner over 7 years ago in reply to starksk

I think I have figured out the underlying cause of the issue here. I don't know how to contribute to that bug report directly, but let me know where I can go to help out. Here's a summary of it.

Using the SharBar fixture as an example here: Each cell has a tilt parameter that falls in the middle of the master patch, while the RGBW parameters come at the end of the patch. (i.e. [Beginning of Master...][Tilt1][Tilt2][...][Tilt6][...End of Master][Red1][Green1][Blue1][White1][Red2][Green2][Blue2][White2][...][Red6][Green6][Blue6][White6]) Because cell 6's first and last DMX addresses are 33 apart, the console is saying it's using 33 addresses (from the parameter count column), instead of just the 5 addresses that are actually patched. It's counting all the "unused" addresses in the middle, which are really part of other cells or the master. 30+18+21+24+27+30+33=183, which is the number of Patched Addresses I see per SharBar in my About screen.
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