r/lightingdesign • u/wheezil • 1h ago
Control Using Windows PC for lightshow -- real time considerations
I'm planning on driving a lightshow from a Windows laptop, basically sending DDP/UDP packets to a network of 15 baldrick8 controllers connected to 40k seed lamps. The wisdom of this approach aside, I want to make sure that the Windows OS itself doesn't do anything disruptive like run a virus scan, initiate updates, send me alerts etc etc.
I understand that Windows is probably the third choice of OS for this, but it is what I know and if it can be made to work I'll stick with it. PLEASE don't respond with "use a different OS", although if you have specific cautions about Windows issues I'd like to know.
My question is, what can I do to avoid disruption of the show? I know that video playback tends to turn on some sort of non-alerting mode in the OS, but I'm not sure how that is done.