Agreed Vista is garbage.

Thanks for the input, i decided to use this



Acer Veriton 1000



Quick Specifications

Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Memory 2.0 GB
Hard Drive 80.0 GB
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Optical Drive CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo - IDE
Graphics Processor Intel GMA 3000 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0
Graphics Controller Integrated

seems to work ok

Just to clarify one point that I only just noticed, it doesn't need a full blown PC just for the interface, the power behind scripts, auto position, camera tracking etc. etc. etc. is all done by the PC. Without it you wouldn't have nearly as powerful a setup and definitely not as easy to work with.

As your project gets more complex you may find some slowdown with only 2Gb RAM, it may pay to either upgrade that to 4Gb or downgrade W7 Ultimate to W7 Starter (or remove services and applications etc. that bog it down).

what is bad about vista

Do you really need to ask? Just google Vista problems and you will find a list of literally hundreds of issues with Vista.

The fact Microsoft stopped support for Vista very quickly but continues XP support pretty much confirms that Microsoft know they screwed a lot up with Vista.

It's probably shorter to list what's right with Vista.

I ran vista just fine.
However I have bug machines.
Ialso killed all the UAC stuff.

I am on windows 7 now on all machines except 3 which are on windows 8

I agree 7 is much more usuable.

One good thing you can about Vista is that it isn't "ME"

You know, I think ME was better than Vista... but it's like saying that the flu is better than malaria.

"As your project gets more complex you may find some slowdown with only 2Gb RAM, it may pay to either upgrade that to 4Gb or downgrade W7 Ultimate to W7 Starter (or remove services and applications etc. that bog it down)."

So what your saying is , " I have a PC that is like boiling an egg with an Atomic Reactor but to run Ez-B I need to upgrade it ? "

Sorry, I think I'll hybrid my setup and use an old version of EZ-B with a small 1.2 Gig laptop just to run some rudimentary flashy lights and maybe ping and use an Atom Bot Board with a Serial servo Controller for servo control.

I'm not totally green at this but just seem to be stalled on having to use a 4 gig memory , 2 gig or faster Cpu computer just to read some pings etc and move some servo's when I have and use a Hexapod robot that has wireless vision, sonar, 6 - 3DOF legs ( with inverse kinematics ) , wireless serial connections and can run with or without a PC.

Obviously the vision needs a pc for processing and i do that with Robot-Realm on a 1 gig cpu, 1 gig memory laptop running XP Pro with serial wireless connection.

The Hexapod does not need a pc to function autonomously and can actually "see" with an ir sensor when not using camera vision.

This all runs on a Basic Atom Botboard with these specs

32K of Program Space
2000 (2K) Bytes of User / System RAM
Up to 8 A/D pins
Up to 100,000 Plus BASIC Instruction Per Second
Code and Pin compatible to the Basic ATOM
Hardware based 32 bit math
Hardware PWM
Hardware UART
Hardware SPI and I2C
Based on a true 32 bit processor

now you may see why I'm bucking the EZ-B / PC method
don't get me wrong the EZ-B is a great peripheral for the modern PC but the ARC program is the main story here that I'm beating my brain about.

What I'm saying is, the more advanced things you can do with ARC may push that system beyond it's limits. Processing sensor data with complex algorithms or image processing can be a resource hog for instance.

The camera control has been re-written recently and works much smoother but it's still going to require some processing power.

To "just read some pings and move some servos" will not require much processing power. But your original post was about using the camera, not the ultrasonic sensors.

Indirectly i still am still referring to vision....get pings, turn camera, have a-look, process info, run a couple servo's or motor control,
as you say thou the processing part is what needs the power.

Ya i thought it worked better on XP before also.

My thing is , do i want to stick a high end laptop on a wheelchair robot that will be in the real world and when something blows ( and it will ) shell out another $500 dollar bill.

If my bots brain was stationary well no prob i use an AMD 6 core , 4 monitor machine, but it's not and i'm trying to use the least expensive with the most power needed to operate the EZ-B.

Anyhow we can hash this subject forever and thanks for all the input , now back to hacking the bot.

I have an HP Probook Windows 7 Professional Laptop and ARC works sweet as bro! That is Core i3

I know it's sad for all of us to see Windows XP disappear... but we have to remember that it is a thousand years old now. Even Windows 7 on a Windows XP built machine will run faster.

ARC is optimized big time. It is very efficient and tested on a very slow netbook with an old AMD processor and 2gb of RAM. Of course, the more you push the limits by adding more controls and scripting will require a faster processor. However, in many cases you won't need a very powerful computer at all. The AMD Netbook that I test on is super old and slow. And I mean unusably slow It can barely view our website! Yet, it runs ARC great

The reason for having to use Windows 7 or higher is due to the performance enhancements we use. In order to optimize the video processing and allow controls to continue running, the memory management of Windows XP cannot keep up. There just isn't the support in Windows XP to do what ARC requires...

This is because Microsoft has stopped supporting Windows XP a few years ago.

Windows XP was a good OS but I am also saddened it has said its ByeByes.

Ok, I installed windows 7 on my Toshiba netbook and its working good so far for my needs.

Putt Putt,
Be more specific?
Do you have processed video?

@PuttPutt that's good to hear. Windows 7 cures most problems for the reasons DJ mentioned. Professionally speaking, I always advise Windows 7 unless a client has a specific requirement for XP. I've never had a negative reaction to the upgrade.

@Rich, always good advice (nice to see your back )

Steve S , yes its working ok processing fine.