SGP Subscription? - Is it worth it?

Sequence Generator Feature Requests
1

OK folks,

Have not yet signed up for the SGP subscription service and am still working off version 3.2.0.613. Everything is still working fine. What new features have come out and what does this really get me? Do I really need anything in the subscription service I don’t already have?

Any feedback appreciated.

Thanks.

2

It is really not. Just stick with your current version and you will be happy a long time. They don’t add new valuable features and keep ignoring user requests, so I really don’t see any reason to pay for subscription.

2 Likes
3

I guess you need to ask the questions:

a) Do I need ASCOM switches capability?
b) Are you thinking of purchasing a new device (camera) in the near future that will need or benefit from 64-bit driver support.

These are the biggest new features in v4. If you are not needing these and have no issues with your current release then there seems no strong impetus to upgrade IMHO.

I like the option of using ASTAP for focus metrics but by itself I don’t think this is an imperative.

1 Like
4

Thank you Helen. As long as imaging is still operational, I’ll probably stick with what I have.

5

Thanks, Mike.

All my cams are working for now. Just bought an ASI2600MM-P but haven’t tried it yet.

I installed ASTAP last year and it does work well with my current version.

V4 might be of interest to me once it leaves the Beta phase.

Your reply is appreciated.

6

I think SGP is an initiative worth supporting. I have subscribed hoping the new model will allow the authors more time to make improvements.

8

I think it’s worth supporting too, but i see problems lately with lots and lots of basic need for help, i could see @Ken and @Jared getting overworked with all this and get tired/burned out.
I think the answer is more people to help with First Line Support so they could help with basic questions, and escalate more advanced questions of bugs to the devs.
This would give devs more time to focus on improving SGP instead :+1:

9

This is interesting to read. I’m still on v2 running on an old Win7 laptop, so a couple of years ago I asked whether v3 would run in that environment (knowing it’s not supported), but I never got an answer. I was really pi**ed off when v4 then became subscription only, especially as I still don’t know whether it will work in Win7. I would love the better autofocus routine since v2 and would upgrade if I knew that it would work under Win7… :man_shrugging: Anyone care to take a punt on advising me about that please?

10

Do you have a really, really good reason to still be on Win 7? I would consider it a significant security risk (unless you are running it in a completely isolated environment)

Anyone care to take a punt on advising me about that please?
No, it almost certainly would not work on Win 7.

And to be fair to the SGP devs - I don’t think they should be expected to support deprecated platforms the the platform providers (i.e. Microsoft) no longer support.

11

Win7 is not technically supported. SGP3 and SGP4 may or may not work there. The main determining factor are the .Net dependencies. SGP3 and 4 need .Net 4.7.2 and if you can get that on Win7 it may work.

Best bet is to start a trial of 3.2 and give it a shot. If you were to go this route I’d recommend backing up any profiles and sequences just in case you need to revert back to 2.7. 3.2 will perform a one way upgrade on your sequences and profiles.

Jared

12

Thanks Jared, I appreciate the prompt reply. How/where do I get a trial of 3.2? It’s the ‘one way’ upgrade that was putting me off, didn’t know whether I be able to go back so was in an ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ mindset. I’m guessing that I can’t have the 3.2 trial and my existing v2 on the same laptop, or can I?
Regards, Geof

13

Just on our downloads page…and you can request a trial from the help menu in SGP if it starts up in “Lite” mode.

Technically you could install 3.2 in a different directory than 2.7 so they both could be on the same machine…but they would both attempt to access the same profiles and sequence which 3.2 would upgrade making them broken for 2.7. So this is not something you’d want to do.

Jared

14

Thanks again Jared, I guess I’m going to pass then, but I really appreciate the offer. I’m not good at this techy stuff and as v2 is unsupported I don’t think I’ll be able to get support reinstating that if the upgrade messes it up - so back to my default ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mode. A pity as I like what I’ve read on the upgraded auto focus routine and some other stuff, but I’ll wait for when I get a Win10 laptop configured.
Many thanks,
Geof