I understand your point… however, I had the fast server from the day I set up the pro. It was “included” until they launched the premium. And it is a huge difference.
Sorry I was confused by this statement;
I don’t think the premium services were around a year ago. In the past year, actually much less they have upgraded the base servers, then just recently they added the even faster premium servers.
We’re not trying to be obstinate. We’re long-time users and have had both speeds, and know the difference, and it’s really barely noticeable. Honest!
If your UI is slow, clearing the cache almost always fixes it. If it doesn’t, Support may want you to go to whatismybrowser.com and grab the link there with your browser info for them to take a look at. You can get a head start by going ahead and doing that.
Yeah I guess it needs to be explained better but the “premium” is only the time between clicking Print and the light flashing on the GF. Everything else is all the same speed whatever level you have. The planning of the head movement is the task thats run on faster machines, and this is just as I said that short time after you click print to when its ready to go on the GF.
I got set up end of March/first part of April.
You’re the one acting like it.
What @DaveL said; the faster servers only come into play after you hit the print button and has nothing to do with how quickly your design opens or how fast the laser head travels. Experiencing a lag with opening designs is a real thing though and we can point you to things that can help clear it up.
Not.
Thanks to the people who want to be helpful. It is appreciated.
At the time you received your Glowforge Pro, the faster processing server pool had yet to be created – it was months before they even started beta testing the feature. You were never on a faster server then downgraded to a slower one. That simply didn’t happen.
Echoing what’s already been said, the “Fast Lane” feature of Glowforge Premium refers to only one thing:
When you press the “print” button, your design is uploaded to the Google Cloud where software running on a virtual server converts it into a movement plan for your laser. If you have Glowforge Premium, the server pool that takes the job are of an instance type with more compute resources than the standard pool. However, processing a design into a movement plan typically takes less than a minute, so the difference between the two pools is usually just seconds. The feature is mostly a gimmick, easily the least valuable part of the subscription.
You’ve complained about upload/rendering speeds, which have nothing to do with this offering. Files are uploaded to and rendered (“opened”) on the same servers for all Glowforge customers.
As to your complaint about pricing fairness, an OnStar subscription costs the same whether you buy a $18K Chevy Cruze or a $76K Cadillac Escalade. And both vehicles work just fine without it if you don’t want the add-on, just like your Glowforge.
It did happen. A message to that effect was was nicely placed in the upper right hand of the browser window every day, until they changed it.
@OgreWagon Here’s the timeline:
- March through September: You use your Glowforge, which talks to the same servers as every other Glowforge.
-
October: Glowforge Premium Beta begins, introducing the “Fast Lane” feature that speeds up processing of a design after you hit the print button. Your files continue to be opened/rendered by the same servers as always. After you hit “print”, they’re now sent to the “fast lane” pool for processing.
-
Some time in November/December: Your free trial of Glowforge Premium ends. Your files continue to be opened/rendered by the same servers as always. Your Glowforge resumes sending designs for processing to the servers it talked to from March to September. They are no slower than before. People that choose to upgrade have their designs processed by the “fast lane” pool instead.
That last part is the only place where things diverged, and only for that one feature. You said you noticed a night and day difference in opening designs. Your designs have been “opened” by the same servers at all times you’ve owned your Glowforge, from March until today.
Objectively false, for the reason everyone else has been trying to explain.
Since this whole “faster servers never existed” argument keeps popping up in these conversations. Everyone needs to take a step back and understand neither Glowforge nor @dan ever told us the size of the compute nodes they use on GCP prior to having the fast/slow model or after.
Take the following three examples, each entirely possible, and to simplify things only use 4 tiers each being faster then the previous:
The Perfect World
old - everyone is on Tier 2
new - slow is Tier 3 and fast is Tier 4
The Likely World
old - everyone is on Tier 2
new - slow is Tier 2 and fast is Tier 3
The Worst Case World
old - everyone is on Tier 2
new - slow is Tier 1 and fast is Tier 3
Regardless, everyone arguing really has no idea what they are talking because we aren’t informed about this stuff and have to go by the press releases.
@icirellik This argument is moot since the supposed speed change was observed in opening files, not processing them, and the tiers you’re referring to are for the processing server pool. We do not need to know any details about the instance classes used in the processing pools to quash a theory that opening files was slowed down to convince him to get a subscription that doesn’t even purport to speed that up.
Thanks for the moot response.
edit:
We also don’t know the flow for opening a file. It could very easily be related to server side changes. GlowForge is very secretive about basic functionality.
The free trial of Premium started in April 2020 - though it looks like “fast lane” started in October (after they upgraded all the servers).
It is more perfect than that.
Actually, there have been speed improvements from the start, at least five or six I can think of. The biggest improvement was the math for when it was not at top speed it would cut deeper and any hard angle burned all the way through as the laser had to stop and change direction. Those of us who were here from the rollout have seen a steady improvement in big and little jumps all this time, now those improvements have two tracks, one for everyone that is about using the laser, like that corner improvement, and others will be about using the GFUI to create and modify files, like the widget that can make an outline cut from just uploading a raster image.
Improvements will be made in both areas and I do not know what they will be but both regular use and Premium will be a lot better a year from now, just as they are from a year and two years ago. I actually have premium and the "speed improvement is so slight I cannot recognize it, but the change from what it was two years ago when any job that took over an hour would crash first is easy to recognize.
Hi @OgreWagon! Thanks for being a Glowforge owner. I’m sorry you’ve had slow uploads! Hopefully some of the tips below can help; those are the most likely culprits.
I was going to offer information on Premium, but the community here beat me to it. I highlighted some of the points below to confirm them as correct.
@icirellik: your “perfect world” example is correct. Glowforge Print is significantly faster than the servers we were using in 2019; we upgraded the free servers for everyone before adding the additional option for “fast lane” servers. (I don’t recall the date of the switch)