Don’t Run Your Service Without This One Thing

Of all the activities I experienced as a Cub Scout, the Pinewood Derby is one that did not go as well as I had hoped. My entry was a very simple car. Actually, I don’t even remember doing much to it, let alone painting it. Nonetheless, my anticipation for winning was incredibly high. I imagined my car flying down the track and winning first place along with a very large trophy. When it was my turn, I carefully placed my car on the track and waited for the gate to drop.  I could hardly contain my excitement as I thought about me, standing in the winner’s circle. The gate finally dropped and my excitement turned to embarrassment as I watched my car crawl down the track, not even crossing the finish line. One of the dads felt so bad for me that he offered me graphite for the wheels. When I raced my car the second time, I was shocked to see that I passed the finish line and didn’t even come in last place!

Just like my Pinewood Derby car, many churches try to run EasyWorship on a computer without the necessary upgrades. Specifically, without the appropriate video card—the most important piece you need for presentation software. No matter how powerful the computer, without the right video card, the performance is guaranteed to be subpar.

The video card is what sends the signal to your computer monitor and out to your TV or projectors for the congregation or audience to see.  Because it sends out multiple signals and displays different things like HD videos, slideshows, text over image or video backgrounds, you need to have a high-performance card to be able to process all that information.  The required video cards for EasyWorship have more than one output, at least one for the computer monitor and one for your Front of House screen (projection).  Many have more than two outputs which allows you to send a third signal to another projection for the stage which EasyWorship calls the Foldback monitor.  Extended out from any of those three outputs on the video card, a splitter could be connected to give multiple devices displaying one signal.  For instance, if you have a large room or sanctuary and need to have two, three or even four projectors or televisions showing your Front of House output, you can use a video splitter to split that one signal to multiple devices.

One mistake users make is to have a low performance video card that only has one output while trying to use a video splitter to send different signals to more than one device.  This is not possible.  One signal can only display one thing, so in order to use a presentation software like EasyWorship, you have to have a video card with two outputs to send the separate signal to the audience.

The three most common video card chip manufacturers out there are NVidia, AMD and Intel. Many other models range from the lowest performance (for web browsing and document writing) to the highest performance (playing 3D video games).  Nvidia GeForce GTX is what EasyWorship recommends using.  Visit our website for a full list of system requirements and video card models for EasyWorship.

Inexpensive computers can be tempting for a church on a small budget, but these are not always the best solution for churches using EasyWorship.  Most of those inexpensive computer systems will have the lowest performance video cards to keep the cost low but will have other higher performance parts like the processor and memory to attract buyers. There are other options available for those looking to purchase an inexpensive computer with all the high-performance parts needed.  Custom built computers, or purchasing parts online, is the best way to get the cheapest but highest performance parts.  Many times, you can even purchase a pre-built computer and just replace the video card, but you still have to be careful to make sure the new video card will work in that computer.

Meeting the System Requirements for EasyWorship is important not just for the software to run properly, but the computer should last longer, make operating it much less stressful and the final output to the congregation or audience will look better.