I having so much fun learning with these new lights and WLED. I have an ESP 8266 running an 800+ string divided into 7 segments. It seems like this controller lacks the muscle to run certain effects across all segments and the last several just go to a solid color. Particularly, fireworks 1D and bouncing balls.
Is my understanding correct and is there another controller I should consider using?
Thanks in advance.
I think that is close to the max if you want best framerate. Better to use something like a Falcon with xlights. Although, I would only suspect the update rate to drop and not see other problems.
Yes that is true, about 700 is the maximum I recommend running from one controller. Some effects, including Fireworks 1D, Bouncing balls, Colortwinkles and Candle multi need extra memory, of which they may allocate 2kB on ESP8266 and 8kB on ESP32. So, using an ESP32 is recommended in this case, as it will make the effect work, though because of the framerate, going with more LEDs is still not recommended (until I release the multiple output pin capability 
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