# Purged Template Uses a Lot of RAM



## silverlight7 (May 14, 2019)

Hey everyone,

I was making a full orchestral template in Reaper, and I noticed that the RAM usage is quite high even though I've purged all samples.

So far, I have 8 instances of Kontakt loaded with about 9 to 16 patches loaded in each instance. I have all the main patches loaded from SSS, SSW, SSB, Spitfire Percussion, CSS, CSSS, and Chris Hein Solo Strings.

Even with all the samples purged, Windows 10 Task Manager says Reaper is still using about 15 GB of RAM.

Is this normal? Or should my RAM usage be much lower? If I continue and put everything else I want in my template, I'll probably end up at 20 or 25 GB with just a blank project!


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## Guy Rowland (May 14, 2019)

It is indeed normal. It's still not that well understood that an awful lot of memory is taken up by the instruments themselves, not only the samples. 400-500mb per instance for some of the big beast nkis is not uncommon.

Purged is still a useful tool for sure - and its a wonder how seamlessly the Kontakt background loading works - but the only way to deal with these huge Kontakt instances (and Play takes up a whole 1GB before loading a thing, btw) is to go down the disabled template route. I have absolutely no specific knowledge of how Reaper works here, but from memory I think people say it does it well - definitely worth checking out. I love my VE Pro disabled template, and go on about it too much.


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## jneebz (May 14, 2019)

Output instruments are also heavy purged-RAM offenders. REV, Signal, Analog Strings in my template anyway...


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## Desire Inspires (May 14, 2019)

You have to use less instances of Kontakt:


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## silverlight7 (May 14, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> You have to use less instances of Kontakt:



Yeah, I could probably remove a couple instances if I max out each one with 16 patches. I was trying to place only one group of patches in each instance (e.g. SSW in one instance, SSB in the next, etc.)

I'll have to see if there's some way of disabling tracks, or perhaps I'll create a modular template so I can load sections that I'll need per project.


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## Guy Rowland (May 14, 2019)

The difference in RAM use is fairly trivial there tbh, that's small beer next to the huge amount of RAM the big .nkis take. Load time is more significant though.

To balance that, one advantage of less instruments in RAM comes into play if you are using a disabled template. If you have less instruments in one instance, you only load what you actually are using, so the load time can be significantly smaller. Indeed, if I were starting the template from scratch, I'd use more instances overall with less in them.


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## mscp (May 14, 2019)

That's one of the benefits of disabling tracks in VEP. You can literally turn "that track" off (including everything that's in it) - which saves up ram.


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## silverlight7 (May 14, 2019)

Phil81 said:


> That's one of the benefits of disabling tracks in VEP. You can literally turn "that track" off (including everything that's in it) - which saves up ram.



Really? I have VEP 6. I'll watch some tutorials on that and see what I can do with it.


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## Guy Rowland (May 14, 2019)

This is for Cubase / VE Pro 6, but might give you some ideas.


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## mscp (May 14, 2019)

silverlight7 said:


> Really? I have VEP 6. I'll watch some tutorials on that and see what I can do with it.



It's pretty simple. All you have to do is turn the track off. There's a "power" button on each track. If you want to automate that, then it's a whole other story but not hard.


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## silverlight7 (May 14, 2019)

Guy Rowland said:


> This is for Cubase / VE Pro 6, but might give you some ideas.



Oh goodie. VEP seems to be the way to go. I'll go ahead and set it up.

Thanks for the help everyone! I should be able to set up a proper template now that doesn't hog memory.


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## Yorkz (May 14, 2019)

silverlight7 said:


> Oh goodie. VEP seems to be the way to go. I'll go ahead and set it up.
> 
> Thanks for the help everyone! I should be able to set up a proper template now that doesn't hog memory.


In Reaper, there's an Action that that can 'disable/enable selected track(s)'. This action purges the loaded plug in from RAM when a track is disabled. Works great - especially with Kontakt libraries.


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## silverlight7 (May 15, 2019)

Yorkz said:


> In Reaper, there's an Action that that can 'disable/enable selected track(s)'. This action purges the loaded plug in from RAM when a track is disabled. Works great - especially with Kontakt libraries.



Thanks a bunch! I was able to set it to a shortcut, and purging tracks is as easy as selecting them and pressing the shortcut keys.

I think I had to install SWS Extensions in order to get that feature though -- I didn't see it before.


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