# RAM Limit?



## Scott Cairns (Jul 17, 2006)

Hi Andy, AFAIK, Kontakt will address a maximum of 2gb of ram on both platforms.


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## Ian Livingstone (Jul 17, 2006)

I know absolutely nothing about macs but is that per instance of K2? ie. could Andy run 4 instances of K2 and use up all 8gb?

Ian


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## Thonex (Jul 17, 2006)

From what I understand (and that's not a lot) you have a 2 Gig limit per instance of applications (like Ian said).

I read somewhere that you can make copies of the K2 application on the same computer and open 2, 3, 4 instances of K2 so you can use more of the Ram in the computer.

If I recall, you just need to alter the name of the K2 application so that each instance is not exactly the the same name

AFAIK this works in stand alone mode.

Cheers,
T


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## Andy B (Jul 17, 2006)

Thanks Guys.


Andy.


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 17, 2006)

Thonex @ Mon Jul 17 said:


> From what I understand (and that's not a lot) you have a 2 Gig limit per instance of applications (like Ian said).
> 
> I read somewhere that you can make copies of the K2 application on the same computer and open 2, 3, 4 instances of K2 so you can use more of the Ram in the computer.
> 
> ...



Hey T,

Exactly how would I do that? I run K2 in standalone also in a second Mac G5 so I'm interested. I had a conversation with Nick B regarding getting more instances and the possible answer then was rewire. I presume in this standalone workaround in conjunction with Midi Over LAN I would essentially assign ports 1-4 to instance one, ports 5-8 to instance two, etc?


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 17, 2006)

Okay - I succeeded in copying and renaming k2 for an additional instance. Worked fine. Problem is though that for some reason the second instance is still defaulting on Ports 1-4 and isn't showing any additional port options ( 5 - 8 ). Any ideas?


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## Thonex (Jul 17, 2006)

Frederick Russ @ Mon Jul 17 said:


> Okay - I succeeded in copying and renaming k2 for an additional instance. Worked fine. Problem is though that for some reason the second instance is still defaulting on Ports 1-4 and isn't showing any additional port options ( 5 - 8 ). Any ideas?



Hi Frederick,

I haven't done this yet on any machines... but did you try going to the File menu (top left of K2 window) and Choose Audio/Midi and select different midi ports for the other instances?

T


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jul 17, 2006)

I haven't checked K2 stand-alone, but inside Logic on a 2x2.5 G5 with 4.5 to 5GB installed you can access about 3GB. With 8GB installed you can run 3GB of Vienna Instruments + another 2GB of K2 inside Logic - a total of 5GB. I haven't pulled chips to check how much that goes down with 6GB installed.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jul 17, 2006)

K2 doesn't support ReWire, Frederick, and I'd recommend a host if you're running more than one stand-alone.

Also, Andy: there's a limit to how much *any* program can run, on both PC and Mac.


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 17, 2006)

Hey - Thonex idea worked! I just got home and checked it out!

I have a feeling I could probably run at least 96 instruments now using T's idea before the dual K2 G5 capsizes (I only have 4GB in there right now) I may get more mileage with more memory. 

Actually K2 works best in stand alone outside of a host in my experience of using it - especially in a Mac G5. In a G5 I'm loading 64 instruments in a single instance - it takes about 90 seconds! (Try that in K2 inside Logic - nowhere near that kind performance!) Placing K2 into a host is where I'm suspecting the problems begin - especially when the hosts available seem to recognize only a single port (16 instruments) per instance.

This opens up a lot more possibilities! Thanks! If I had the memory it may be possible to run 128 instruments - perhaps stretch that to 192 for 3 instances. 256 instruments (4 instances of K2 at 4 ports each) may not be possible but I plan to do some testing with what I have now.

(note: my VisionDAW PC has nowhere near the performance I'm experiencing in the G5 - it has K2 installed as my second computer for the NI license. I'm probably going to uninstall it and I'm seriously thinking about using the second license in a 3rd G5 for standalone K2.)


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## Thonex (Jul 18, 2006)

Frederick Russ @ Mon Jul 17 said:


> Hey - Thonex idea worked! I just got home and checked it out!......



Hey Frederick, 

I'm glad it worked. I'm going to be doing the same thing this summer with Midi-Over-Lan... that allows up to 16 ports per machine and provides better midi latency than hardware units.

This is where Macs kick PCs butts!!! PC's memory allocation sucks. If you are running 64 bit CPUs then you could potentially see much more access beyond the 4 gigs. On a PC (unless you are running Windows Server 64 bit OS which doesn't have the many drivers needed for pro audio) you'll only get about 3.8 gigs out of your machine... and that's with doing a host of tricks to get the thing to recognize over 2 gigs :roll: 

I'm not sure the MacIntel macs (32 bit CPUs) will do as well as the IBM 64 bit chips in the RAM department... but I'm not an expert.

Keep us posted on the number of instances and performance on your Mac... we're all interested.


Cheers,

T


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## Ian Livingstone (Jul 18, 2006)

yeah this is looking seriously tempting - it's gonna be a few years yet before pc / Windows is up to this,

So running K2 as a plugin in Nuendo/Logic can it run 4 x K2 plugins each with 2gb ram or are you limited to the host itself allowing 2gb max for all of its plugins put together?

Ian


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## Thonex (Jul 18, 2006)

Ian Livingstone @ Tue Jul 18 said:


> yeah this is looking seriously tempting - it's gonna be a few years yet before pc / Windows is up to this,
> 
> So running K2 as a plugin in Nuendo/Logic can it run 4 x K2 plugins each with 2gb ram or are you limited to the host itself allowing 2gb max for all of its plugins put together?
> 
> Ian



You're limited to the host... Rewire is different though... because the Rewire applications is seen as a separate applications... but not so with plug-ins.

I've heard of Logic guys on Mac doing stuff where they use some kind of Inter Application Communication software (like PC's Midi Yoke or something) to get around this... they run Logic and have 2-3 instances of K2 running stand-alone with help from the IAC application.

I don't know the details 'cause I'm not a Logic guy. On PC I think we can't do that because ASIO only recognizes 1 application as the host... the only way around it may be to have more than 1 ASIO card and have the second one dedicated to K2 or something like that.... I'm just going to stick to K2 on a separate machine in Stand-Alone mode.

T


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## Ian Livingstone (Jul 18, 2006)

not quite so attractive as I thought.

[edit] removed rest of post as it was irrelevant to thread

Ian


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## synergy543 (Jul 18, 2006)

Frederick, for routing audio between apps, you could try Soundflower. I've used it and its worked well. There is also another similar program but I can't recall the name now.

http://www.cycling74.com/products/soundflower


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 19, 2006)

Thanks Andrew and Greg - I'll definitely check these out. I have 7GB on my main G5 DAW so plenty of space to put at least one instance of standalone K2 outside of the Logic shell.

Greg - which sequencer do you use with Soundflower - I'd like to know your approach.


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## synergy543 (Jul 19, 2006)

Frederick Russ @ Wed Jul 19 said:


> Greg - which sequencer do you use with Soundflower - I'd like to know your approach.


I've used Soundflower with Metasynth, Kontakt and DSP-Quattro and a few other apps. However my main sequencer is Digital Performer and I haven't figured out a way to use Soundflower with it as it seems to only let me select either Soundflower or my PCI-424 card as the audio system (whereas with DSP-Quattro, you can use Soundflower as the input and PCI-424 as the output).

I have Logic but haven't learned it enough to try it out with that so I can't say whether it would work or not but it would certainly be worth a try.

Basically, in the other apps, I simply select Soundflower as the audio In/Out instead of the PCI-424. That's really all there is to it. Its very much like Rewire if you've used that.


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## Thonex (Jul 19, 2006)

Frederick Russ @ Wed Jul 19 said:


> Thanks Andrew and Greg - I'll definitely check these out. I have 7GB on my main G5 DAW so plenty of space to put at least one instance of standalone K2 outside of the Logic shell.
> 
> Greg - which sequencer do you use with Soundflower - I'd like to know your approach.



Frederick, I know for a fact that the Midi Patcher or Midi Patchbay works... a composer friend of mine who uses Logic uses it every day... it's part of his "setup".

T


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 19, 2006)

Cool - I went ahead and DL'd it so we'll see how it goes. Free license - can't get any better than that! Getting Logic wired to make this happen is also a hurdle I'll need to overcome. If it gets too difficult I'll see if I can hook up with your buddy so he could show me his workflow in Logic. Thanks again!


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 29, 2006)

Update:

Using Midi Patchbay - http://pete.yandell.com/software/ - I was able to get Logic 7 talking to Kontakt 2 (in standalone mode.) Works fine from the midi part of it. Andrew's friend helped me through the process of setting it up in Logic's environment. 

I also tried Synergy's idea of Soundflower. Unfortunately the audio application seemed to dominate Logic Audio to where Soundflower would surplant my Motu PCI-424 driver in favor of its own. Not good. So I'm open to any suggestions to get K2 audio monitoring in Logic - can anyone help?


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## synergy543 (Jul 30, 2006)

Frederick Russ @ Sat Jul 29 said:


> Update:
> 
> I also tried Synergy's idea of Soundflower. Unfortunately the audio application seemed to dominate Logic Audio to where Soundflower would surplant my Motu PCI-424 driver in favor of its own. Not good. So I'm open to any suggestions to get K2 audio monitoring in Logic - can anyone help?



Hi Frederick, I think you need to use Soundflowerbed not just Soundflower. I think this might solve your problem. Have a look here:

http://www.cycling74.com/products/soundflower#bed

Here's the relevant quote:

"When using Soundflower to send audio to and from applications, you may find that you are not able to send audio through another device to monitor audio output. In such situations you can use Soundflowerbed, an application that resides in the Finder's Menubar allowing you to tap into Soundflower channels and route them to an audio device."

Happy sound gardening,

Greg


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 30, 2006)

Thanks Gregory - I'l give it another shot


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