# Play 3 issue...



## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Hi guys & girls,

Well, it seems I am not having much luck, first with HS 2.0 and legato patches cutting out, and now Play 3 which has brought back all the 'snap, crackle & pop' worse than ever! I knew it was a silly idea to do the update while I'm in the middle of serious deadlines, but after reading glowing 'reviews' from the beta testers, I thought this would only make things better. I am on an 8 core Mac Pro, OSX 10.6, 20GBG RAM, 2 SSDs for Play/HS and the latest versions of Logic and Bidule etc.

I've reintsalled Play 2, and all is working nicely once more, though of course it takes 4 times longer to load my Play template. I must admit, it was nice to see my Play Bidule load up in 3 minutes!

OK, so here's what I have noticed. My 20 GB RAM, dropped from 19 to 2 when loading up my Play Bidule (fresh boot up) in Play 3. I then loaded my other Bidule with K4/Omni etc and finally Logic. Of course the free RAM disappeared during this.

I initially thought Play3 was using more RAM than Play 2. I switched on the 'Fast disk' button but this made no difference. I could not play even one HS patch without clicks. In frustration, I uninstalled Play 3 and went back to V2. I monitored the memory usage as I loaded the same Play Bidule template, and was surprised that this time it used all of the free RAM before I loaded up my other stuff. All my Play sounds worked fine once more. 

So Nick, can you tell me what's going on? I cannot believe this is unique to my system. I have just ordered another 8 GB RAM, as I knew I would need it sooner or later. Perhaps things will work fine once I install this, BUT surely Play 3 should have made memory usage better, not worse than Play 2?

OK, back to work.

~Chris


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## IvanP (Jul 13, 2011)

Well, a bit of the dumb's relief...

Been posting the same issues too...

I' going back to Play2 as well until this will been solved...did you have to uninstall Play3 before? 

Thks,

Ivan


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## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 13, 2011)

Hi Chris ,

nearly same setup like you , but with 18GB RAM and VEPRO instead of Bidule . 
(_See specs in signature_ )

Same frustration with PLAY3 here !!! Back to PLAY2 .

__ __ __

What I've noticed :

*PLAY3 "sits" now on "inactive RAM" and doesn't release it as easily as it did before ,
when another app (Logic; ... ) wants/needs some of that inactive RAM . 

Therefore "swapping" starts and suddenly a Logic session doesn't run properly anymore
although it worked fine with PLAY2* ( inside VEPRO ) .

__ __ __


My steady PLAY setup with HS inside VEPRO shows 3,5 GB of sample loaded inside the PLAY Memory Server . 
(_Depending on the particular Cue I load additional patches._)

With only 3,5GB inside PLAY's memory server the "Inactive RAM" ( Activity Monitor ) is at 11GB .
Usually after loading my steady VEPRO_Play setup I "repaired diskpermission" 
and all "Inactive Ram" was back into "free ram" . 
( Therefore no swapping occurs , and no hickups in the overall performance of PLAY , Logic , the system .)

However , this "transfer" from" inactive RAM" into "Free Ram" does not work anymore . PLAY3 sits on the "Inactive RAM" . 
Obviously the only solution to solve this : more RAM . Or back to PLAY 2 .

Funny, it's nearly one year ago I had the following thread here and on SO : http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17699



Best 

Gerd



PS 1 : And "yes" I've ordered more RAM too . And Hollywoodbrass. ( Will Hollywoodbrass load in PLAY 2 ???? )

PS 2 : It was very nice to see how fast PLAY3 loads a setup now .... sigh ...


_________________________________________________________________________

Specs:
Master : MacPro 2,8 / 18GB / OS 10.6.7 / WD 1TB CaviarBlack drives / Logic9 32bit / VEPRO / PLAY ; 
Slaves for Kontakt and Vienna with VEPRO


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## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 13, 2011)

IvanP @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> ...did you have to uninstall Play3 before?



Hi Ivan ,

with the download of PLAY3 a "PLAY uninstaller" was also downloaded.
You have to use that before . Hopefully you have PLAY2 installer still on your harddrive,
because it ain't available anymore from EASTWEST's support site .

Best

Gerd


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Thanks guys. Good to hear I am not alone! All is working fine with Play 2 again. With so many Beta testers though, how is it that not one of them is using a similar setup your and mine?!!

~C


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## Coil (Jul 13, 2011)

perhaps it will help to switch the max Voices and the Engine Level down.


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Coil @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> perhaps it will help to switch the max Voices and the Engine Level down.



Sadly no. This does not help. As has been pointed out, it's a RAM usage issue that is not present on Play 2.

~C


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Hi guys & girls,
> 
> Well, it seems I am not having much luck, first with HS 2.0 and legato patches cutting out, and now Play 3 which has brought back all the 'snap, crackle & pop' worse than ever! I knew it was a silly idea to do the update while I'm in the middle of serious deadlines, but after reading glowing 'reviews' from the beta testers, I thought this would only make things better. I am on an 8 core Mac Pro, OSX 10.6, 20GBG RAM, 2 SSDs for Play/HS and the latest versions of Logic and Bidule etc.
> 
> ...



Hi Chris, I will send this info over to EW and see what I can find out.


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## Ed (Jul 13, 2011)

haha well that was fast


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## reddognoyz (Jul 13, 2011)

glad i didn't pull the trigger on Play3 just yet. I was a little lulled by the beta's glowing reviews as well. 

There is a Play 2 uninstaller in the package. Am I supposed to run this first? no mention in the update read me. Also no instructions on the instal in the read me. Is it too much to ask to have the instructions in the package. I've had soooo many problems with Play installs de-authorising my libraries.


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## Coil (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Coil @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > perhaps it will help to switch the max Voices and the Engine Level down.
> ...



mh, works nice here with 95 Instances of Play and ewqlso in Logic, sadly i don`t have HS and "only" 14 Gb of Ram.

i had Problems with Logic where one Core always was on overload and solved the Problem with setting the max Voices to 512 and the Engine Level to Medium.
Also importatand should be the Buffersize in your DAW.


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## TheUnfinished (Jul 13, 2011)

reddognoyz @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Also no instructions on the instal in the read me. Is it too much to ask to have the instructions in the package. I've had soooo many problems with Play installs de-authorising my libraries.


The correct procedure is to ask Piotr Musial.


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## Pietro (Jul 13, 2011)

TheUnfinished @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> reddognoyz @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Also no instructions on the instal in the read me. Is it too much to ask to have the instructions in the package. I've had soooo many problems with Play installs de-authorising my libraries.
> ...



:mrgreen: 

Run the PLAY 3 installer and you are done. No need to uninstall anything. The new installers are also significantly improved, and from now on, there should be no problems with missing keyfiles, expansions etc.

If you want to uninstall first, using attached uninstaller - you can, but that's not necessary. All files will be replaced by the new update installer automatically.

Make sure to pick "Custom" installation and select all libraries and expansions you have, and then pick proper plugin paths. There should be no longer "ahmahgawd, my plugin/key/license file's missing" problem .

- Piotr


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Coil @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Coil @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> ...



No offence, Coil, but I've been doing this a long time, like many others here, and this issue is purely because of HS and Play. If you don't have HS, you cannot possibly know how 'hungry' it is. 

As I and 2 others have already said, it works fine with Play 2 and is clearly an issue with the way Play is using RAM on the Mac. I just can't believe that with over 200 Beta testers on this for a month, 3 of us discover a fatal flaw with the software within the first minute!! Was not one beta tester using Play on a Mac and loading up a template of 5 legato patches? 

If anyone from East West is reading this, please look into this ASAP. I have most of the East West libraries, but unless Hollywood Brass runs on Play 2, it won't be on my shopping list until Play 3 is properly sorted....

~C


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Hi guys & girls,
> ...



Thanks Jay. 

~C


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 13, 2011)

OK, Jonathan Kranz just replied to Gerd on the SOL forum:

"What was the case in PLAY 2 often, especially with large patches, is that the voices would not get fed right away... this is why many user's would have to play a project through once for it to get 'warmed up'... using memory in a slightly different way solved this in PLAY 3, and in fact made the streaming engine much more robust overall, especially with the very large loads now possible with 64 bit.

So yes, in some cases you will see more memory allocated to 'inactive' than before, however PLAY now being 64 bit allows you to draw from a much bigger pool overall.

As I said in my post on the other thread, looking at your 'free' memory is the best indication, regardless of how much 'inactive' memory you see, you should be fine loading instruments until you start to run out of free memory, that is where your limit is.

Hope that explains whats happening here."


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Coil @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> ...



Chis on my now dated 2.66 Quad Core with 13 GB RAM, I consistently tested and ran a Legato Slur + Port N Powerful system patch for Vln 1, Vln 2 (but a duplicate of the Vln 1 since I hear little difference), Vla, Cello, and Bass in VE Pro coming into Logic at a 256 buffer without pops and clicks from the WD drive it came on.

Then however, I have to bounce to audio and clear the deck


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## Mike Connelly (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> As I and 2 others have already said, it works fine with Play 2 and is clearly an issue with the way Play is using RAM on the Mac. I just can't believe that with over 200 Beta testers on this for a month, 3 of us discover a fatal flaw with the software within the first minute!! Was not one beta tester using Play on a Mac and loading up a template of 5 legato patches?



This was discussed during the beta and the response was that the problem was that the mac was out of ram and that the solution was to either add more ram or to load less sample data.

If PLAY 2 is able to load more (or load to the point of running out of free ram but still play back the samples), that's not a good thing for people who had big sessions that worked on the previous version.

I hadn't been able to load up PLAY 2 to the point of running out of free ram because it wasn't 64 bit and I wasn't running Plogue or another external host, so I couldn't make that comparison.


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> OK, Jonathan Kranz just replied to Gerd on the SOL forum:
> 
> "What was the case in PLAY 2 often, especially with large patches, is that the voices would not get fed right away... this is why many user's would have to play a project through once for it to get 'warmed up'... using memory in a slightly different way solved this in PLAY 3, and in fact made the streaming engine much more robust overall, especially with the very large loads now possible with 64 bit.
> 
> ...



Thank for the info Jay, but how does this help? It's all very well telling us what Play 3 does to make things better, but it's just made it a hundred times worse for me and some others also! Play 2 has been working very well for me, especially since I increased my RAM a few months ago. Play 3 is UNUSABLE!!! I cannot play a single sound without clicks & pops, and I am clearly not alone in this.

I didn't expect unusable software just for the sake of saving me 10 minutes every morning when I load up my template. Anyway, I have work to do so I will not be responding any further until someone has a solution that makes Play 3 usable on a Mac.

Thank you for your efforts, Jay. Sorry to sound pissed off, but I am!!! 

~Chris


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## reddognoyz (Jul 13, 2011)

Are the Play 3 issues mentioned here specific to HS??? I'm not currently using that so it safe to upgrade? I'd really like to get to 64 bit asap.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > OK, Jonathan Kranz just replied to Gerd on the SOL forum:
> ...



I don't know, Chris. Did you see what I can do on my less powerful rig? So it is clearly not "unusable." And of course, with any Play library other than HS, it is probably not much of an issue, correct?

I have made EW aware of this thread so hopefully they will give us more info. Also, I would post these issues on the SOL forum and that is more closely monitored than this one.


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## Mike Connelly (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> I cannot play a single sound without clicks & pops



Do you mean you can't play without clicks at all, even if there's less loaded and free memory still available? Or when you're getting the clicks, you're out of free memory?

It may be the case that 3 requires more memory than 2 and you either need to use a smaller pool of samples in your session or add more ram.


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

OK guys. A final bit of info so we can lay this to rest.

A template of Logic and 2 Bidules with various libs including 5 legato HS patches, some staccs etc runs flawlessly with Play 2.

If I load up THE IDENTICAL TEMPLATE in Play 3, I cannot play 2 notes of HS without clicks and pops, and as can be seen in this thread. I am NOT the only one.

So, my question is, why would I choose to use the update when it clearly requires more RAM than its predecessor? It should use LESS!!!! Or am I just dreaming that this is how it should be?!!!

~C


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## Mike Connelly (Jul 13, 2011)

Just for the sake of troubleshooting...

Chris, if you make your template smaller so that there is still free ram left on your system, do the clicks and pops go away? How much smaller do you have to make it to end up with free ram?


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Thanks for trying to help Mike, but why should I even waste my time trying to find out? I don't care!!! An update is meant to IMPROVE performance, not the other way around. Anyway guys, I have deadlines to meet, so can't hang around chatting any more. I just hope East West has an update soon that fixes this.

~C


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## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 13, 2011)

Some Mac users like Chris and me have built their (permanent) Mac HS setups with PLAY2 and it's behavior concerning RAM handling .

These setups ( and interaction between the various apps ) doesn't work anymore with PLAY3's RAM handling.

With PLAY2 the inactive Ram was flexible and could be shared among apps which needed more RAM , but now it becomes nearly steadfast . This simply decreases the available RAM for all non-PLAY apps .

The only way out is to get more physical RAM . Otherwise the system is choking ( slow down , pops , clicks ... whatever ). 

If I want to work with my _current_ (and working) PLAY2 setup I have to invest at least another 300.-Euro for RAM to use it with PLAY3 . 


Not so cool .


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## JKranz EW (Jul 13, 2011)

Chris,

What exactly are your settings (both in Logic/bidule/and PLAY streaming)? Are you using fast disk mode? How much memory is used on the system?

Without knowing these things we can't help you. PLAY 3 had to be almost completely re-coded in order to move to 64 bit on Mac. Most user's will not have to adjust settings, however we cannot guarantee that in the real world every user will not have adjust anything... there were MANY changes in this version.

We'd like to listen and help you but if you are going to throw your arms up in the air less than a day after a major software update is released, without troubleshooting in the least than we're not gonna get very far.


-Jonathan


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 13, 2011)

The whole point of the update is that you can use 64 bit Logic with 64 bit PLAY. When you do this, ram usage of PLAY and Logic is much lower, cpu usage is much lower and performance goes up. If you want to stick with 32 bit on a Mac with Logic then I am not sure how well PLAY 3 will work. You should contact support.


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## Mike Connelly (Jul 13, 2011)

For those running bidule or VEP, was PLAY running as a 64 bit plugin in those?

In the case of Logic, when you run Logic in 64 bit it switches all available plugins to 64 bit automatically. I don't know if that's the case with those other hosts, if it's not automatic it's possible you may need to manually switch something so PLAY runs as a 64 bit plugin.


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## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 13, 2011)

Jonathan , the point is that PLAY3 obviously is using more RAM .
This is causing the issues , because suddenly a running system is totally maxed out .

I had the same issues like Chris with PLAY3 .

The only way out is buying more RAM.


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## IvanP (Jul 13, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Just for the sake of troubleshooting...
> 
> Chris, if you make your template smaller so that there is still free ram left on your system, do the clicks and pops go away? How much smaller do you have to make it to end up with free ram?



I tried this morning and only got rid of the pops and clicks when I freed the older, working template ( with Play2 ) from around 5 Gbs. 

Also, it needed a reboot since the free RAM didn't seem to make way at 1st.


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## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 13, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> For those running bidule or VEP, was PLAY running as a 64 bit plugin in those?
> 
> In the case of Logic, when you run Logic in 64 bit it switches all available plugins to 64 bit automatically. I don't know if that's the case with those other hosts, if it's not automatic it's possible you may need to manually switch something so PLAY runs as a 64 bit plugin.



I loaded the VEPRO PLAY set into the 64bit Server as well , but had the same issues.

The only thing that I haven't tested is switching my MacPro3.1 to 64bit kernel mode.

Jonathan informed me at SO that there is an overall improvement with PLAY in 64bit kernel .


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 13, 2011)

We had 200 people testing PLAY 3, plus our internal guys. In your settings there are some options. Max voices set very high might use more ram, fast hard disk checked uses less ram, engine level affects ram I believe. Reboot after installing and if you haven't gone 64 bit, consider it. Use 64 bit kernel if your computer supports it (early 2009 mac pro or later). This is important. Contact tech support for specific answers.


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## SvK (Jul 13, 2011)

A PLAY3 "Hollywood Strings" template that takes up circa 20gig on a PC will take up circa 30gig on a MAC.....

(fast disk and max voices checked)

best,
SvK


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

JKranz EW @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Chris,
> 
> What exactly are your settings (both in Logic/bidule/and PLAY streaming)? Are you using fast disk mode? How much memory is used on the system?
> 
> ...



Thank you for being so quick to respond, and apologies for 'throwing my arms up in the air', BUT we both know this is a RAM issue and nothing to do with buffer sizes, settings etc, which I have been through many times as always. I posted my specs at the beginning of the thread and mentioned that I did try fast disk mode, all to no avail.

In answer to Nick's question about why I'm not using Logic in 64bit mode? Quite simple. My UAD card is still 32 bit and my system does not run well with the 32bit bridge. Besides, I like the Bidule solution so that switching between cues is much faster.

It would have been nice to know that Play 3 might be 'less efficient' in certain situations, but we all expected this fantastic update, and it clearly isn't for many people working the way I do - and I'm sure there are quite a few of us working this way!

As you may know, I have been a strong supporter of EW products for may years, and have sung the praises of HS here many times. You even use one of my tracks as a demo! I just did not expect to find myself wasting 2 hours this morning when I have so much music to create. 

I do hope you have a workaround for this issue soon. 

Thanks,

~Chris


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> We had 200 people testing PLAY 3, plus our internal guys. In your settings there are some options. Max voices set very high might use more ram, fast hard disk checked uses less ram, engine level affects ram I believe. Reboot after installing and if you haven't gone 64 bit, consider it. Use 64 bit kernel if your computer supports it (early 2009 mac pro or later). This is important. Contact tech support for specific answers.



Thanks for that info Nick. I will look into all these things in 4 weeks when I'm finished with my current projects. No more time to waste, I'm afraid...

~C


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 13, 2011)

Oh so you are in 32 bit mode. I use my UAD in 64 bit logic and its annoying, but Logic itself is a buggy ram sucker in 32 bit mode, so switching to 64 bit Logic and PLAY is a massive improvement. I recommend it. This update is all about 64 bit as far as I'm concerned. I think we need to specify that.


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Oh so you are in 32 bit mode. I use my UAD in 64 bit logic and its annoying, but Logic itself is a buggy ram sucker in 32 bit mode, so switching to 64 bit Logic and PLAY is a massive improvement. I recommend it. This update is all about 64 bit as far as I'm concerned. I think we need to specify that.



But Nick, I'm using Play outside of Logic, and it's clear that Play 3 is the RAM sucker in all of this. As I have repeatedly said, with Play 2 in Bidule etc, my system has been running perfectly for some time now. If it ain't broke, I'm not gonna fix it! 

~C


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 13, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Oh so you are in 32 bit mode. I use my UAD in 64 bit logic and its annoying, but Logic itself is a buggy ram sucker in 32 bit mode, so switching to 64 bit Logic and PLAY is a massive improvement. I recommend it. This update is all about 64 bit as far as I'm concerned. I think we need to specify that.



I am finding the 64 bit Logic w/ 64 bit Play 3 and 64 bit Kontakt in separate instances in 64 bit VE Pro pretty darned good. 

Now if only my UAD plugs were 64 bit....


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## Casey Edwards (Jul 13, 2011)

I just loaded my template for the first time with the new PLAY 3 and it was super fast with zero problems! 10.8 Gb spread across 150 MIDI tracks hosted in Bidule, separately hosted in JBridge then sent to Cubase all loaded in 1:40. :D


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Casey Edwards @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> I just loaded my template for the first time with the new PLAY 3 and it was super fast with zero problems! 10.8 Gb spread across 150 MIDI tracks hosted in Bidule, separately hosted in JBridge then sent to Cubase all loaded in 1:40. :D



Casey, if you are not on a Mac and not using HS, your experience is not relevant to this situation. I too can do what you can if HS is not involved. In fact, I can still do it with HS and Play 2.

~C


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## Casey Edwards (Jul 13, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Casey Edwards @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > I just loaded my template for the first time with the new PLAY 3 and it was super fast with zero problems! 10.8 Gb spread across 150 MIDI tracks hosted in Bidule, separately hosted in JBridge then sent to Cubase all loaded in 1:40. :D
> ...



Yeah, I forgot this was a PLAY issue thread. I just got excited about the new load time and posted in the first PLAY thread I found; my bad! I guess it does look kind of bad since everyone is having such a terrible time on Mac and it looks like I'm gloating, but let me say this is not the case. Just a irrational post based on over excitement. Continue the PLAY 3 MAC complaint-fest and sorry for your troubles!


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 13, 2011)

PLAY 3 64 bit MAC is great. We had 100 MAC testers. It uses slightly more memory to get all kinds of gains and if you are 64 bit and have a decent amount of memory it's smooth sailing. Let's not turn this into the usual play poopfest. If you have a problem, maybe contact tech support before posting. I am sure there will be some issues, but I am confident that PLAY is now ready for primetime.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 13, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Nick Phoenix @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Oh so you are in 32 bit mode. I use my UAD in 64 bit logic and its annoying, but Logic itself is a buggy ram sucker in 32 bit mode, so switching to 64 bit Logic and PLAY is a massive improvement. I recommend it. This update is all about 64 bit as far as I'm concerned. I think we need to specify that.
> ...



if you are using any UAD-1 cards, your plug ins are never going to be upgraded to 64 bit. So saith UAD in an email responding to a query on that issue.

Play 3 works great for me on Mac in 64 bit, but I don't use HS yet.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 13, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Nick Phoenix @ Wed Jul 13 said:
> ...



I betatest for them. The cards are the cards and the plugi-ns are the plug-ins. The UAD-2 cards are already 64 bit OS compatible and as you say the UAD-1's will never be. But the plug-ins themselves are not yet but eventually will be except for Nigel.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 13, 2011)

I'm delighted that you beta test for them and I'm sure you do a fine job. That said, I have an email from them saying that the plug ins I presently own, including the updated Plate 140 and the LA-2A( my faves), will never work at 64 bit on the UAD-1 card. Perhaps they mispoke? Or did you perhaps misread what i said, that one will never to be able to use 64 bit plug-ins on a UAD-1 card? (I said nothing about how they would work on UAD-2, on which they said the older plug ins will be re-coded to work at 64 bit).


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 13, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> PLAY 3 64 bit MAC is great. We had 100 MAC testers. It uses slightly more memory to get all kinds of gains and if you are 64 bit and have a decent amount of memory it's smooth sailing. Let's not turn this into the usual play poopfest. If you have a problem, maybe contact tech support before posting. I am sure there will be some issues, but I am confident that PLAY is now ready for primetime.



Good morning Nick,

As I sit here waiting for my Bidule/Play 2 template to load, I have 10 minutes to chat. If you remember, I was only recently defending HS/Play when I discovered that adding more RAM to my system made it run very nicely, and it has been doing that ever since. You now admit that Play 3 requires more RAM than Play 2. Had I known this before wasting my time yesterday, I would have avoided the update. Can you say roughly how much more RAM it requires than Play 2. Is it 5%, 10%, 20%?

So, my question to you is again (assuming any tweaks to Play3 are in vain, as I already tried some of them yesterday), on a given system, why would I want to switch to Play 3 if it means I can use LESS instances of HS? Only for the luxury of seeing my template boot up 8 minutes faster in the morning?

Does Play 3 use LESS RAM when running within Logic in 64 bit mode? If not, how will it make a difference if I do this? You use slave PCs. Why? So you can switch between cues quickly is part of the reason. Why should I sacrifice this ability by running Play3 within Logic, when Play2 has been behaving very well in Bidule? 

As previously discussed, the UAD2 is not fully 64bit yet, and I found Logic was 'clicking' a lot in 64bit mode, so I reverted to 32bit. Not really an issue for me as I host most of my V.Is in Bidule. So, please tell me again why I should change a perfectly working setup? The only benefit I can see by using Play 3 is faster loading times. 

I am adding more RAM to my Mac, but I am doing that so I can add MORE sounds to my template. Why should I add more RAM just to be able to use Play3 to do what Play2 was already doing?!! Makes no sense to me...

OK, back to the music.

~C


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> I'm delighted that you beta test for them and I'm sure you do a fine job. That said, I have an email from them saying that the plug ins I presently own, including the updated Plate 140 and the LA-2A( my faves), will never work at 64 bit on the UAD-1 card. Perhaps they mispoke? Or did you perhaps misread what i said, that one will never to be able to use 64 bit plug-ins on a UAD-1 card? (I said nothing about how they would work on UAD-2, on which they said the older plug ins will be re-coded to work at 64 bit).



I think we are talking past each other. 

There is not a UAD-2 LA2a and a UAD-1 La2a, they are the same plug-in. Once they code i.e the LA2a as 64 bit, it is 64 bit, period. 

But again, the card is one thing and the plug-ins are another. You cannot run a 64 bit plug-in on a card that only haas a 32 bit driver. So yes, as I said, the UAD-1 cards will never be 64 bit so when the plug-in becomes 64 bit it will only run on the UAD-2.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Nick Phoenix @ Thu Jul 14 said:
> 
> 
> > PLAY 3 64 bit MAC is great. We had 100 MAC testers. It uses slightly more memory to get all kinds of gains and if you are 64 bit and have a decent amount of memory it's smooth sailing. Let's not turn this into the usual play poopfest. If you have a problem, maybe contact tech support before posting. I am sure there will be some issues, but I am confident that PLAY is now ready for primetime.
> ...



From my point of view:

The reason there is a Play 3 is that most users were not as happy as you seem to be with Play 2's limitations. For instance because it is 32 bit, even with its memory server , it is limited to accessing 10 GB, which most users were saying was not enough, that they wanted to access as much ram as they had. And for many users, the load times were a big deal. Also, it seems to me in my testing that HS streams more smoothly in Play 3 than Play 2 but maybe that is due to HS improvements more than Play 3, Nick?

Is Bidule 64 bit? I know Sebastien had a 64 bit beta a long time ago. If it is, you can load your 64 bit Play 3 stuff in it, or better yet IMHO in VE Pro's 64 bit server, and connect to it with Logic 32 bit. 

The only drag is that you have to redo your templates and replace Play 2 with Play 
3, but then I think you will see the benefits of 64 bit more clearly. Obviously, mid=project is not the ideal time to do so.

That said, I too use the UAD plugs, but I only add them at the mix stage and usually after I bounce the V.I. tracks to audio so running Logic 64 bit with them in the bridge has not been an issue for me.


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi all ,

one thing I've tested which gives more positive results on my system 
( I've ordered more RAM , but haven't installed it yet , so I'm still on 18GB RAM ) :


*1.*

I tested with my most demanding Cues , including long Videos , etc. , in Logic32bit .
( I have to stay in 32bit , too much Effect PlugIns I use are still 32bit , and I cannot rely
on the 32bit-bridge in Logic64bit . )

After I've moved my PLAY Instances from inside VEPRO32bitServer into the VEPRO64bit Server , 
the overall performance of Logic32bit and the system improved 
and I could play back my sessions again , like they played back with PLAY2.
So Jay is right when suggesting to load PLAY into VEPRO64bit .

Because the MacPro3.1 starts by default in 32bit-kernel mode I've tested this in both 32bit kernel and 64bit kernel .
I couldn't notice a difference in the overall performance.

Still swapping & page outs happen , of course . 
Only upgrading the physical RAM will solve this .


*2.* This might be more important for Chris now , because he has no VEPRO .
I've tested this with a small set , with still 8GB free system RAM .

When I use PLAY3 inside Logic32bit those awful One-Core-CPU spikes occur
in sessions that - with PLAY2 - evenly spread the tasks over 8 Cores 
and the Core-meters were nearly at zero in Logic Core-Window .


Chris : do you use Bidule rewired to Logic ? ( Both in 32bit ? ) 

As you know rewired apps are running only on one Core on Mac .
So it might be that the interaction of Logic32bit+Bidule_rewired32bit+PLAY3
causes some more trouble on your system compared to my issues , which
can be solved by 1.) staying with PLAY2 , or 2) PLAY3 with VEPRO64bit and more Physical RAM .

It could be that by simply upgrading the RAM does not fully solve the issues you encounter on your system . Therefore you should try to run a test with a Bidule set
that still leaves some 3GB of free RAM on your system .
If you still get the clicks and Pops with PLAY3 , then this is related to what I said above.



Well ,

best wishes to all of you

Gerd



_________________________________________________________________________

Specs:
Master : MacPro 2,8 (in 32bit kernel mode) / 18GB / OS 10.6.7 / WD 1TB CaviarBlack drives / Logic9 32bit / VEPRO / PLAY ;
Slaves for Kontakt and Vienna with VEPRO


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay,

You're also clearly missing the point. Play 2 was accessing all the available RAM and allowing me (with 20GBRAM) to run several HS Leg patches plus a myriad of other instruments. A fairly large template. In my 'scenario' Play 3 is making use of LESS ram, and 'appears' to be dumping data onto one of the 'normal' hard disks on my system, and then trying to stream off them causing clicks and pops. 

I have come to this conclusion by noticing how much RAM was used when loading up each patch, and how adding more RAM cured previous clicks and pops. I could be wrong about this, but that's how it appears to me. A similar template running off a normal hard drive performed far worse than from the SSD in my case also. When I tried Play 3, it was exactly the same experience as when my template clearly needed more RAM. 

I have rendered several hours of music now with this template, and ALL without bouncing anything beforehand, in the way you have to. 

I still vividly remember the excitement I and many others felt when Kontakt 3 changed everything with its memory server and allowed me to 'ditch' my slave PC and do everything on one computer. K4 is slightly more memory hungry than K3, but not by much, so I still use K3 alongside K4 and they work fine together. 

All this praise and expectation that Play 3 was going to improve on Play 2 led me and many others to believe that its memory handling would be an improvement on Play 2, but this is clearly not the case on a Mac. Someone has already pointed out, on this thread, that he tried VE Pro 64 bit and it made no difference! 

So, please tell me again why I should upgrade to a system that requires more RAM to do the same thing?

~Chris


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Jay,
> 
> Y. Play 2 was accessing all the available RAM and allowing me (with 20GBRAM) to run several HS Leg patches plus a myriad of other instruments. A fairly large template.
> 
> ...



Once again, it is my understanding that in Play 2 10 GB is the max RAM the memory server can access for Play based instruments. Apparently for your stuff that is fine but for some others, it was not.

And the reason I have to bounce has nothing to do with Play 2 vs Play 3, it is because my computer is under-powered to do all that I want to do.


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi Gerd,

Thanks for your detailed reply and testing. No, I don't use Rewire. I use the ADAT loop-back method to take audio out and back in through my RME RayDat card.

Yesterday, you said that VE Pro 64bit did not make a difference. Now, you say it's working well. That's very encouraging news! What did you do differently today?

Thanks again for your help.

~Chris


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Jay,
> ...



If that is the case, Jay, how is it that I see my RAM drop by 16GB when I load my Play template? 

~C


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Yesterday, you said that VE Pro 64bit did not make a difference. Now, you say it's working well. That's very encouraging news! What did you do differently today?



Sorry , I forgot one important detail :

Yesterday I simply loaded the complete VEPRO32bit Metaframe into VEPRO64bit .
I just opened it and then tried to play back the sessions . This gave me no improvement.

After pulling my hair out for several hours I did the following :

I loaded the VEPRO32bit Metaframe into VEPRO64bit and then "saved" it in VEPRO64bit .

This made the difference !
I could play back the sessions again .

( PLAY engine : medium ; Max Voice : 512 ; Fast Disk mode )
I'm using the LT12 patches for my permanent setup.
The heavy patches are loaded only for very special cues .


Of course , the available RAM is still decreased ,and so when I open
a Logic sessions that contains extra SFX / VI's for a specific cues
the system swaps etc. . In the long run the system slows down .
So I have to upgrade the RAM to be save with PLAY3 .

However , this only means that I'm save with my_ current_ HS setup .
I don't know what will be when I try to implement Hollywoodbrass.


Best

Gerd


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

I see. Thanks again for this info. Can you estimate how much more RAM Play 3 is using than Play 2? If you're previous Play 2 template was close to the limit, are you saying that Play 3 within VE Pro 64bit is only a little bit more demanding? Are you now happy to switch completely to Play 3?

~Chris


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Thu Jul 14 said:
> 
> 
> > ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:
> ...



That is your system RAM usage, right? How much is Play itself using? Are you running Play 3 32 bit or 64 bit? The whole point of it is to run it 64 bit.


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay, I'm talking about Play 2, not Play 3. You said it could only use 10GB of RAM, yet my RAM use drops by much more than that. I have removed Play 3 from my system, and will only try it again if I can be certain that any workarounds do not require a massive hike in RAM to get the same performance.

~C


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Jay, I'm talking about Play 2, not Play 3. You said it could only use 10GB of RAM, yet my RAM use drops by much more than that. I have removed Play 3 from my system, and will only try it again if I can be certain that any workarounds do not require a massive hike in RAM to get the same performance.
> 
> ~C



Are you sure that Play 2 _itself_ is accessing more than 10 GB RAM?
I was repeatedly told it could not.

Just to be clear, Chris if your conclusion is that Play 3 32 bit brings no benefit other than faster loading times than Play 2 32 bit, I take no issue with that. You have to use it 64 bit in a 64 bit host to realize its true benefits.


----------



## JohnG (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi Chris,

I could never, ever get Bidule to access more than one processor successfully with PLAY. I spent many months struggling with this issue, including plenty of correspondence with Plogue. Using "processor assign" did not succeed for me -- pops and clicks galore. I love Bidule and have used it very successfully, but for this one situation, it was not useful to me.

If you haven't already done so, consider loading PLAY 3 directly in Logic (EDIT: if you are able to use Logic in 64 bit), or using a different host, such as VE Pro, again, in 64 bit. (sorry if this has already been covered int the thread)

PLAY 3 works here on my Mac, but I'm not loading that much. It works very well indeed on my 64 bit PC, with VE Pro as a host. 

I guess I have to agree with some other posts -- if one is not using a 64 bit host (other than Bidule), I am not sure there is an important benefit to PLAY 3 besides the load times.

With a PC it's possible to turn off memory paging. I have never found a way to do that on my Macs.


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi Jay,

I don't want to keep repeating myself. Nick already said, on this page of the thread, that Play 3 requires more RAM to do the same thing. His exact quote "It uses slightly more memory to get all kinds of gains". In my case, this 'slightly more memory' reduces my set up from a perfectly stable, click free machine, to one that cannot play 2 notes of HS consecutively without clicks and pops.

I have yet to receive an answer to my question. "Roughly how much more memory does Play 3 use compared to Play 2?" Knowing this will allow me to make a decision as to whether I can justify sacrificing some RAM for the other benefits Play 3 brings. 

That is all I require from EW for now.

Thank you,

~Chris


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

JohnG @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Hi Chris,
> 
> I could never, ever get Bidule to access more than one processor successfully with PLAY. I spent many months struggling with this issue, including plenty of correspondence with Plogue. Using "processor assign" did not succeed for me -- pops and clicks galore. I love Bidule and have used it very successfully, but for this one situation, it was not useful to me.
> 
> ...



Thanks for trying to help, John. This is not a CPU overload issue. It is purely a memory handling issue. See my previous post. I may indeed buy VE Pro if it means Play 3 handles memory better. Gerd indicated an improvement in 64bit mode, but it appears Play 3 is still more demanding than Play 2. I would like some rough figures from EW before I 'break' a perfectly working system.

~Chris


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> I see. Thanks again for this info. Can you estimate how much more RAM Play 3 is using than Play 2? If you're previous Play 2 template was close to the limit, are you saying that Play 3 within VE Pro 64bit is only a little bit more demanding? Are you now happy to switch completely to Play 3?
> 
> ~Chris



What I'm writing now is purely based on my observations of the Activity Monitor and the performance of my system during current sessions/cues I know in and out concerning the overall performance and interaction between the single apps during the playback:



Actually the RAM usage of PLAY3 is significantly higher than PLAY2 ( if you count in InactiveRAM) . 
However this fact alone wouldn't be that important and a real issue on your or mine setup , if there would not be PLAY3's way of handling the "Inactive RAM" now .

It seems that very "important" Infos are now loaded into the "Inactive RAM".
And PLAY3 wants to protect it . The InactiveRam , however, is usually accessed by all apps which need some RAM when the Free RAM is low .

Still other apps can access it , but it seems that they need more time to "convince" PLAY3 to release it's part 
( _... Baby , please let go ..._ ) .


--- --- -- --


With PLAY2 the scenario on my system was like this ( I've already described it in detail elsewhere ):
I load the PLAY2 setup (VEPRO32bit) . PLAY's memory server shows some 4GB of samples loaded. Some 11GB RAM is in the Inactive RAM .
Now I repair disk permission and the Inactive RAM goes down to some 2GB or so.
The rest is transferred back to the FREE RAM .

When other Apps are loaded they access the FREE RAM . So no swapping or page out occur ,
which slow down the performance of the overall system . ( Pops , clicks , stuttering ...)

With PLAY3 you can not do the trick of releasing InactiveRAM into FREE RAM anymore .
In numbers : 4GB in PLAY's memory server and 11GB in Inactive RAM , which are protected by PLAY3 against an easy access by other apps. 

Before I had - after repair diskpermission - just 4GB RAM occupied by PLAY2.
Now it is 4GB + 11GB .

So , swapping and page outs start much earlier when other apps need RAM,
therefore performance issues occur much earlier.


--- --- -- --

*However , the whole 64bit thing seem to soften all this *. Especially in relation with VEPRO64bit .
Still page outs / swapping , but no pops and clicks


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi Gerd,

I'm very grateful for all your testing and info. Please keep me updated on how you get on with Play3 and if you feel that you have not sacrificed too much memory for faster load times.

Thanks again,

~Chris


----------



## Casey Edwards (Jul 14, 2011)

JohnG @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Hi Chris,
> 
> I could never, ever get Bidule to access more than one processor successfully with PLAY. I spent many months struggling with this issue, including plenty of correspondence with Plogue. Using "processor assign" did not succeed for me -- pops and clicks galore. I love Bidule and have used it very successfully, but for this one situation, it was not useful to me.
> 
> ...



Hi John, 

I had the same problem, but solved it in the same way of solving my problem with hosting 32 bit in a 64 bit host or vice versa, and that was by using JBridge. When you load your instances through JBridge it opens a separate auxHost outside of Bidule for each instance and therefore spreads the load across all of your cores. Of course I never figured out how to use my Bidule 64 bit with Cubase so I had to stick with 32 bit so that I could use ReWire.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that JBridge is PC only so this may not be relevant to any of the issues going on here. I just thought I'd share this info.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Hi Gerd,
> 
> I'm very grateful for all your testing and info. Please keep me updated on how you get on with Play3 and if you feel that you have not sacrificed too much memory for faster load times.
> 
> ...



I am sorry to belabor this, but if you are not using Play 3 64 bit, which Gerd IS btw, then his experience will not be relevant to yours.

The mission statement for Play 3 was to make it work 64 bit, which brings lots of benefits to the table, not to make it perform in 32 bit better. It may indeed not AFAIK. I don't care because most users will never use it as 32 bit, since that was not the reason for creating it.

It is a little like using an electric Phillips head screwdriver for screws successfully for years. Now someone gives you an electric drill with all kinds of bits including a Phillips head and saying, "Yes, but with the electric screwdriver I could screw in the screws and it used less electrical power and I did not have to attach a different bit


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay,

Do you really think I'm that stupid? If EW can assure me that the Play 3 memory usage is only marginally worse than Play 2 in the type of VE Pro 64bit setup that Gerd is now testing, I will purchase VE Pro and run it in 64bit mode, while still using Logic in 32bit mode so I can use my UAD2 reliably.

~C


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Jay,
> 
> Do you really think I'm that stupid? If EW can assure me that the Play 3 memory usage is only marginally worse than Play 2 in the type of VE Pro 64bit setup that Gerd is now testing, I will purchase VE Pro and run it in 64bit mode, while still using Logic in 32bit mode so I can use my UAD2 reliably.
> 
> ~C



Of course, I don't Chris and I am sorry if I am communicating that. It is just that you do not mention 64 bit in your posts and it is the elephant in the room.

And IMHO with Logic 9.1.4 and the present UAD-2 drivers you CAN reliably use Logic 64 bit with the UAD plug-ins as long as you are not also loading 32 bit software instruments in the 32 bit bridge. i would load those in VE Pro's 32 bit server or Bidule.

Even if it means adding some more RAM, I really believe that if you are running Play 3 inside VE Pro's 64 bit server, 32 bit software instruments in VE Pro's 32 bit server, connecting to Logic 64 bit, you are going to be happy.

That said, if I ever get another decent paying scoring gig, I am buying a PC with SSD setup like the one SvK has put together so fast your head will spin around like Linda Blair's in "The Exorcist." :lol:


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay,

I have experimented with Logic in 64bit mode several times and it has always been problematic, I assume due to to non-64bit plug-ins like the UAD2. I figure I will wait until all my plug-ins are 64 bit before using Logic in 64 bit mode. Now, having said that, if I am running a large template of 64bit plugs in VE Pro and few plugs inside Logic, what is the advantage of using Logic in 64bit mode?

I will very soon have my Mac Pro filled with 32GB of RAM. If I can run 'X' amount of HS patches in Play 2/Bidule as a result of this and am very happy with how my system performs, and then try Play 3 within VE Pro 64bit and my HS count drops to 'X-5', tell me again why I should switch to Play 3?

Will someone at EW answer the question I have now asked repeatedly? Surely someone must know!

*"Roughly how much more memory does Play 3 use compared to Play 2?" *

~C


----------



## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi Chris....

What I can tell you from my BetaTesting is my 20.5gig template for PLAY3-PC uses 30gig on PLAY3-MAC.

best,
SvK


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Hi Chris....
> 
> What I can tell you from my BetaTesting is my 20.5gig template for PLAY3-PC uses 30gig on PLAY3-MAC.
> 
> ...



Thanks for that info, though this is an 'apples & oranges' comparison. I want to know the difference between Play 2 and Play 3 on the Mac, not Play 3 on PC and Mac.

~C


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Jay,
> 
> I have experimented with Logic in 64bit mode several times and it has always been problematic, I assume due to to non-64bit plug-ins like the UAD2. I figure I will wait until all my plug-ins are 64 bit before using Logic in 64 bit mode. Now, having said that, if I am running a large template of 64bit plugs in VE Pro and few plugs inside Logic, what is the advantage of using Logic in 64bit mode?
> 
> ...



Well, in my case I also run a fair amount of stuff in Logic, like Omnisphere, RMX, Albino 3, Crono X and 64 bit FX from Sonalksis, PSP, etc. so having Logic 64 bit is a big help. Also, for some of my smaller ensemble templates, I don't bother with VE Pro but just use Logic with 4 64 bit, software instruments, including the Logic software instruments which are subject to the 32 bit limitations with the exception of the EXS24, so 64 bit is helpful. This way Logic is not limited to the app. 3 GB it is under 32 bit.


If you "can run 'X' amount of HS patches in Play 2/Bidule as a result of this and am very happy with how my system performs" then if it isn't broken, don't fix it, but understand, you are the exception, not the rule, and all successful companies develop for most, not the few.

As for ""Roughly how much more memory does Play 3 use compared to Play 2?" I don't have the answer but let me see if I can get one.


----------



## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Nick Phoenix @ Thu Jul 14 said:
> 
> 
> > PLAY 3 64 bit MAC is great. We had 100 MAC testers. It uses slightly more memory to get all kinds of gains and if you are 64 bit and have a decent amount of memory it's smooth sailing. Let's not turn this into the usual play poopfest. If you have a problem, maybe contact tech support before posting. I am sure there will be some issues, but I am confident that PLAY is now ready for primetime.
> ...



Chris, I don't really know. All I know is I switched to 64 bit Logic and PLAY and it's night and day. I didn't know PLAY 3 used more ram until yesterday. My Logic template in 32 bit mode used to use 2 gigs of ram without any samples loaded. Now it uses 500 megs in 64 bit mode. I can load 10 times the samples in 64 bit PLAY than I could in 32 bit and all the weird MAC memory managing seems to be fixed. PLAY streams twice the voices that it used to and CPU is much lower.


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay, 

How, by any stretch of the imagination, am I the 'exception' by wishing to be able to load MORE instruments in a new version of software?!!!! EVERYONE wants to be able to do this, surely!!!!!???

Congratulations on being happy to be able to load fewer patches in Play 3 than you could in Play 2! Let's all celebrate!!!

~C


----------



## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Hi Jay,
> 
> I don't want to keep repeating myself. Nick already said, on this page of the thread, that Play 3 requires more RAM to do the same thing. His exact quote "It uses slightly more memory to get all kinds of gains". In my case, this 'slightly more memory' reduces my set up from a perfectly stable, click free machine, to one that cannot play 2 notes of HS consecutively without clicks and pops.
> 
> ...



Chris. PLAY 3 is a huge improvement. You are not seeing it because the memory is overloaded.


----------



## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

Chris, If you were already tricking your computer to run the max, then yes it is an unreasonable expectation. Many software upgrades use more ram. For me going to 64 bit logic and play allowed me to run much much more than my old setup. When Logic 9 came out, I was pissed because it used tons more ram, so I get you. But 64 bit solves this problem. I recommend it. 64 bit Logic 64 bit play on OSX Snow Leopard with 64 bit kernel mode enabled. And max out your ram if you can. 

Back to the brass


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Chris, If you were already tricking your computer to run the max, then yes it is an unreasonable expectation. Many software upgrades use more ram. For me going to 64 bit logic and play allowed me to run much much more than my old setup. When Logic 9 came out, I was pissed because it used tons more ram, so I get you. But 64 bit solves this problem. I recommend it. 64 bit Logic 64 bit play on OSX Snow Leopard with 64 bit kernel mode enabled. And max out your ram if you can.
> 
> Back to the brass



Hi Nick,

Trick or not, it works very well which is why Bidule and VE Pro exist, no? 

If you can absolutely guarantee me that running Logic in 64 bit and VE Pro in 64 bit etc will, for the same system, allow me to run at least as many HS patches as I am in my present setup, I'm there. If not, I ask you again, why should I change anything?

~C


----------



## midphase (Jul 14, 2011)

Wow...I'm kinda surprised to discover that Nick uses Logic Pro...for some reason I thought of you as a Cubase or DP guy?


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

I've been using Logic for 15 years and regretted it ever since. 

I can't guarantee anything. I don't know anything about software code. Contact tech support.


----------



## Peter Alexander (Jul 14, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> I've been using Logic for 15 years and regretted it ever since.
> 
> I can't guarantee anything. I don't know anything about software code. Contact tech support.



! You "regretted it" or never regretted it!?


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

Peter Alexander @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Nick Phoenix @ Thu Jul 14 said:
> 
> 
> > I've been using Logic for 15 years and regretted it ever since.
> ...



He's joking (I think.)


----------



## PMortise (Jul 14, 2011)

I'm not using HS, but I can say that loading the same template in 3.0 vs 2.0 was more economical in RAM usage for me. Maybe it's a DP thing, I dunno.

Compared to what I've read on this forum, my template is pretty modest at 19k samples. When I launch Bidule (8 instances of Play and 2 Kontakts) with Play2 I timed it at 3.44 minutes to open. In Play3 it took 2.57, but the improvement didn't come until AFTER I launched Play3 in standalone and from SETTINGS > Streaming > check "Fast Disk Mode". Without it, everything took more than twice the time to load. I don't experience any pops or clicks either.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jul 14, 2011)

P Mortise's experience of Play 3 vs. Play 2 is much closer to mine. My template loading time has been cut to half, and my RAM use is DOWN significantly. It's pretty interesting.

The thing we share? No H.S. Hmmm.


----------



## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

My experience is also the same and I use HS. The key here is we are all using 64 bit, I think.


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Hi nick:

2 questions.

On your MAC, how much RAM do you have, and what is the biggest HS template size (in gigs) you can use without things breaking up.
(im assuming you run ssd's)

PS: I know you use mids mics only, and assume you are running the 12LTs for legs.

thanx,
SvK


----------



## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

On my Mac I don't run a huge HS template, because I have one on a PC. I have been running a large HB template though, right inside of Logic 64. Something like 45,000 samples. I have 24 gigs of ram. No problems at all. No SSD, just SATA.


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Nick,

thanx.
You have 24gigs

How large is the Hbrass template in gigs?
(just check activity monitor)

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

@Chris Axia

From what i understood in beta testing.....The HS PLAY2 streaming issues on the MAC were addressed by using MORE ram.

In other words in order to get a higher polyphony count (more streams without clicks, pops) on PLAY3mac, they are loading much more into RAM than on PLAY2mac.

That was the compromise. So for me, Id rather have way more HS streams playing on the MAC than under PLAY2. If that means I need to buy more RAM so be it......i know its a pain to suddenly have projects that played fine before now taking up way more RAM and not playing back properly, I feel bad about that for you.....

best,
SvK


----------



## IvanP (Jul 14, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> @Chris Axia
> 
> From what i understood in beta testing.....The HS streaming issues on the MAC were addressed by using MORE ram.
> 
> ...



Well, I don't know the rest, but I can't afford spending any more money in RAM for catching up with a software update. I already spent 1000 € in HS and won't be spending the additionnal just to be able to play the same thing.

I can't lose 5 GB of my template just for being able to run 4 legato patches without problems. 
The rest of VSTis were and keep running smooth. 

If it's Play3 from now on and If the answer is gonna be..."just buy more RAM", well...I can only say bye bye to all the new EW samples for me...

Really, guys, I hope you'll reconsider finding another workaround...Kontakt does it and not at the expense of buying more RAM.


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

IvanP....

don't bite my head off  ..What model MAC specifically do you have?

best,
SvK


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

No. Kontakt has the same problems with huge patches and huge templates of huge patches. We tested it and it's the same. You just don't know because there are no other libraries like HS. Kontakt does let you play while loading which is great and we will add that in 2014. lol. 

Maybe explore all options before having a freak out though. Have you tried checking fast disk mode?


----------



## Nick Phoenix (Jul 14, 2011)

This more ram thing on a MAC for me is very misleading, though. On my MAC, PLAY is using less ram and so is Logic, because all is 64 bit.


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Nick,

here ya go:

from betatest site:

"We are working on ways to squeeze more out of the mac... this is VERY delicate balance that we have walked throughout this PLAY 3 development cycle, and we have erred on the side of improving performance and stability of the streaming engine overall than saving the user memory. Our engine works quite differently on Mac and PC... and course the entire system is much more mature in 64 bit on Windows than it is on Mac, we are only in the infancy of Mac 64 bit, and even the hardware itself is not quite up to par. PLAY 3 64 bit allows you to do more than what you could with PLAY 2, however there always a cost for every gain when it comes to programming. We will continue to improve things of course, however it's just important to know that there are still limitations that we are trying our best to overcome."


----------



## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

The important sentence is:

" we have erred on the side of improving performance and stability of the streaming engine overall than saving the user memory"

best,
SvK


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## IvanP (Jul 14, 2011)

I won't rip your head, svk :D 

Here are my specs:

MacPro 2009 Dual quad core
2,26 
OS 10.6.7 
16 Gig Ram DD3 
4 HD 7200 
Fireface 800 
Cubase 6 
Bricasti 
Altiverb (4 instances) 

Template: 
22 Vsts, mostly Kontakt and Vienna Instruments 
1 Play Instance (loaded 1st slot) 

9 GBs Loaded in Kontakt 4 Memory Server 
6 Gbs loaded in Play 

With Previous version of Play: Clicks and Pops only when playing full, orchestral arrangement. 
Now: on a single, HS patch playback. 

Buffer settings: 
Play: 512, Engine Low, Fast Disk Mode (same result with any settings change) 
Fireface buffer: 1024 (tried others, higher and lower, same result) 

I also tried lowering the number of samples loaded into Play. and changing the Buffer so I get more Free memory. Same amount of clicks and Pops. 

@ Nick, I tried every single combination of fast disk, buffer, etc. Same result or really subtle differences.

I could only manage to get a clean playback with a single play 3 instance with 4 light BC legato patches by shorting the template by 5 Gb

Thks,

Ivan


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Ok


Ivan,

here ya go:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/M ... 066-memory

those are the best prices out there.

best,
SvK


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

IvanP @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> I won't rip your head, svk :D
> 
> Here are my specs:
> 
> ...



Did you load Play before you loaded the Kontakt stuff?

Because I can do better than that easily in Logic on a less powerful rig.


----------



## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay

no offence but you keep saying you have no issues....that's great.
however you give us no specs of your rig, what you are loading, buffer sizes you have set, drives you use, how much RAM you have...

etc, etc...

maybe that would be something to consider doing, instead of "electric screwdriver metaphors"...which helps no one....

best,
SvK


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## IvanP (Jul 14, 2011)

Yep I did, Jay, and btw, most of the samples are on different HDs i.e., not interacting with HS


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 14, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Jay
> 
> no offence but you keep saying you have no issues....that's great.
> however you give us no specs of your rig, what you are loading, buffer sizes you have set, drives you use, how much RAM you have...
> ...



I never said I had no issues. I said given the limitations of my rig, which I have listed a ton of times here, if I use things wisely with Logic Pro 64 bit and VE Pro 64 bit and when necessary the 32 bit server as well, I can do a fair amount, and certainly more with Play 3 64 bit than before.

But once again: it is a 2.66 Quad Core Mac with 13 GB, running off 4 7200 drives.


----------



## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

My suggestion as you are now Online Coordinator for EW would be to list your Rig and what you use in your signature....


SvK


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## SvK (Jul 14, 2011)

Jay,

I have a 2010 quad-core Mac PRO
It has 4 SSD drives...
Crucial C300s (128 gig each....1stVI onSSD1, 2ndVI+Violas on SSD2, Celli on SSD3, Basses on SSD4)
32 gig of RAM, 
64bit kernel

I have PLAY3 (fast disk mode checked, 2048 voices checked), buffer set to 512

1) I reboot the computer
2) As a test, I launch HS stand-alone
3) I load 4 patches: 1stVI 12lt leg, same for 2ndVI, Violas and Celli....mid mics ONLY
4) I put those 4 patches on the same midi channel
5) I play a fairly fast Legato line
6) snap, crackle and pop

best,
SvK


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 14, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> Jay,
> 
> I have a 2010 quad-core Mac PRO
> It has 4 SSD drives...
> ...



Good morning gents,

Well, this is scarier than ever! All those SSDs, 32GB RAM, and STILL getting clicks?!! Thanks for that test, Steven.

Jay, no disrespect, but you keep saying you have no problems with your system YET you say you have to bounce your strings before you mix! How is that not a problem for you?!! I have written over 3 hours of music with HS and plenty of other instruments and I have not had to bounce anything, and could not work at a decent enough speed if I had to do that. I guess you don't have any pressing deadlines. Lucky you!

If I switch to Play 3 and am forced to bounce my HS tracks, that's the end of my career the way I see it. I hear all this talk about optimising for 64bit, yet no one can tell me for certain that If I go the VE Pro 64bit route, I will be able to run a similar template with Play 3 that now runs perfectly with Play 2.

I also keep hearing about these amazing other things Play 3 will do. Most working composers just want a stable and memory efficient playback engine. Again, I keep hearing that Play 3 has made improvements in this area, but I and others (on Macs) clearly have the reverse experience. 

I've been a member of V.I since the beginning, and some of you will know that I have never before complained about any samples or software and in fact have defended companies including EW when they have been 'attacked' here. I guess the reason I am so annoyed about this is that Play 3 has been promising the 'Holy Grail' for so long and I have been eagerly waiting for it, like many others. To find that it then performs inferior to its predecessor was so disheartening. I just expected it to work much better than Play 2. Wishful thinking, sadly...

As I have said previously, if someone can guarantee a way for me to get similar playback performance for the same given memory, as I'm getting with Play 2, I am there, but I'm not gonna 'jump ship' until I know for certain it will work. Hollywood Brass will just have to wait....

~Chris


----------



## noiseboyuk (Jul 14, 2011)

Sorry to read of your woes, Chris and others, goes without saying I hope Play 3 improves for you.

Something just occurred to be regarding both Play 3 and Kontakt 4.2 - it would fantastic if the fast disk mode (in Play) and global buffer setting (in K4.2) would be selectable on an instance basis, not on a global basis. My situation must be very common where some libraries (the most used ones) are on SSD while others are languishing on ye olde 7,200 rpm drive. You'd want to take advantage of Play's fast disk mode, but then you couldn't use your lesser-used samples. Would anyone else find it useful to be changed to a per-instance switch?


----------



## Stephen Baysted (Jul 15, 2011)

Chris - sounds like you're having a nightmare chap, sorry to hear that this late into your project. >8o 

I'm on holiday ATM so haven't had a chance to grab PLAY 3 to test it out with HS. as you know, I've gone down a different route - but I'm hoping that I might finally be able to get a return on my £1k investment other than a bowl of rice krispies. 

Cheers 

Stephen


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 15, 2011)

Rousseau @ Fri Jul 15 said:


> Chris - sounds like you're having a nightmare chap, sorry to hear that this late into your project. >8o
> 
> I'm on holiday ATM so haven't had a chance to grab PLAY 3 to test it out with HS. as you know, I've gone down a different route - but I'm hoping that I might finally be able to get a return on my £1k investment other than a bowl of rice krispies.
> 
> ...



Enjoy your holiday Steven! Not a nightmare, really. Fortunately only wasted a few hours before reverting to Play 2, and all is working nicely once more. Just very frustrated that Play 3 is not yet the 'Holy Grail'...

Have fun!

~Chris


----------



## TheUnfinished (Jul 15, 2011)

So, having read this thread (and others elsewehere) I find myself with the following scenario.

I only have one EW library, Silk (which I adore). And I'm using it with Play 2. I'm working in 32-bit at the moment, i5 specs, 4gb RAM (with another 8gb in the post!).

Will I gain anything from installing Play 3?

It just seems to me that Play 3 gets announced with lots of "It's quicker", "It's more efficient" and then, reading comments by those who have adopted Play 3, those claims always end up being followed with a silent "as long as you do this that and the other..."

I just don't see any mention of "But you must buy more RAM" or "But load Play into your template before anything else" when Play 3 was launched.

That's what I find frustrating. I knew not to leap into installing Play 3 because I knew there'd be problems with it.

However, it may just be Hollywood Strings. But it's not clear. So, I thought I'd ask.

Matt


----------



## Theseus (Jul 15, 2011)

Thomas_J @ Fri Jul 15 said:


> I don't know if this is accurate, but I thought SSDs didn't really work on MACs yet because of some missing "trim" feature in OSX?



Nope, not accurate. Tests have been done and they show no relevant differencies between new and used SSD on Macs : http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/apple/ ... m-in-osx/7 
[/url]


----------



## Simon Ravn (Jul 15, 2011)

Thomas_J @ Fri Jul 15 said:


> I don't know if this is accurate, but I thought SSDs didn't really work on MACs yet because of some missing "trim" feature in OSX?



Nope, that is not accurate. Trim is not natively supported for all SSD's on OS X, but trim doesn't matter at all for sample streaming anyway. Where trim matters, is solely on a drive with heavy writing/deletion of files going on (like your system drive, or even your recording drive). And even then, I use an SSD as system drive without any problems - it has trim built in to the controller itself. But for sample drives... Trim is not something you need at all, unless you constantly install/delete/install libraries.


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 15, 2011)

Hi all ,

after another night of testing my Mac setup with PLAY3 here's something 
which is relevant for users who use their (larger HS) PLAY2 setups now with PLAY3 on Mac:


*You can reduce PLAY'3's footprint for your former ( larger HS ) PLAY2 setups inside the "Inactive RAM" 
by reloading the patches into the particular PLAY instances and saving it again .*


Less footprint in the "InactiveRAM" means more available "FreeRam" .

Therefore a better overall performance of your system.

__ __ __ 

A short overview of my recent posts :

1)
My permanent PLAY2 HS setup inside VEPRO32bit contained 3,5GB samples indicated in PLAY's Memory Server .
The Activity Monitor shows some 11GB of RAM inside the "InactivRAM" .

2)
With PLAY3 inside VEPRO32bit I couldn't play back my sessions as I reported in my other posts .
( In short : 
Contrary to former PLAY versions PLAY3 obviously tries to protect the infos it puts into InactiveRAM , and therefore other apps cannot access InactiveRAM that easy , which then causes swapping/page outs etc. with all its consequences for the overall performance of the system.)


3)
Then I loaded my VEPRO32bit metaframe (PLAY3 only ) into VEPRO64bit . Still issues .

4)
However I then "_saved_" this VEPRO64bit metaframe , and although I had still the low RAM situation as described in the other posts, I now could play back my sessions again . Of course the swap/page out issue was still there,
but the whole 64bit thing seems to make everything alittle bit smoother.

5)
Finally ,
* I reloaded every single Hollywoodstring patch inside the VEPRO64bit metaframe and saved this metaframe again*.


After the next computer startup I noticed :

*Instead of the 11GB of "Inactive RAM" the Activity Monitor now showed only some 9GB .*

So , now I have some 2GB more "FreeRAM" again.
( Additionally I now upgraded my RAM to have more headroom.)

__ __ __ 

The same procedure might work in other hosts(Logic, Cubase, Bidule ...) or in PLAY standalone mode too.
Due to my schedule I don't have the time to test that .

Hope that helps some of you .
Best wishes

Gerd 


_________________________________________________________________________

Specs:
Master : MacPro 2,8 (in 32bit kernel) / 18GB ( now 24GB ) / OS 10.6.7 / WD 1TB CaviarBlack drives / Logic9 32bit / VEPRO64bit / PLAY64bit ;
Slaves for Kontakt and Vienna with VEPRO


----------



## ozmorphasis (Jul 15, 2011)

Interesting Gerd! It's for this reason, that I'm always skeptical of updates being dealt with in a "migration" manner vs a clean install approach. Building something from scratch is more work, but I often feel compelled to do it just to be sure that nothing is lost in translation.


----------



## JohnG (Jul 15, 2011)

Thanks, Gerd. Very helpful as always.


----------



## ChrisAxia (Jul 15, 2011)

Thanks again Gerd. I'm really too busy to worry about Play 3 right now. In 4 weeks time, when my current projects are over, I'll try what you suggest and see if it helps. Good luck all you Play users!

~C


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 15, 2011)

After in depth discussions with the Play 3 programmers, EW is preparing an FAQ that we will hopefully have tomorrow that will explain the differences in the way Play 3 and Play 2 work with some guidelines for optimal performance.


----------



## Mike Connelly (Jul 15, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> 4) I put those 4 patches on the same midi channel
> 5) I play a fairly fast Legato line
> 6) snap, crackle and pop



Is this in Logic? If so, when you're playing those four patches live at the same time, Logic puts them all on the same CPU core. Assuming that's the case, this one particular situation may be CPU instead of memory.

If you play the four tracks individually (or play in one then copy the midi to the others) then play it back, do you still get the crackles?


----------



## SvK (Jul 15, 2011)

Mike,

HS standalone

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Jul 15, 2011)

Mike...

I can't say this for certain yet. But I am pretty sure my clicks and pops are due to PLAY3mac NOT liking HS samples to be split across drives...

Last night I put all of HS on one SATA 7200 rpm drive and I got way less clicks and pops than with having HS spread across 4 SSD drives....

....tonight I will put HS on 1 SSD drive and if the voice count shoots up sky-high i will know that this is the issue.

Mt problems are NOT memory. I have 32gig of RAM and am only loading 4 patches.

best,
SvK


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## rayinstirling (Jul 15, 2011)

I noticed the difference gained by reloading play instruments the first day I got access to play 3.
Probably this is a pain to many with big templates but I just got on with it and enjoyed the result.


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## stevenson-again (Jul 15, 2011)

The business of 32 vs 64bit and memory is something i know a little about.

Chris, Nick is actually correct when he says that PLAY 3 is about 64bit-ness. It's unlikely that PLAY 3 would be an improvement on PLAY 2 with regards to memory handling because the development effort would have gone into 64bit.

The problem you are encountering is probably the 'hidden' memory that is assigned to mmap - the memory server technique. for each process (or application) you have to assign 512 Mb of memory in order to access the other 3.5 Gb. The more chunks of 3.5 Gb the more memory you have to assign in order to make the memory server work...ie 3.5 for your samples, and 0.5 for the memory server. But it doesn't show up in the memory monitor. If PLAY 3 uses a bit more memory well that could probably tip things over the edge.

It's been the case that the memory server for HS + Play has not worked all that well on a mac. For there to be any point in upgrading you really need to run PLAY 64bit. Plogue 64bit works absolutely perfectly with my other 64bit plugs such as Kontakt. Not only that, you can run a Plogue app in 64bit and a different one in 32bit. Works fine. 

Do not 'assign' processors in plogue. Kontakt is able to use multi-threading so presumably PLAY can as well.

What to do is to save the 'Instruments' in PLAY in your old 32bit plogue and then reopen them in Plogue 64. You could leave all your other VI's running the Plogue and only move over HS.

The trick is to find out whether HS PLAY 3 is working ok in 64bit mode on your computer in 64 bit plogue.


----------



## JKranz EW (Jul 15, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Thu Jul 14 said:


> I have yet to receive an answer to my question. "Roughly how much more memory does Play 3 use compared to Play 2?" Knowing this will allow me to make a decision as to whether I can justify sacrificing some RAM for the other benefits Play 3 brings.
> 
> That is all I require from EW for now.
> 
> ...



The answer to this question has many degrees... and it all depends on how you are using it.

Side by side (both running in 32-bit operation)... PLAY 3 and PLAY 2 use roughly the same amount of RAM. Depending on what is being loaded, PLAY 3 in some instances uses a small amount more (in the ballpark of 5-10%). This is due to there being a few more things implemented into PLAY 3, and also better overall stability (which have to come from somewhere resource wise).

HOWEVER... the big issue that I think is being overlooked here is when comparing PLAY 2 to PLAY 3 _in 64-bit operation_... and this is a fundamental computer science issue...

Certain aspects of a 64-bit data structure (the building blocks of a 64-bit program) are fundamentally larger than those of a 32-bit data structure (64 bites wide as opposed to 32). Any process running in 64-bit will use more memory than that same process in 32-bit. There is nothing that we can do to change this behavior, it's basic computer science. 

So, for the user who was loading the 32-bit address space to the maximum amount (such as using multiple 32-bit PLAYs in various configurations outside of the host, in bidule instances/ve pro instances etc.) and now loads that _exact same_ template with PLAY 64-bit, well it will certainly use more memory due to what I just explained above.

This is somewhat akin to a Pro Tools user with a big 44.1 khz session that is filling up a hard drive to capacity, then trying to switch that session to 88.2 khz... those files are simply larger and will take up more space on the drive then they have available. This is not a fault of Pro Tools, it's simply the reality of working with larger 'building blocks'.

Now this does NOT mean that PLAY 3 in 64-bit uses twice the amount of RAM as before. A lot of the sample content is loaded into our PLAY Memory Server, which was already a 64-bit process in PLAY 2. The actual number is somewhere close to a 15-20% _overall_ increase, and again this is due to the app/plugin itself being 64-bit.

What this means for the users is that they will need to weigh the advantages of 64-bit versus the capability of their computer. On a lesser powerful Mac, with less RAM, it may not make sense to move up to 64-bit at all... as all processes are then 'heavier' (including even core audio itself). On a more powerful system (and we recommend loading as much RAM into your computer as possible given the nature of what our product does), you will gain the advantages of both 64-bit and PLAY 3 improvements (faster loading, access to memory past the 3GB limit inside your host, more robust and stable processing streaming, etc.)

I've done a simple comparison attached below which shows that the same is true in other applications... in this case I've loaded comparable loads into PLAY 3 and Kontakt 4. Each one in both 32-bit operation, then 64-bit operation right next to it, and you can clearly see that 64-bit will use more memory in each case (you can do this comparison very simply if you want to see for yourself).

I hope some of this helps explain the difference between PLAY 2 and PLAY 3 (and more importantly IMO 32-bit and 64-bit processes) when it comes to memory handling.


-Jonathan


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 15, 2011)

Attached is the FAQ I referred to. It is zipped.


----------



## rgames (Jul 15, 2011)

JKranz EW @ Fri Jul 15 said:


> A 64-bit data structure (the building blocks of a 64-bit program) are generally twice the size of a 32-bit data structure (64 bites wide as opposed to 32).


That's not correct. The values used for memory addressing (the pointers) are twice as big but the data are still the same size - an int is still an int, a float is still a float, and a double is still a double.

When you switch from 44.1 kHz to 88.2 kHz you're producing twice as much data. When you switch from 32 bit to 64 bit software, your samples are still the same size (16 bit or 24 bit). You're comparing two different things: one has more data, the other does not.

rgames


----------



## JKranz EW (Jul 15, 2011)

Thanks Richard, you are right... sorry if I over generalized about that aspect (see my edit). I did not mean that the end result is twice as much... I think I said somewhere around 15-20% more in my post, which i think is easily reproduceable when comparing the same 32-bit load to a 64-bit load of the same exact instruments, anyone can do this simple comparison and see this for themselves. My Pro Tools analogy was simply to state that if you are filling your glass to the brim in 32-bit, you will spill it in 64-bit. 

I'm simply trying to illuminate some to the underlying reasons as to _why_ this is the case when comparing 32-bit to 64-bit, if you can explain it better then by all means please do! o-[][]-o 


-Jonathan


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 15, 2011)

Revised to include Richard's point.


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## ChrisAxia (Jul 15, 2011)

Thank you Rohan for your suggestion about 64bit Bidule, and thank you Jonathan for the detailed info about the workings of Play3. I will look at Play 3 again in about a month. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how others implement Play 3 into their systems.

Thanks,

~Chris


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## NYC Composer (Jul 16, 2011)

Two things-

First, anecdotally, the problems with Play 3 must be largely HS based, because I am seeing better performance across the board using 8 older EW libraries in Cubase Mac/Ve Pro.

Second, I haven't read anything except Doug's statement to the beta team regarding the efficacy or necessity of running Play 3 in 64 bit kernel. Is this particularly relevant?


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jul 16, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Fri Jul 15 said:


> Two things-
> 
> First, anecdotally, the problems with Play 3 must be largely HS based, because I am seeing better performance across the board using 8 older EW libraries in Cubase Mac/Ve Pro.
> 
> Second, I haven't read anything except Doug's statement to the beta team regarding the efficacy or necessity of running Play 3 in 64 bit kernel. Is this particularly relevant?



Anecdotally, what I am hearing is that while there is some benefit to booting into the 64 bit kernel on Macs that can do so (mine cannot), it is minor.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jul 16, 2011)

I'd love to know how 'minor', as mine is able to do so and I am doing so. I do some 32 bit work, so the restarting is a bit of a pain. If the 64 bit kernel will help me squeeze another 5-10% out of my system, I'd happily do it. If it's 1-2%, probably not.


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 16, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Sat Jul 16 said:


> I'd love to know how 'minor', as mine is able to do so and I am doing so. I do some 32 bit work, so the restarting is a bit of a pain. If the 64 bit kernel will help me squeeze another 5-10% out of my system, I'd happily do it. If it's 1-2%, probably not.



Hi ,

I really tested back and forth , switching between 32bit kernel & 64bit kernel mode, with the most demanding current sessions I have on my system now , and I didn't notice any performance improvements in 64bitkernel mode . At least on my particular setup. 

However , maybe this also depends on the AudioHardware(drivers) that one uses.
I don't know , just speculating here . 

I stay in 32bitkernel default-mode on my Mac for now.

PLAY3 runs very smooth now after upgrading RAM and rebuilding my PLAY setup within VEPRO64bit from scratch. Very smooth !


Best

Gerd



Specs:
Master : MacPro 2,8 (in 32bit kernel) / 24GB / OS 10.6.7 / WD 1TB CaviarBlack drives / Logic9 32bit / VEPRO64bit / PLAY64bit ;
Slaves for Kontakt and Vienna with VEPRO


----------



## NYC Composer (Jul 16, 2011)

Hi Gerd, thanks-are you using HS?


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 16, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Sat Jul 16 said:


> Hi Gerd, thanks-are you using HS?



Yes , I do . HS Diamond ( ... however , usually the LT12 legato patches , not the Powerfulsystem-Legato Patches). 
Inside VEPRO64bit now with PLAY3 , on my Master DAW with Logic32bit .


----------



## stevenson-again (Jul 17, 2011)

> 'd love to know how 'minor', as mine is able to do so and I am doing so. I do some 32 bit work, so the restarting is a bit of a pain. If the 64 bit kernel will help me squeeze another 5-10% out of my system, I'd happily do it. If it's 1-2%, probably not.



I have heard that there is pretty much no advantage at all booting into 64bit kernel (from the point of view of what we are doing). i don't know why EW suggested doing this. by 'i have heard', i mean from a source directly involved in developing stuff for OS X platform - ie someone who really knows what they are talking about. i can get confirmation if you like.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jul 17, 2011)

stevenson-again @ Sun Jul 17 said:


> > 'd love to know how 'minor', as mine is able to do so and I am doing so. I do some 32 bit work, so the restarting is a bit of a pain. If the 64 bit kernel will help me squeeze another 5-10% out of my system, I'd happily do it. If it's 1-2%, probably not.
> 
> 
> 
> I have heard that there is pretty much no advantage at all booting into 64bit kernel (from the point of view of what we are doing). i don't know why EW suggested doing this. by 'i have heard', i mean from a source directly involved in developing stuff for OS X platform - ie someone who really knows what they are talking about. i can get confirmation if you like.



Thanks, Rohan. That seems to be the prevailing opinion. 32 bit kernel it is unless I hear differently some time in the future.. Meanwhile, back to the salt mines.


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## Marius Masalar (Jul 17, 2011)

For what it's worth, I recently flipped my machine over to the 64-bit kernel permanently and found that I was getting some more CPU headroom in Logic and therefore noticeably (though not dramatically) better performance. 

Keep in mind that even if Logic doesn't directly benefit, the fact that other programs and background processes do means that Logic can benefit from the additional resources freed up. 

In any event, the 64-bit kernel can only possibly make a positive contribution unless you're still running PowerPC processes/apps in which case they will no longer work. So long as you're not doing that, there isn't really a good reason to avoid the 64-bit kernel. It's not a new OS or anything, just a more efficient operation mode basically.

If your machine can run the 64-bit kernel, then this little System Preferences pane makes it easy to activate it and make it permanent (or, of course, revert) without delving into the command line:

http://www.thrull.com/corner/mac/SystemModeConfigurator/ (http://www.thrull.com/corner/mac/System ... figurator/)


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## Nick Phoenix (Jul 17, 2011)

Gerd Kaeding @ Sat Jul 16 said:


> PLAY3 runs very smooth now after upgrading RAM and rebuilding my PLAY setup within VEPRO64bit from scratch. Very smooth !
> 
> 
> Best
> ...



Thanks Gerd. Hopefully people will realize that PLAY 3 is indeed a big improvement. But keeping in mind that it is a 64 bit app and that there is a slight increase in ram usage. All of the big complaints we have had so far were due to overloaded ram, which we should have warned about. I personally didn't notice that PLAY uses slightly more ram. Another thing I recommend is if you have an older Hollywood Strings template, download the latest HS program update and rebuild it. It will sound and work better in PLAY 3. One guy had an old template that was loading very slow and not performing well. he rebuilt with the new patches and it was night and day. Don't know why that is, but there it is.


----------



## rabiang (Jul 17, 2011)

the "fast disk" option, is it only on mac? im on pc and i cant find it.


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## JohnG (Jul 17, 2011)

Hi rabiang,

The fast disk mode is not needed on a PC; PCs take full advantage already of SSDs using PLAY.

It's only for Mac users. 

On the subject (but not on your specific question), fast disk mode appears to help even if one doesn't have SSDs. I've seen users report that it helps with fast "regular" hard drives as well. I think it has boosted HS on my 7200 drive in the Mac, but haven't measured it scientifically.


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## Gerd Kaeding (Jul 17, 2011)

JohnG @ Sun Jul 17 said:


> Hi rabiang,
> 
> The fast disk mode is not needed on a PC; PCs take full advantage already of SSDs using PLAY.
> 
> ...




Hi John & rabiang ,

on a WD Caviar Black 1TB 64MBCache my PLAY3 HS Template inside VEPRO64bit loads in around 10min without the "Fast Disk Mode" , and in 6-7min with "Fast Disk Mode" enabled . With PLAY2 inside VEPRO32bit the same setup loaded in 20min (same Harddrive) .

Best

Gerd


Specs:
Master : MacPro 2,8 (in 32bit kernel) / 24GB / OS 10.6.7 / WD 1TB CaviarBlack drives / Logic9 32bit / VEPRO64bit / PLAY64bit ;
Slaves for Kontakt and Vienna with VEPRO


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## JohnG (Jul 17, 2011)

vielen Dank, Gerd.


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## Mike Connelly (Jul 18, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Sat Jul 16 said:


> I'd love to know how 'minor', as mine is able to do so and I am doing so. I do some 32 bit work, so the restarting is a bit of a pain. If the 64 bit kernel will help me squeeze another 5-10% out of my system, I'd happily do it. If it's 1-2%, probably not.



Really the only downside to 64 bit kernel is if you happen to have a hardware driver that's not updated to 64 bit yet. You can always give it a try and switch back if it gives you problems. 32 and 64 bit software can both be run regardless of which mode the kernel is in, so unless you have a driver incompatibility, which you'd find out immediately, there shouldn't be any downside to running 64 bit kernel.

Even if the improvement is tiny, I'd say still give it a shot since it's easy enough to switch back if it causes problems.


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 20, 2011)

ChrisAxia @ Wed Jul 13 said:


> Hi guys & girls,
> 
> Well, it seems I am not having much luck, first with HS 2.0 and legato patches cutting out, and now Play 3 which has brought back all the 'snap, crackle & pop' worse than ever! I knew it was a silly idea to do the update while I'm in the middle of serious deadlines, but after reading glowing 'reviews' from the beta testers, I thought this would only make things better. I am on an 8 core Mac Pro, OSX 10.6, 20GBG RAM, 2 SSDs for Play/HS and the latest versions of Logic and Bidule etc.
> 
> ...



Having just started out with PLAY 3 myself, I concur with your issues. I tried loading up a single, simple HS violins patch - if I hit a three-note chord, I get sometimes a big delay, sometimes only two notes are played - and no matter what, there's a lot of pops and crackling going on. I tried with and without "fast disk", but no change. CPU usage is going at 2-4% and 10-20MB/sec - hardly pushing any limits here..

Also sometimes my whole system will freeze for about 1 second repeating the same audio buffer over and over again (and get a CPU spike in Logic). I don't know 100% if that is only related to PLAY though.

Will have to investigate more to get to any conclusions.


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 20, 2011)

Update: I tried PLAY inside of Vienna or inside Logic. no difference. I tried upping the buffer size to 512 samples, tried "automatic" core distribution etc. - no change. Lots of those "freezing stutters" and clicks and pops all over. I then tried loading up a "competing developer"'s patch in Kontakt 4, hammering it up to 200 voices - no clicks, no stutters. I even tried lowering my buffer setting to 64 - it still worked. So I guess there must be SOMETHING funny going on in PLAY 3. Maybe not on all systems, but certainly on my Mac Pro 6-core 3.33, it doesn't work well...

UPDATE2: Well well... I wanted to show an MP3 of how it sounds like when this is going on. But the interesting bit is that even in a REALTIME bounce, the errors are not in the file, although they are in the playback. So it seems those clicks and pops etc. only go to the audio hardware, they are not really a problem with disk streaming or anything like that. I am no expert, so I can't really tell what the problem could be then, I can just say that it doesn't happen with Kontakt (at least no to the same extent, as I can't reproduce it with a single patch playing). Seems to be related to buffering to the sound hardware in some way.


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## bdr (Jul 20, 2011)

Simon-I have had the same bizarre behaviour for the last few months randomly. Stops, sputters, weird buffer type sounds, but all bounces work fine.

However, I don't use PLAY at all. I have had this happen using Kontakt in DP 7, as well as occasionally in quicktime player, youtube etc. I'm pretty sure it's an OS problem, I have had no end of trouble with audio on Snow Leopard and I think Apple is dropping the ball here.


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## Chaim (Jul 22, 2011)

Why if I load 2600 MB of samples in Play (64bit) my mac's Activity Monitor shows a decrease of approx. 7GB of FREE RAM?

Is this the way it's gonna be? That means if I install 32GB of RAM I'm going to be able to load approx. 10GB of samples?!


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## Mike Connelly (Jul 22, 2011)

Are you looking at the memory meter in the main window or the one in the prefs? I'm not sure what the difference is or why the two numbers are so different, the actual number seems to be somewhere between the two.

Part of the confusion may be due to the memory numbers not being useful enough.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 22, 2011)

bdr @ Wed Jul 20 said:


> Simon-I have had the same bizarre behaviour for the last few months randomly. Stops, sputters, weird buffer type sounds, but all bounces work fine.
> 
> However, I don't use PLAY at all. I have had this happen using Kontakt in DP 7, as well as occasionally in quicktime player, youtube etc. I'm pretty sure it's an OS problem, I have had no end of trouble with audio on Snow Leopard and I think Apple is dropping the ball here.



are you two gentlemen (Simon included) using the optical out of the Mac by any chance? Nick B reported a recognized problem with optical out and 10.38.


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## bdr (Jul 22, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Sat Jul 23 said:


> bdr @ Wed Jul 20 said:
> 
> 
> > Simon-I have had the same bizarre behaviour for the last few months randomly. Stops, sputters, weird buffer type sounds, but all bounces work fine.
> ...



No I use a MOTU 2408 which I've used successfully for years. Done all the trouble shooting...changed PCI slots, reinstalled everything under the sun etc etc.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 23, 2011)

bdr @ Sat Jul 23 said:


> NYC Composer @ Sat Jul 23 said:
> 
> 
> > bdr @ Wed Jul 20 said:
> ...



I know DP is still 32 bit-do you have a newer Mac? Is it by chance booting in 64 bit kernel mode? (you've probably checked this, just trying to help)


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 23, 2011)

bdr @ Thu Jul 21 said:


> Simon-I have had the same bizarre behaviour for the last few months randomly. Stops, sputters, weird buffer type sounds, but all bounces work fine.
> 
> However, I don't use PLAY at all. I have had this happen using Kontakt in DP 7, as well as occasionally in quicktime player, youtube etc. I'm pretty sure it's an OS problem, I have had no end of trouble with audio on Snow Leopard and I think Apple is dropping the ball here.



I think you are right. Either it's the OS, MOTU's drivers or the new Mac Pros (I dont know which one you use, I have a 6-core). While it is much worse in PLAY, I noticed that I can have this stutter (reminds me a bit of a CD with a scratch) happen in iTunes or Kontakt etc. if the CPU is taxed. It's very rare in iTunes, but in Logic it happens pretty frequently. Quite annoying. I too am using MOTU PCIe-424 + 2408's - maybe it's a MOTU + new Mac Pros/Snow Leopard problem. I might jump to an RME MADI card as soon as I can and maybe that will fix it. So I can't really say that it is PLAY's problem, since it CAN happen in other samples/applications as well. It just became much worse with PLAY 3 than 2.


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 23, 2011)

NYC Composer, thanks for that suggestion! (32-bit kernel boot), because, I just tried this...

BDR: Try booting in 32-bit kernel mode if you are not already! This helped a lot here. Alhough I can't jump to any conclucions yet, after booting in 32-bit mode I DON'T get any stutters yet, and they were very frequent before. However I get a lot of "system overload"'s instead. BUT that might be because I have loaded my PLAY instruments AFTER a ton of Kontakt instances.

I tried a fresh Logic project, only two PLAY instances, with just one patch playing on each, this caused stutters/system overloads before - now, nothing. So I will rebuild my template to load the PLAY stuff first and see if it still behaves.

Regardless, I think it is pretty evident that MOTU in 64-bit kernel mode doesn't work too well. MOTU have always been very uninformative about their driver updates, and they hardly haven't changed since 2009, and probably didn't pay too much attention to the new OS'es.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 23, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Sat Jul 23 said:


> NYC Composer, thanks for that suggestion! (32-bit kernel boot), because, I just tried this...
> 
> BDR: Try booting in 32-bit kernel mode if you are not already! This helped a lot here. Alhough I can't jump to any conclucions yet, after booting in 32-bit mode I DON'T get any stutters yet, and they were very frequent before. However I get a lot of "system overload"'s instead. BUT that might be because I have loaded my PLAY instruments AFTER a ton of Kontakt instances.
> 
> ...



Outstanding, Simon..I hope it proves to be the solution. Cheers.


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## bdr (Jul 26, 2011)

Thanks for the replies guys..I've been sick as a dog and unable to check out the 32-bit idea. How do you get Snow Leopard to boot in 32-bits?


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## bdr (Jul 26, 2011)

BTW I just went to the MOTU website as there's an upgrade for DP and noticed a new-ish MOTU PCI-424 driver dated 20 June, so I'm going to try that as well. Simon you might want to download it.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 26, 2011)

bdr @ Tue Jul 26 said:


> Thanks for the replies guys..I've been sick as a dog and unable to check out the 32-bit idea. How do you get Snow Leopard to boot in 32-bits?



The way to check whether you're booting in 32 or 64 bit kernel mode-

Apple icon on top left/About this Mac/more info/software(in the menu to the left)/64 bit kernel enabled? If it is:

To start up in 32 bit kernel mode: Hold down 32 as you boot up.


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## Elektroakoustika (Jul 29, 2011)

I just recently got around to installing HS Gold into my template and I'm having these issues as well.

Here are my specs:

Mac Pro 8-core 2.26Ghz with 16GB of RAM
All my samples are split across 3 1TB WD Caviar Black drives
OSX 10.6.8
Digital Performer 7.23 (buffer is 512)
VE Pro 4.1.8008 (64-bit)
PLAY 3.0.20

PLAY Settings:
Fast Disk mode checked
Engine Level: Medium (but I've tried Low and High as well)

I see a lot talking about memory in this thread, and it honestly doesn't make sense to me. So here's my situation:

In my template I've loaded all my instruments and it takes up 8.32 GB of my 16. As soon as I add one HS Gold Legato patch (more specifically the Violins 1 Leg Slur RR LT 12 Ni patch) . my used space goes from up to 9.17 and that track is COMPLETELY unplayable. So I have nearly 7 GB that are currently in the "inactive" mode yet PLAY thinks that I have no memory left. Why is this? It makes no sense at all... I have also tried loading HS Gold before everything else. Same result.

After I loaded that one PLAY instrument, I went ahead and played a sequence from the template that was running 25 LASS tracks, 16 Omnisphere tracks, 12 VSL tracks, and 5 True Strike Tracks and the computer didn't even blink. No pops, no clicks.

So I don't understand what is going on here. I submitted a ticket to EastWest but by the look of this thread I'm not feeling very confident I'll get an answer I'm looking for.

Here are some of my questions:

Why doesn't PLAY recognize the "Inactive memory?"

Why is it that I can play over 50 tracks that are also loaded that use probably around 4 or 5 GB of my RAM and have it play without a hitch but one PLAY instrument is totally unusable for even two notes? (all of these instruments are in 64-bit)

Why does it feel like EastWest is ignoring this problem?

ANY help would be greatly appreciated! This is QUITE stressful. I bought HS Gold vs HS Diamond because I figured it would easily run on my system.


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## NYC Composer (Jul 29, 2011)

Have you read this entire thread? Are you booting up in 32 big kernel mode?
Are you using the optical out from the Mac? 10.68 doesn't like that.

Play is using a great deal of cached RAM to boots speed, hence your memory problems.
There's no question that Play is more RAM inefficient on a Mac at this point.


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## Elektroakoustika (Jul 29, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Fri Jul 29 said:


> Have you read this entire thread? Are you booting up in 32 big kernel mode?
> Are you using the optical out from the Mac? 10.68 doesn't like that.
> 
> Play is using a great deal of cached RAM to boots speed, hence your memory problems.
> There's no question that Play is more RAM inefficient on a Mac at this point.



I have read the entire thread.

Yes I boot in regular ol 32 GB kernel mode.
I'm using my 828mk3 for audio out

The problem I have is that I'm using HS GOLD. The recommended Mac requirements for Gold are below my set up.

What I don't understand is the whole PLAY 3 and RAM issue. Okay PLAY 3 uses more cached RAM. But 7 GB of inactive RAM for ONE TRACK? That makes no sense to me. Please feel free to explain why I shouldn't bring this up!


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## Elektroakoustika (Jul 29, 2011)

DELETED


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## NYC Composer (Jul 29, 2011)

"inactive' RAM is still being used by Play-but at this point, you really need to get in touch with EW technical support.

I will say that a 2.26 processor is a little underpowered at this point, but it seems to me that one patch should be playable.

(btw, it's 32 bit kernel mode as opposed to 32 Gig)


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## Elektroakoustika (Jul 29, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Fri Jul 29 said:


> "inactive' RAM is still being used by Play-but at this point, you really need to get in touch with EW technical support.
> 
> I will say that a 2.26 processor is a little underpowered at this point, but it seems to me that one patch should be playable.
> 
> (btw, it's 32 bit kernel mode as opposed to 32 Gig)



Haha, oops. I meant 32 bit. Sorry, just a little distressed about this whole thing.  

The 2.26 ghz processors are actually doing quite awesome. Its a 2009 Mac Pro that actually often beats the 3 ghz ones from the previous year. If you look at my processor idle during this test I did, I'm still idling 70% of the processor during playback without any CPU spikes.

I have contacted EW Support so I'm hoping to receive a solution from them. I'm just bummed because I had ordered HB Gold but now I'm not sure because it comes with PLAY 3 so I have to cancel my order for now... :(


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## NYC Composer (Jul 29, 2011)

I hope you find a workable solution. Cheers.


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## Elektroakoustika (Jul 29, 2011)

I have to apologize. I did miss some information that was hinted on this forum and on the EW forums. I think I understand what is going on now.

So now that I know that PLAY is basically using the inactive RAM on my unit, I'm wondering why it's using SO much of it. I did a test and for every gigabyte I load into PLAY, PLAY takes over and additional 4 GB of inactive RAM. So automatically PLAY has taken over 5 GB of space on my system with only 16 HS Gold short articulations loaded.

As for 5 legato instruments, I got up to around 2.5 GB taken up by PLAY and it took over an additional 9GB of inactive RAM. That's 11.5 GB of RAM gone.

Now I would understand if I was using HS Diamond, multiple mics, and the powerful system patches but all I'm using are the Leg Slur RR LT 12 Ni patches in HS Gold. I specifically bought Gold because I looked at the requirements on the EW website and saw that the recommended system was a less powerful system than mine so I figured I would be alright.

So the question I pose is if there is anyone else out there who is just as distressed as I am about this whole thing? 

I understand that HS is a powerful sample library, but I've loaded some powerful stuff into Kontakt, Omnisphere, and others and it works like a charm without taking up a huge footprint.

How do others out there (on Mac's of course, I know things are bright and shiny in PC Land) feel about PLAY 3 and HS?

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE HS and think it sounds wonderful and was planning to buy HB Gold but I just simply can't see how I can run it with the amount of RAM HS is taking up already, even if I doubled my RAM to 32 GB.

If anyone knows of ANY way to reduce PLAY's footprint on the inactive memory I would GREATLY appreciate the knowledge.

Thank you for taking the time to read, and I do sincerely apologize for not getting all the information earlier.

-ea


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## NYC Composer (Jul 30, 2011)

I'm sure The Lurker will pop in at some point, but the basic EW philosophy at this point seems to be-get a PC slave, that's the way the Hollywood series works best. 24 Gig RAM, VE Pro, a fast SSD drive.


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## Elektroakoustika (Jul 30, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Sat Jul 30 said:


> I'm sure The Lurker will pop in at some point, but the basic EW philosophy at this point seems to be-get a PC slave, that's the way the Hollywood series works best. 24 Gig RAM, VE Pro, a fast SSD drive.



Thanks NYC. If I were made of money, I'd do that . 

But, in my humble opinion, EW should list that as one of the requirements (or even recommendations) for using HS Gold on the Mac if that is the only way to truly use it. Their system recommendations on the HS website seem to be way below what it is like in actual real-world use.

Just my two cents.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 30, 2011)

From EW:

The only read out that really matters is "free memory", inactive ram can be reused when required. The main issue for users is, you don't want to have so little "free ram" left that the system goes into virtual memory mode, that will kill everything and performance will be horrible. Ram is so cheap now, everyone should fill up their systems, it's a small price to pay for good performance.

Also "loading" and "playing" instruments are two different things. The system only loads enough of the instrument into a ram buffer to eliminate "latency", but still requires memory (ram) to "stream" the rest of the instruments data (which is most of it), that's why it is a confusing issue.

Another issue to be aware of is energy saving hard drives, you don't want one of those in your system as they are continually winding down to save energy and that interferes with the drives "streaming capabilities."


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 30, 2011)

bdr @ Wed Jul 27 said:


> BTW I just went to the MOTU website as there's an upgrade for DP and noticed a new-ish MOTU PCI-424 driver dated 20 June, so I'm going to try that as well. Simon you might want to download it.



Thanks but there is no new driver, MOTU just likes to update their driver dates so it looks like something is happening apparently)

Anyway, the 32-bit thing didn't fix it for me afterall. I still get the stutter issues with PLAY. It was gone for those few minutes and I really thought it was over, but it came right back.


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## Chaim (Aug 11, 2011)

Just want to write some numbers.
I have a few small patches which Play says it takes 50 MB, while Activity Monitor says it takes 700MB.

Why not make Play say the truth?


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