# Yay... Another "PLAY 3 issues" thread



## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

Recently starting building a Hollywood Strings template on a slave PC (i5, 3Ghz, 16GB RAM, Windows 7), using Vienna Ensemble Pro as the host. However, I constantly get clicks and pops when playing. Sometimes it can disappear from a patch if you play around with it for a long time, but most of the time there will be constant clicking in the playback sound. I tried setting the buffer to 1 or 2 in VEP (hosted in Logic on a Mac Pro), which helps a bit but not enough, and it just adds to the latency as well. It doesn't matter if it is a complicated legato patch or a simple staccato one so the problem isn't with performance on the PC, rather with the host compatibility it seems.

This is with the newest version of PLAY 3. I read some other people having the same problems in another thread but I don't think they reached any conclusion... Anyone knows what is going on, is it another incompatibility with VEP (like the "PLAY 3 loads everything 4-5 times" issue which is also present). If so, I hope EW and VSL are working on a solution.


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## stevenson-again (Aug 17, 2011)

Does the same thing happen with bidule simon? I have to say I really like working with bidule. It's incredibly flexible - you can do a lot midi processing that end as well. If it does well you haven't lost anything. I think you can try bidule for free so you could check it out, if you don't have it already.


What you could do is save each PLAY instance as if it were a multi in a location of your designation to make it quicker to load up in bidule. You can even output the audio to VEpro and use VEpro as the go between over ethernet. Alternatively there is MoL and direct inputs perhaps.


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## artinro (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon,

I'm having the same problems. I think there just must be some underlying incompatibility between Play 3 and VE Pro (both the clicking and the 4-5 time loading). 

VE Pro hasn't had an update since April, so obviously Play 3 hadn't been released at that point. Hopefully the next version of VE Pro will solve these problems.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

stevenson-again @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Does the same thing happen with bidule simon? I have to say I really like working with bidule. It's incredibly flexible - you can do a lot midi processing that end as well. If it does well you haven't lost anything. I think you can try bidule for free so you could check it out, if you don't have it already.
> 
> 
> What you could do is save each PLAY instance as if it were a multi in a location of your designation to make it quicker to load up in bidule. You can even output the audio to VEpro and use VEpro as the go between over ethernet. Alternatively there is MoL and direct inputs perhaps.



That sounds like a really crazy solution, to add ANOTHER instrument host into the equation... But if it works, and doesn't add latency or anything. Yes, I would have to use VEP exactly as I do now. I will check it out as a workaround but I hope that EW and VSL are working on a solution. I don't need to say that I have no problems like these whatsoever with Kontakt 4, do I?


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 17, 2011)

I don't own a PC but I have spent the last week scoring a featurette with a VE Pro v-frame on the same computer, containing 4 Play 3 instances, 3 with HS and 1 with HB. In Logic, I have 10 more Play 3 instances, some Kontakt instances, and a bunch of Kontakt and EXS24 instances, plus an Omnisphere, RMX, and of course a QT movie and I am not having pops and clicks issues.

Logic is set to 512 and VE Pro no buffers. Before I open Logic, Activity Monitor says I am using 7.23 of my 13 GB. After I load Logic it says I am using 10.43 GB with 2.58 free and no Swap used. Asd soon as it gets into Swap or _very_ little free memory is when I encounter issues. So if I get into a big usage of instances I keep an eye on that and sometimes that means I have to bounce somethings to free up some RAM. But as I say, this is with VE Pro on the same computer so maybe not relevant.

SvK did exhaustive testing on the Mac with VE Pro slave tandem and he found that he got better results from VE Pro on the PC connecting to the Mac with ADAT and MOL rather than ethernet.


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## José Herring (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Recently starting building a Hollywood Strings template on a slave PC (i5, 3Ghz, 16GB RAM, Windows 7), using Vienna Ensemble Pro as the host. However, I constantly get clicks and pops when playing. Sometimes it can disappear from a patch if you play around with it for a long time, but most of the time there will be constant clicking in the playback sound. I tried setting the buffer to 1 or 2 in VEP (hosted in Logic on a Mac Pro), which helps a bit but not enough, and it just adds to the latency as well. It doesn't matter if it is a complicated legato patch or a simple staccato one so the problem isn't with performance on the PC, rather with the host compatibility it seems.
> 
> This is with the newest version of PLAY 3. I read some other people having the same problems in another thread but I don't think they reached any conclusion... Anyone knows what is going on, is it another incompatibility with VEP (like the "PLAY 3 loads everything 4-5 times" issue which is also present). If so, I hope EW and VSL are working on a solution.



If I'm not mistaken it sounds like your using the Audio over LAN features of VEPRO. I've always found that solution to be rather flaky and with something as demanding as HS I doubt it will work. If you run VEPRO standalone and use lightpipe or Madi for audio, you'll have much better luck. Doesn't sound like a Play 3 issue at all.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

josejherring @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Recently starting building a Hollywood Strings template on a slave PC (i5, 3Ghz, 16GB RAM, Windows 7), using Vienna Ensemble Pro as the host. However, I constantly get clicks and pops when playing. Sometimes it can disappear from a patch if you play around with it for a long time, but most of the time there will be constant clicking in the playback sound. I tried setting the buffer to 1 or 2 in VEP (hosted in Logic on a Mac Pro), which helps a bit but not enough, and it just adds to the latency as well. It doesn't matter if it is a complicated legato patch or a simple staccato one so the problem isn't with performance on the PC, rather with the host compatibility it seems.
> ...



It works perfectly well with LASS and other libraries in Kontakt 4. And PLAY is not more demanding on the host - it still only has to send x streams of audio back to the host... No difference there between PLAY, Kontakt, whatever... It is a PLAY issue. Or a Vienna - or a combination of both.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> I don't own a PC but I have spent the last week scoring a featurette with a VE Pro v-frame on the same computer, containing 4 Play 3 instances, 3 with HS and 1 with HB. In Logic, I have 10 more Play 3 instances, some Kontakt instances, and a bunch of Kontakt and EXS24 instances, plus an Omnisphere, RMX, and of course a QT movie and I am not having pops and clicks issues.
> 
> Logic is set to 512 and VE Pro no buffers. Before I open Logic, Activity Monitor says I am using 7.23 of my 13 GB. After I load Logic it says I am using 10.43 GB with 2.58 free and no Swap used. Asd soon as it gets into Swap or _very_ little free memory is when I encounter issues. So if I get into a big usage of instances I keep an eye on that and sometimes that means I have to bounce somethings to free up some RAM. But as I say, this is with VE Pro on the same computer so maybe not relevant.
> 
> SvK did exhaustive testing on the Mac with VE Pro slave tandem and he found that he got better results from VE Pro on the PC connecting to the Mac with ADAT and MOL rather than ethernet.



Thank you for alle that totally irrelevant info, except for the last 2 lines .... 8) And when you say you have 3 instance of PLAY with HS - that is just three patches you are playing (according to your own statement regarding only using one patch per instance...) - hardly very demanding...

Either way, totally irrelevant info in relation to my topic 8)


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## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

artinro @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Simon,
> 
> I'm having the same problems. I think there just must be some underlying incompatibility between Play 3 and VE Pro (both the clicking and the 4-5 time loading).



I don't think it's Play 3 and VE Pro - I have the same slave PC setup and haven't yet run into problems like what is being described. See this thread: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtop ... wood+brass

However, my host is different: Cubase on PC. So it seems the problem is more likely with the link to the host.

Here are a few questions that might reveal some info:

- What is your CPU usage on the slave?

- What is your available memory on the slave?

- Are you running from an SSD on the slave?

- What is your network latency?

Also, my experience with the ethernet connection is that it is far superior to using dedicated audio hardware in the slave.

EDIT: I have found some clicks/pops in the HB samples but they're at the loop points, so it's a programming error, not a machine problem. Could that be your problem?

rgames


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 17, 2011)

You only have 16gb of RAM. For a huge template that isn't enough.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't own a PC but I have spent the last week scoring a featurette with a VE Pro v-frame on the same computer, containing 4 Play 3 instances, 3 with HS and 1 with HB. In Logic, I have 10 more Play 3 instances, some Kontakt instances, and a bunch of Kontakt and EXS24 instances, plus an Omnisphere, RMX, and of course a QT movie and I am not having pops and clicks issues.
> ...



The relevant info you are glossing over is the free memory and Swap issue. They are key, no matter what size template according to EW.


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## artinro (Aug 17, 2011)

rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> However, my host is different: Cubase on PC. So it seems the problem is more likely with the link to the host.


Thanks for the detailed post, Richard. Hmm..that's interesting. It might be that your main host is a PC? I'm using a Mac with Cubase 6 as my main DAW and it appears that Simon is using a Mac too, though with Logic. There are similar threads on both the Soundsonline forum and the VSL forum (especially regarding the 4-5 times sample loading) so I think a solution is probably in progress.



rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Here are a few questions that might reveal some info:
> 
> - What is your CPU usage on the slave?
> 
> ...


My slave is not being taxed at all. I've closely monitored the stats you mentioned above. My slave is an i7-990 with 24 gigs ram (Windows 7-64). I am running from SSDs on the slave.



rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Also, my experience with the ethernet connection is that it is far superior to using dedicated audio hardware in the slave.


That's really too bad, since audio over LAN it is a major point of interest with VE Pro.



rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> EDIT: I have found some clicks/pops in the HB samples but they're at the loop points, so it's a programming error, not a machine problem. Could that be your problem?


Unfortunately, no.

In any case, I'm confident these issues will be sorted out soon...either by VSL or EW or a collaborative effort. These problems haven't really kept me from enjoying using these outstanding libraries and there are work-arounds (as discussed above).


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> You only have 16gb of RAM. For a huge template that isn't enough.



I have 4 slave PC's... besides, Nick wrote that you shouldn't go past the 100.000 samples loaded limit, because it makes performance worse. And already around 8-10GB RAM, you will cross that limit...

Come on guys - don't sidetrack this with totally irrelevant information, thanks. I know how a PC works, how a Mac works etc. - this is quite obviously an issue between PLAY and Vienna Ensemble Pro somehow. I don't know who will have to fix it, VSL or EW, nor do I care. I just hope someone are working on a solution.

HOWEVER, one thing I will test is whether it has to do with crossing the 100.000 samples limit. But since other people seem to be able to fill up 16GB fine, I doubt that s it.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> artinro @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Simon,
> ...



- CPU usage is nothing. It has nothing with that to do. As I wrote it has nothing to do with how many samples PLAY is playing. It happens with just one voice playing...

- Around 4-6 GB real memory free.

- Both SSD and harddrive. Again, it doesn't matter.

- Don't know about network latency but it works fine with Kontakt and on my other slaves so again - that is not the issue.

If it is a Logic issue, it is still only happening when both Logic, Vienna and PLAY are combined. It doesn't happen with Kontakt e.g. And no, I am not talking about minor clicks/pops. This is much more than that - clear audio breakups all the time.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> ...



Where in my post do I write anything indicating that it is an issue with lack of free memory or swapping? I am not some n00b who just got his first PC, thank you - and you are perfectly aware of that. Regardless you choose to throw in some sidetracking topics.


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## mducharme (Aug 17, 2011)

Have you tried firing up DPC latency checker to see if there is a driver-level issue responsible for the clicks and pops?


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

mducharme @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Have you tried firing up DPC latency checker to see if there is a driver-level issue responsible for the clicks and pops?



What kind of driver would that be? No idea what DPC latency is though

UPDATE: OK... I loaded just ONE patch into PLAY and everything seems fine, without clicks and pops. Now I will test where the limit is. If it's the dreaded "100.000 samples limiet" that Nick mentioned.


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## mducharme (Aug 17, 2011)

Any device driver can cause audio pops/clicks, if it interrupts the CPU long enough.

The DPC latency checker is here:

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

That will tell you whether you have the issue or not. Leave it running for a while and if it goes into the yellow or red even once, you have a driver-level problem that will cause audio issues.


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## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> - CPU usage is nothing. It has nothing with that to do. As I wrote it has nothing to do with how many samples PLAY is playing. It happens with just one voice playing...
> 
> - Around 4-6 GB real memory free.
> 
> ...



One thing to keep in mind is that (I think) Play is, in general, more taxing on the system than Kontakt. So if you have some issue that puts you on the edge of performance with Kontakt then you might be over the edge with Play.

That would cause everything to work fine with Kontakt but not Play.

Have you run the DPC latency checker on your slave? That might help - it's possible that you have some high-latency call running in the background that causes problems with Play but not Kontakt.

Also, you can check your network latency by pinging your slave - not sure how to do it on Mac - I'm sure you can find out how via a google search. As with the DPC latency checker, you might be right on the edge with Kontakt but over the edge with Play, so it might be worth a look. Your latency should be on the order of a few hundred microseconds.

rgames


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## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

artinro @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Also, my experience with the ethernet connection is that it is far superior to using dedicated audio hardware in the slave.
> ...


I think that didn't come across correctly: my experience is that using the LAN connection is much better than using audio hardware.

Regarding the other issues, your slave should be fine, so it's probably some type of configuration issue.

See the comments above - maybe there's some help there.

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> ...



Simon, I was trying to be helpful, not only to you but perhaps to others. Sorry if you did not find it so.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 17, 2011)

rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> artinro @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> ...



As I say, I don't own a PC. I can only say that is the opposite conclusion that SvK reached and also different from what the Vienna folks said when they were asked:

"The reality is that if you have favorable networking conditions (great network cards, smooth and lean system with well behaved drivers), you will have a performance in line with what you get from a good soundcard and MidiOverLan/physical midi. In reality you will notice it is very hard to come down to the latency offered by VEPro with a hardware setup, especially if you want ot mix "in the box" on your host."


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

OK... did some further tests.

It could be that this problem is related to the issue where PLAY loads everything several times inside Vienna Ensemble. PLAY loads all its patches - then dumps them and reloads them again (memory goes from e.g. 8GB used down to zero, then loads back up again). This happens about 4 times as far as I can tell, and somehow it screws up something so that playback is erratic full of clicks and pops.

I just can't see how this can be host related, since VEP is not even connected to a host (server) at this point. So the notion that it works with Cubase as a host and not with Logic isn't right. Something else must be causing this. A setting in Vienna or PLAY? My engine level is set to "medium".

Will require to do some further testing before I can say if this is related to how much memory is loaded into PLAY, if it IS the "multiple loads" issue causing it or what. 

One thing I did find out though is that loading up about 5.6GB of random patches into one instance of PLAY and everything worked fine, no pops and clicks (this is with about 102.000 samples btw).

I then saved this setup, closed VEP and reloaded the setup and despite the issue with loading everything several times, still no clicks and pops. So no conclusions yet. Maybe it's related to the "100k limit", and the limit might be a bit higher than 100k. Maybe it's related to specific patches somehow, or the fact that I had layered several patches onto the same MIDI channel. Dunno.


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## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> "The reality is that if you have favorable networking conditions (great network cards, smooth and lean system with well behaved drivers), you will have a performance in line with what you get from a good soundcard and MidiOverLan/physical midi. In reality you will notice it is very hard to come down to the latency offered by VEPro with a hardware setup, especially if you want ot mix "in the box" on your host."


It all comes down to two factors: bandwidth and latency, and ethernet is *much* better on both as compared to audio hardware (10x is a good number). That's true or both Mac and PC because the hardware is the same, so it doesn't make sense that Mac would perform worse.

On PC, I am able to run at much lower latencies using the network connection. Before VE Pro, I used 512 samples on my slave and host. With VE Pro over ethernet I can easily run at 128 samples with 1 buffer for VE Pro.

Also, not having to use audio drivers saves a lot of CPU on the slave. Network functionality is integrated very deeply into the OS and hardware; audio hardware is not, so it's more CPU intensive to use an audio driver. Plus, I have about 150 tracks tracks coming back into my DAW over the network. That would require some pretty expensive audio hardware!

I haven't seen the exhaustive studies you mention but I have a strong hunch there's lots of room for improvement for the Mac folks if someone wants to dig in to it.

rgames


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## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> It could be that this problem is related to the issue where PLAY loads everything several times inside Vienna Ensemble. PLAY loads all its patches - then dumps them and reloads them again (memory goes from e.g. 8GB used down to zero, then loads back up again).


I've noticed that I need to leave more RAM wiggle room for Play than with Kontakt. e.g. with my Kontakt machine I can load up to about 500 MB available but with the PLAY machine I need to leave a couple GB free.

If I load beyond that amount, Play starts dumping samples from physical memory to the swap file (which would, of course, cause pops and clicks). That kind of mimics the behavior you're describing.

Maybe you already did this - did you try loading patch-by-patch and check to see at what memory usage the clicks start? Or do the clicks start from the first patch you load? It could be that you keep loading up past that point where it's dumping data to the swap file. Note that it might be doing that even if you have free memory.

One other possibility that's a long shot is bad RAM - if the samples are being corrupted because of bad RAM then you'd hear clicks and pops. But you'd also probably be getting software crashes. Have you had any crashes on that machine?

rgames


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## Nick Phoenix (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon, A few months ago I had a similar problem when I loaded an old HS template, using a newer version of PLAY into VE PRO. Solved it by creating a new template from scratch. Also, for me, going over 100,000 samples makes my PC not perform as well.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

Nick Phoenix @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Simon, A few months ago I had a similar problem when I loaded an old HS template, using a newer version of PLAY into VE PRO. Solved it by creating a new template from scratch. Also, for me, going over 100,000 samples makes my PC not perform as well.



Thanks Nick. However, this is a template I am just working on, very "fresh". Task manager says "Physical memory 88%", and I guess this template has about 170.000 samples. This 100.000 limit might be real, but what is the point of having 20, 24 or 32 GB RAM then, if you can't use more than about 8-10 GB (that is roughly where the 100.000 barrier is I believe)? And I am not blaming PLAY or anything - this could be a universal limit for any sampler. I have not loaded as much into Kontakt ever, I believe. But if you can't really load more than 8-10 GB samples on any one machine, what is the point of people putting 24 or 32GB into it? Either the 100k limit is perhaps a "per sample engine" thing, or maybe it isn't there on all machines - or people will be thouroughly disappointed when they find out that they CAN'T load all of xxxx or xxxx, despite them having more than enough memory for it.


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## Scrianinoff (Aug 17, 2011)

Here is another thread about VE pro - Play 3 compatibility:
http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/29299.aspx


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

rgames @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > It could be that this problem is related to the issue where PLAY loads everything several times inside Vienna Ensemble. PLAY loads all its patches - then dumps them and reloads them again (memory goes from e.g. 8GB used down to zero, then loads back up again).
> ...



No crashes - memory is fine or it WOULD crash Anyway, your finding about PLAY requiring a hefty memory buffer seems to be right. As I try to trim down my template, the click issues are slowly disappearing. Also I got some "memory low" warnings from PLAY along the way. Even though physical memory usage is only at around 80-85%. So I guess the engine needs some extra memory that isn't really being reserved. How much RAM have you got on that machine and how much is in use? Mine is 16GB and I had 12GB used by PLAY before. Now I am trying to trim that down to around 10. I just wonder if there's an absolute limit around 10 or if more RAM will let you go higher. Seems a bit absurd that you need 16GB to be able to use 10 though.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

BTW now you are here, Nick, I think that the only issue with HS that I would really want to be able to adjust, or wanted you to do, is that the NV samples come out louder than the vibrato ones in the legato programs (LT 12 etc). I know that if you measure them in decibel they might be the same, but they just seem louder due to the nature of them being without vibrato, and it feels unnatural to go from molto vib to NV - they should feel equally loud. It would be a great help if the levels of the NV layers were turned down about 2-3 db as I am sure this would sound more natural and you wouldn't need to adjust the volume as well when you need to go from vibrato to NV/poco vib in a natural sounding way.


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## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

That's the weird thing about available memory, sometimes the app starts dumping data to the page file even when there's free memory available. You can see it happening if you montior the memory usage - as you add patches, it'll increase for a while then you'll see a downward "bump" where it starts dumping physical memory to the cache, so physical memory usage goes down. You have to stop loading samples before it gets to that point.

On my slave, I have 16 GB of RAM and I need to leave 2.0 or 2.5 GB free when loading my Play patches. I'm not sure how much memory Play is using, it says it's using 3611 MB (most of the RAM on that machine is VSL instruments). Take a look at this thread: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtop ... ight=slave There's a link to a screenshot that shows the memory and CPU usage under the benchmark I set up.

When I try to load additional Play patches on the setup shown in the screenshot, the blue line on the "Physical Memory Usage History" plot actually goes down a bit, indicating that it starts dumping memory to the page file even though there's 2.3 GB available. I've never understood why some apps do that, but they do. So you need to watch for it or else you will, indeed, get clicks and pops because it's running off the disk and not RAM.

As I mentioned, consistent with what you said, I think Play needs more RAM wiggle room than other apps. I haven't tried to load more Play patches than what's shown above (too many tracks for me to deal with, anxiously awaiting KS patches...) but I can get a lot more loaded into Kontakt before I start to hit memory limits.

I don't see how Play could be hiding memory somewhere - seems it would have to show up in the used or cached memory. So there's something else going on - for some reason, it seems Play decides to start using the Page File long before it should.

rgames


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## Nick Phoenix (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon, Try loading 180,000 samples into Kontakt. We tried and it does the same thing PLAY does.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

Disregard.


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## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

Please read this:

John G and myself run completely functioning HS / HB rigs on Slave PCs with VEpro
The thing we share in common is that we do NOT run VEpro server...Instead we use VEpro as an ASIO host and run RME cards to our MAC and use MOL for midi....

you might not like this answer but "IT RUNS LIKE BUTTER"

I have 24gig of RAM and am running BOTH HB and HS on SAME PC with circa 150.000++ samples @256 buffer

NO ISSUES...

SvK


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## Jack Weaver (Aug 17, 2011)

Just for the record and as a matter of balance in this part of the discussion, I run a Mac master machine and a PC slave using VE Pro. It hosts both HS & HB. It runs fine. 

Until a month ago I was using ASIO/MoL CP/RME interface between the machines because I was running MIR on the slave as it was required. 

I'm very happy with latency with my present system. I run Logic at 256 and VE Pro with two buffers. Yes, I have an SSD RAID on my slave. It's fast. 

I think everyone's network and rig are a little different from the next guy's down the road. I'm not doing anything special but it seems to work efficiently. I don't think going back to ASIO and audio interfaces is going to happen here again. Perhaps in SvK's case it helped. I don't think it would necessarily in everyone's case. Plus, it's an expensive, time consuming process. However if you feel compelled to go that direction then more power to you. Do be prepared to face hard cold facts that it may, or may not help. 

I just don't want everyone who reads VI-Control Forum to think that they have to run it in ASIO to the very best results. In my book, the jury's still out on this one. VSL contends that VE Pro is faster on a good network than employing ASIO. Maybe they have some insight on this matter. 

.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 17, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Please read this:
> 
> John G and myself run completely functioning HS / HB rigs on Slave PCs with VEpro
> The thing we share in common is that we do NOT run VEpro server...Instead we use VEpro as an ASIO host and run RME cards to our MAC and use MOL for midi....
> ...



Right - and that might be the solution for me at the end. But I am just trying to get this one working first. But 150k samples for both HB and HS sounds like a very small template. I am not loading up much here - about 25 patches and I am reaching 130k+ with HS alone. With one mic, no double bowings or RR's, no "powerful systems" patches etc.


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## JohnG (Aug 17, 2011)

Hi Simon,

150k samples is about what I'm using for HB and HS combined, but on two slave PCs. It's not the World's Biggest Template, but in the "quite large," area, I'd say. If you are loading 150k and it's known to become unstable at about 100k, then I guess that's very possibly the issue?

I'm using VE Pro with PLAY on both Mac and multiple PCs, which, for me, eliminates the likelihood of "some underlying incompatibility between Play 3 and VE Pro." I mixed in Kontakt on some of them and move the Kontakt instances to the bottom of the VE Pro so that Kontakt loads last.

It's also possible that the buffer is set too aggressively. I am using 512 on HS and 256 for HB. I tried lower buffers and had crackles.

My HS template takes up 16.4 GB and uses almost exactly 100k samples.

One slight amendment to SvK's post -- on the Macintosh, I _am_ using the server version of VE Pro. I am having zero problems with integrating it into Digital Performer. However, I'm not taxing it too much; I have Pianos only on the Mac and moved the HB and HS to separate PCs (those are _not_ in server mode).


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## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

Jack,

Vienna are the first to admit that ASIO is faster than ethernet. I f you can handle the double buffer that's fine.

For those who can't cope with that kind of Latency to avoid the rice-crispies ASIO+RME will do it...

That is exactly why VisionDAw build their turnkey solutions for HS / HB that way....

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

Simon my 150+ template is huge....

However I only use Mains on HB
and on HS I use either MID+DivA or MAIN+DivA

that's it,

PS: Simon its crucial to set up PLAY instances in VEpro correctly to not load saqmples twice....In other words make surer to have ALL your 1st violins in 1 PLAY instance, that way the samples won't load twice.

So in VEpro have a sepeate PLAY instance for EACH string group, 1st VI, 2nd VI, VA, CL, BA........so 5 PLAY instances.

best,
SvK


----------



## Jack Weaver (Aug 17, 2011)

SvK,

If memory serves me, recently Karel has said differently - it may have been on a beta forum.

Still, I want to say if it works for you that is great. I'm sure that your system now performs better than it did before. I just don't want people to feel compelled to go this route. It may not be the best for them. 

.


----------



## José Herring (Aug 17, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Jack,
> 
> Vienna are the first to admit that ASIO is faster than ethernet. I f you can handle the double buffer that's fine.
> 
> ...



Glad somebody agrees with me on that. I think with the size of template that Simon is trying to handle, doing audio over LAN would be more trouble than it's worth and would never fully work. The network sends in packets and is prone to a lot of errors that then have to be sent back to get corrected. Those people that rely on that system have more guts than I do.


----------



## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

Im so tired of these threads. Not to sound arrogant but my rig worx and if you replicate my rig it will work for you too....end of story.

The reason I KNOW this to be true is last week I bought a 2nd Slave PC....this time from VisionDAw (for the upcoming winds library)

ON the new Vsion Daw I replicated the specs of my AvA computer but went with an RME instead of the EMU....nevertheless , both sytems are set up VEpro + ASIO +MOL

and they both have REVOdrives (Revo X2 and Revo 3) respectfully

Both sytems kick the shit out of HS+HB with 150.000 +++ samples loaded

best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

josejherring @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Jack,
> ...



Jose is 100% correct.

any route you can think of travelling down to get Mega Huge HS/HB templates working I have taken, and I am sharing the 1 way I've found to get it running super smooth...


best,
SvK


----------



## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Im so tired of these threads. Not to sound arrogant but my rig worx and if you replicate my rig it will work for you too....end of story.


I think one thing that would help is if someone with a Mac would post a couple screenshots showing the performance and setup on the slaves and DAW.

Not everyone can exactly match your system, so having info on how many voices are playing, how your audio/MIDI are set up in the DAW, buffer sizes, RAM usage, CPU usage, etc. is very useful. Such info helps folks to understand where the differences lie and they are better able to debug their systems.

Such an approach is much more helpful than "do this IT ROCKS"...

rgames


----------



## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

rgames...
I have given my entire spec, buffers, system everything, soooooo many times since HS has come out.....

im done,
do a search.

SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

17 quad core 3.x
24 gig RAM
Revodrive x2 or 3
RME Adat card

MOL

256 buffer

MAC Pro intel based quad core or better
soundcard that has ADAT or RME card
16gig RAM or more

Your DAW of choice set to 256 buffer

that's it.

best,
SvK


----------



## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Vienna are the first to admit that ASIO is faster than ethernet.


That's not my recollection. I seem to recall from the very start the VSL said performance over ethernet was much better in terms of both bandwidth and latency. That's been my experience. Such a position also is consistent with what we know about ethernet vis-a-vis audio hardware.

Again, it might be true that YOUR Mac gives worse performance using ethernet, but I bet if you dig a bit deeper you'll find a solution that gives you better performance.

After all, we have one Mac guy saying it's not good and one Mac guy saying it is good. So clearly there's a discrepancy there...

As Jack said, the advantages of the ethernet solution make it *very* attractive. The low latency is great but I particularly like the ability to run hundreds of tracks back into the DAW - it gives you enormous control over individual instruments. I constantly tweak EQ and reverb sends on individual instruments to make them sit better in the mix.

rgames


----------



## SvK (Aug 17, 2011)

Jack is wrong and so are you. I also seem to recall that you do NOT own a mac.


best,
SvK


----------



## rgames (Aug 17, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> 17 quad core 3.x
> 24 gig RAM
> Revodrive x2 or 3
> RME Adat card
> ...



Good info, but you need to provide more info to be helpful. How many tracks are you running off the slave? 1? 100? 1000? What is the CPU and RAM usage while running those 1/100/1000 tracks? How low can you drop the buffer before you get clicks/pops while running those 1/100/1000 tracks?

That's the type of info that people need to know in order to help them out.

You've given details about the system but no details about the performance.

rgames


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 17, 2011)

Jack Weaver @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> SvK,
> 
> If memory serves me, recently Karel has said differently - it may have been on a beta forum.
> 
> ...



Jack, I quoted directly what Karel said earlier in this thread. SvK is correct, according to Vienna.


----------



## AndreasWaldetoft (Aug 17, 2011)

Dont have time to read all of this thread. Im having same problems as Simon and im on PC only and win 7.
I got the support answer from vsl that they are working on it but both they and EW will need to update their software... Not good, as none of them will take the blame for the massive time it takes to load a template. For me 3 hours... if it loads at all. 



Ive tried to reinstall play 2 but it just doest want to uninstall play 3 fully, ive tried everything.


----------



## Dan Mott (Aug 17, 2011)

I get some clicks and pops here and there, then not. I did notice aswell that when I load up my HS template, it loads everything twice.... Is this normal?


----------



## Jack Weaver (Aug 17, 2011)

Jay,

Yes, I see that quote now. So be it. 
My experience is that the latency for me has not noticeably changed since moving away from the ASIO setup with the Logic master and the PC MIR slave. Apparently my network throughput is good here. 


Andreas,

My template on my PC is 24.7GB. It loads into VEP in 11 minutes. It is 95% Play 3 loading large HB and HS instruments. The other 5% is VSL. 

I have an SSD RAID and 48GB of RAM. I'm sure this is why I get this loading speed. There is obviously some issue(s) within your system. 

.


----------



## AndreasWaldetoft (Aug 17, 2011)

Jack, are you loading it through VE pro and through the host, like cubase or logic? Cause it think it all depends on VE- Pro
When i load my whole 32gb template without cubase or any other host except VE-Pro it takes me minutes not hours.


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Aug 17, 2011)

AndreasWaldetoft @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Jack, are you loading it through VE pro and through the host, like cubase or logic? Cause it think it all depends on VE- Pro
> When i load my whole 32gb template without cubase or any other host except VE-Pro it takes me minutes not hours.



Hi Andreas ,

when all VEPRO instances are "de-coupled" within your sequencer you shouldn't have that long loading times.

However , when the VEPRO instances are not decoupled , your sequencer loads and saves not just the VI-frame info ( i.e. _name ; direction, etc._ ), but also the samples you have in those VEPRO instances. This takes ages .

Also : load all PLAY samples first , then other sample engines (Kontakt , VI ).
This helps to get faster loading times , too .


Best 

Gerd


----------



## Gerd Kaeding (Aug 17, 2011)

AndreasWaldetoft @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Ive tried to reinstall play 2 but it just doest want to uninstall play 3 fully, ive tried everything.



Andreas , 

did you try this procedure as described at soundsonline to uninstall PLAY from your PC :

http://www.soundsonline.com/Uninstall-P ... y-PC?sc=11


Best

Gerd


----------



## AndreasWaldetoft (Aug 17, 2011)

Still doesnt help me when I need to load projects pre play 3. Dont get me wrong, the loading and performance i get from play 3 is fantastic when it really works. However in my template it does not.

I have alot of projects which is done pre play 3 that does just take too long of a time


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 18, 2011)

Jack Weaver @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> Jay,
> 
> Yes, I see that quote now. So be it.
> My experience is that the latency for me has not noticeably changed since moving away from the ASIO setup with the Logic master and the PC MIR slave. Apparently my network throughput is good here.
> ...



So it seems about right that you can only fill up half of your memory before you get into trouble? What I found out yesterday was that when PLAY was reading about 8GB loaded, it performed well - if I go higher than that, I begin to get pops and clicks. It seems a bit ridiculous that you need to equip your machine with twice the amount of RAM you are going to use...


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 18, 2011)

rgames @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Vienna are the first to admit that ASIO is faster than ethernet.
> ...



Well as it turns out it isn't an ethernet question (for me). It is an issue with PLAY only being able to use half the memory that your machine holds before it starts getting in trouble. This might be the same with other samplers (not GigaStudio though), I have yet to check that out. However, I know that I have a slave PC that maxes out at 8 GB RAM, and I have filled it with Kontakt samples up to 6-7GB and it DOESN'T give you clicks and pops like that. So again... I think PLAY might be the culprit here, and it's memory management, which I always knew was strange on Mac, but maybe it's the same thing on PC. OR maybe it's only in combination with Vienna that it goes wrong.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 18, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Simon my 150+ template is huge....
> 
> However I only use Mains on HB
> and on HS I use either MID+DivA or MAIN+DivA
> ...



Oh BTW this has nothing to do with the "loading twice" bug. That bug simply reloads all samples in all instances several times. It doesn't take up more memory, it is just annoying.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 18, 2011)

Could someone with a slave PC running Vienna Pro (ASIO or LAN doesn't matter) with, say, 16 og 24 GB RAM, try filling up PLAY instances up to about 70-80% of their memory and see what happens? Because on my end I can only use about 50% of my memory which seems a bit absurd.


----------



## jamwerks (Aug 18, 2011)

Jack Weaver @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> My template on my PC is 24.7GB. It loads into VEP in 11 minutes. It is 95% Play 3 loading large HB and HS instruments. The other 5% is VSL.
> 
> I have an SSD RAID and 48GB of RAM...



Jack, seems that you have a winning set-up. I just received my HS+HB diamond bundle and am planning my setup (Logic).

What are the specs on your PC slave?

Best o-[][]-o


----------



## Jack Weaver (Aug 18, 2011)

Hi jamwerks,

It's a Xeon e5850 12-core. It was kind of a bugger to configure since you have to use a server motherboard and a ton of fans. I went for all this processing power specifically for MIR (works great there). 

Fortunately RAM is somewhat affordable these days. I don't know to what extent I'm down with Simon's reasoning on the 2X RAM necessity for Play3 - even though that is currently the ratio of what I have loaded now. He might be right - I'm just not certain enough to pronounce this. I'll be adding some more to my template as time goes on. I see myself getting into the 30's of GB, probably not into the 40's at any time. So I do guess somewhere inside of me (like Simon) I believe that a bit of overhead is a good thing in your rig. 

If I was doing it anew (and I didn't need MIR) I might go for a fast i7 setup. 

.


----------



## jamwerks (Aug 18, 2011)

Jack Weaver @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> It's a Xeon e5850 12-core.




That’a a monster slave Jack !

I’m thinking of going for a 6-core 24 Ram, with dual ssd’s to run both HS & HB.

Seems that Play has (for now) some issues over networks, and might run better on the same CPU as the DAW, so maybe a 2012 12-core mac for Logic + Play, and all else (Kontakt & VIP) on the slave.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 18, 2011)

jamwerks @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> Jack Weaver @ Thu Aug 18 said:
> 
> 
> > It's a Xeon e5850 12-core.
> ...



Form everything I am hearing, just the opposite. Everything except HS and HB on your Mac and those in VE Pro on a powerful PC slave.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 18, 2011)

Doesn't seem to have issues with network, no - does seem to still have an issue with memory management though.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 18, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ 17th August 2011 said:


> Could someone with a slave PC running Vienna Pro (ASIO or LAN doesn't matter) with, say, 16 og 24 GB RAM, try filling up PLAY instances up to about 70-80% of their memory and see what happens? Because on my end I can only use about 50% of my memory which seems a bit absurd.



Hi Simon -- please check SvK's many detailed posts on this. This ground has already been covered. If you insist on using 150k samples when the developer says it's 100k max, it is nonsense to keep insisting something is wrong with the software. It doesn't have anything to do with the percentage of memory, on a PC.


----------



## José Herring (Aug 18, 2011)

Jack Weaver @ Wed Aug 17 said:


> Jay,
> 
> Yes, I see that quote now. So be it.
> My experience is that the latency for me has not noticeably changed since moving away from the ASIO setup with the Logic master and the PC MIR slave. Apparently my network throughput is good here.
> ...



What network equipment are you using? I often wondered if those 10gigabit switches would make a difference.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 18, 2011)

JohnG @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> Simon Ravn @ 17th August 2011 said:
> 
> 
> > Could someone with a slave PC running Vienna Pro (ASIO or LAN doesn't matter) with, say, 16 og 24 GB RAM, try filling up PLAY instances up to about 70-80% of their memory and see what happens? Because on my end I can only use about 50% of my memory which seems a bit absurd.
> ...



Obviously, you are wrong in assuming that the 100k "limit" is what is causing the memory issues and the clicks/pops, and here's why...

rgames is loading 24 GB of samples, 95% of that is PLAY, he says, onto his machine. So... since I am beyond the 100k samples mark at less than 10GB, obviously he'll be way past it - I bet he has loaded close to 300.000 samples or maybe even more. So... while Nick find that after 100k samples, performance drops (and maybe it does), it is not hindering rgames from having a working PC with more than 200-300.000 samples loaded.

So obviously the memory usage problem has nothing with the 100k "limit" to do. Nor is there a fixed 100k limit that you shouldn't cross.


----------



## Mike Connelly (Aug 18, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> rgames is loading 24 GB of samples, 95% of that is PLAY, he says, onto his machine. So... since I am beyond the 100k samples mark at less than 10GB, obviously he'll be way past it - I bet he has loaded close to 300.000 samples or maybe even more.



Instead of just speculating...Richard, when you have that big template loaded, how many samples is it?


----------



## jamwerks (Aug 18, 2011)

You must mean Jack Weaver’s load being 24gb, 95% of which is Play.

Yes maybe Jack would give all the detail of his Play setup (how many instances of VEP, everything would be of help).

Nick has spoken about a 100k limit, but if I remember correctly, he’s on a 4 core I7 (maybe a 950) while Jack is on a double 6-core I7 (970?)


----------



## SvK (Aug 18, 2011)

Im running 150.000++ samples.

I don't have issues....

24gig RAM 17quad Core 3.06
Revodrive X2

SvK


----------



## rgames (Aug 18, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Thu Aug 18 said:
> 
> 
> > rgames is loading 24 GB of samples, 95% of that is PLAY, he says, onto his machine. So... since I am beyond the 100k samples mark at less than 10GB, obviously he'll be way past it - I bet he has loaded close to 300.000 samples or maybe even more.
> ...



You're thinking of Jack - the other guy from Tucson 

I use only about 4 GB of Play samples from HB. However, I can confirm that Play does behave oddly as far as memory goes. I need to leave more free RAM on the machine that runs HB.

Also, I don't use HS which appears to be more resource hungry.

rgames


----------



## Jack Weaver (Aug 18, 2011)

Actually I have a Xeon rig, not an i7. Not necessarily my first recommendation for everyone. 

Currently I use 10 VEP instances on the slave. 8 for Play 2 for VSL. I have no idea of how many samples I have. 

My apologies that I haven't had much time for forums the past couple of days.

.


----------



## IFM (Aug 18, 2011)

As much as I hopped life with Play would be better after 3 kit clearly sounds like this isn't the case. I'll either have to build a slave that runs HS with Play2 or just start looking for alternatives that run in Kontakt. I wish I had some way to help you Simon...I found on a Mac at least a memory purge helps.

Have you tried loading the template in standalone mode?

Chris


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 19, 2011)

Dragonwind @ Fri Aug 19 said:


> As much as I hopped life with Play would be better after 3 kit clearly sounds like this isn't the case. I'll either have to build a slave that runs HS with Play2 or just start looking for alternatives that run in Kontakt. I wish I had some way to help you Simon...I found on a Mac at least a memory purge helps.
> 
> Have you tried loading the template in standalone mode?
> 
> Chris



I am not using PLAY (much) on Mac - this is on a PC In standalone mode? Nope, can't use that. I want more than one instance and I am running it over network. But that turns out not to be a problem. The problem seems to be with memory usage. So basically, if I want to load 16 GB of samples, I need to buy 32GB of RAM - I guess that's the only guideline for PLAY at the moment... Sucks, yes, but it seems to be a feasable workaround.

EDIT: Just a pity 8GB modules are only available for server mobo's at the moment


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 19, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Aug 18 said:


> Im running 150.000++ samples.
> 
> I don't have issues....
> 
> ...



Fine - but as far as I can tell, you haven't told us how much of those 24GB is in use. What does your PLAY memory reading say? Do you have other samplers but PLAY loaded and how much is the total memory usage then (you can read it off activity monitor)?


----------



## rgames (Aug 19, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Fri Aug 19 said:


> SvK @ Thu Aug 18 said:
> 
> 
> > Im running 150.000++ samples.
> ...



Also, folks need to know how you use the slave. You say you have no issues - no issues doing what? Streaming one stacc patch? Streaming 10 legato patches? Streaming 100 legato patches? How many voices do you use, what is the buffer size where you can't run that many, what is the CPU usage at that buffer size with those voices, etc...

Everyone uses the libraries differently - perhaps your "no issues" threshold doesn't require much of the slave. Someone else's "no issues" threshold might be much higher.

One other memory oddity I noticed yesterday was that after I load my template w/ Play instruments, the available memory slowly starts increasing. I added patches to the point where I had about 1 GB free RAM and over the course of 20 minutes or so that increased to about 2.5 GB of free RAM. Also, I did notice that it does, in fact, load some samples, then unloads them, then loads them again. I never noticed before because I run a template, so I just turn on the slave and wait a few minutes for it to load up. I never actually looked at it while loading.

Also, I get the "low memory" warnings with about 2.5 GB RAM still available, so that's disappointing.

rgames


----------



## SvK (Aug 19, 2011)

No issues running 10+ legato powerful lines playing in addution to staccs, 


As in 10 legato lines from HS playing at once with another 5 to 7 legato patches from HB playing and staccatos ,,,,

Dense Legato Harmonies.
all of this @ a buffer size of 256


I have no issues.
150.000 samples loaded

My template is 19.7 gig large


best,
SvK


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 19, 2011)

SvK @ Fri Aug 19 said:


> No issues running 10+ legato powerful lines playing in addution to staccs,
> 
> 
> As in 10 legato lines from HS playing at once with another 5 to 7 legato patches from HB playing and staccatos ,,,,
> ...



Good, so maybe it's not a percentage overhard, PLAY needs, more like a certain memory space - maybe 5-6 GB, who knows...


----------



## Udo (Aug 19, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Good, so maybe it's not a percentage overhard, PLAY needs, more like a certain memory space - maybe 5-6 GB, who knows...


Mr. EW LURKER (Jay), why haven't you asked EW yet to explain how Play uses RAM??


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 19, 2011)

Udo @ Fri Aug 19 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> 
> 
> > Good, so maybe it's not a percentage overhard, PLAY needs, more like a certain memory space - maybe 5-6 GB, who knows...
> ...



I _have_ and I posted it somewhere.


----------



## Udo (Aug 19, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Udo @ Fri Aug 19 said:
> 
> 
> > Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> ...


Where, I haven't seen it. I haven't had PLAY RAM issues yet, but will be installing HS + HB soon.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 19, 2011)

SvK @ Fri Aug 19 said:


> I have no issues.
> 150.000 samples loaded
> 
> My template is 19.7 gig large
> ...



Ahh... that doesn't add up. Only 150.000 samples - that's not much more than I have loaded when PLAY uses about 8.4GB - so I guess this means that about 10GB of your template is not PLAY...? Because a samples is a sample and should take up the same amount of memory no matter what. Of course there can be minor differences due to scripting and such.

So what is your PLAY memory reading?


----------



## SvK (Aug 19, 2011)

Yes simon its all PLAY:

HS Full template of MAIN mics + Div A

HB Full template MAINS only (no effecty patches)


----------



## SvK (Aug 19, 2011)

PLAY memory is circa 19.5 gig

best,
SvK


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

kb123 @ Fri Aug 19 said:


> Different samples could be hugely different in size



Nope, the preload buffer is always the same...


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Are you sure that is applicable with Play?



Can you give me any reason why it shouldn't be? We can ask EastWest-Lurker... All otger samplers use a specific amount of memory per sample and I am sure PLAY works the same way.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> 
> 
> > kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> ...



Sorry but you are wrong. It would make no sense to have the sample engine use different preload sizes for different patches - MAYBE for some legato transitions, PLAY will load the whole transition into memory, but I don't even think that is the case. Either way, an average template with mixed leg and short notes will take up about the same amount of memory per sample loaded. So I can't see why 150.000 samples would amount to over 19GB of memory used for SvK. Unless we are not on the same page here - the sample count = "steps" shown in the PLAY load bar right...?


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> 
> 
> > kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> ...



No it wasn't it was that the preload size of each sample all had the same size... Of course all samples have different lengths but that's irrelevant sinze they are streamed. 200kb or 2gb - no difference in memory use.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Fri Aug 19 said:
> 
> 
> > Ahh... that doesn't add up. Only 150.000 samples - that's not much more than I have loaded when PLAY uses about 8.4GB - so I guess this means that about 10GB of your template is not PLAY...?* Because a samples is a sample and should take up the same amount of memory no matter what*. Of course there can be minor differences due to scripting and such.
> ...



Yes and what you have highlighted is 100% correct - the same amount of MEMORY - memory is RAM, not harddrive space... 

Yes it is "highly" speculative - because Kontakt, GigaStudio etc. all use a set preload buffer size. So why on earth would PLAY do the same? Sorry I don't want to be rude but it doesn't sound like you know that much about the internals of computers, how they work and what the correct technical terms are - considering that you have mistaken "memory" for "harddrive space", and now this whole preload buffer size discussion. I am fairly well educated in these things and have spent many many years using samplers on PC's so I think my "speculation" is pretty valid.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> 
> 
> > kb123 @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> ...



Well it certainly sounded like you did - because if not, you should realize that I am right - any sample will take up the same amount of RAM, no matter what the size of it on the harddrive is...


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 20, 2011)

If someone wants to distill this disagreement to an intelligible question, I will pass it on.


----------



## rgames (Aug 20, 2011)

There are two questions:

1. What is the preload buffer size in Play?
2. Does it change for different patches?

Simon/SvK - have you monitored the memory usage during and after load? As I mentioned above, I see that Play actually *reduces* its memory usage over time when I really push the memory limits. So it may start off using 7 GB on initial load but over 20 - 30 min that falls to about 4.5 GB.

Maybe SvK's 19 GB is the initial value and Simon's 8.4 GB is the final value. That behavior makes no sense but I have seen it and can repeat it. Again, that only happens when I really push the memory usage. If I leave a lot of wiggle room (2.5 - 3 GB) then it doesn't happen.

Also, I'm loading only about 30,000 samples. So maybe 30k samples needs 3.0 GB of wiggle room but 150k samples need a lot more. I know the Mac guys have seen the need for large amounts of wiggle room.

Regardless, the software does have very odd memory use behavior - I think there's a lot of room for improvement there.

Also, it does make sense that different samples have different amounts of memory usage - the legato samples, for example, need to pre-load not only the initial notes but all transition notes. A stacc patch, e.g., will need to pre-load only the initial note, so the legato patch necessarily pre-loads a lot more sample data.

However, if you guys are both using (mostly) the same patches then I don't see how there could be that much difference. But I don't think I've seen details of what, exactly, you guys have loaded, so it's hard to say.

rgames


----------



## noiseboyuk (Aug 20, 2011)

Good folks, I can't see any benefit of Play 3 for me, indeed its increased my RAM use and I have this double-loading thing in VE Pro. What's the most reliable and problem-free way of rolling back to the last version of Play 2?


----------



## SvK (Aug 20, 2011)

no no no....

My template is 19.7 gig....
It stays right around there sometimes goes up to maybe 19.9 or goes down maybe to 19.5

usually this happens if i save...
That's it. That's where it lives/stays even after keep the rig on for 4 days +++



loading the samples twice is NOT a bug... Its because you're not using ve pro correctly.

1)On your main DAW machine you "save" the sequence/project with every instance of VEpro in a "DECOUPLED" state....

2)NOW next morning.....when you turn on your rig..turn on ALL your slave PCs first and load their respective metaframes FIRST

3)Once they are ALL loaded, go to your DAW machine and only then load your project ...

Now your samples won't load twice....instead the project will magically link to your SLAVE Vepro metaframes

best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 20, 2011)

DECOUPLED explained:

When you do NOT "decouple", everytime you save your sequence, vepro sends a message to all the connected servers telling them to "save" which takes forever.

When you do NOT "decouple" and load up a sequence/project VEpro tells the servers to LOAD their stuff...so if you already loaded those servers it will load them again, hence twice the samples....

Simply remember to engage "DECOUPLE" when you save the project / sequence for the first time, and all will be well in your universe....

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 20, 2011)

THERE IS ONE MORE THING THAT WILL LOAD SAMPLES TWICE:

If you load 2 instruments with shared samples into 2 seperate PLAY instances, the samples will load twice ...

If you load those 2 instruments with shared samples into the SAME PLAY instance they will load once.

best,
SvK


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

SvK @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> DECOUPLED explained:
> 
> When you do NOT "decouple", everytime you save your sequence, vepro sends a message to all the connected servers telling them to "save" which takes forever.
> 
> ...



You are not right. I run everything decoupled and it doesnt make any difference if I start my host software or the slave first - it loads everything twice regardless. I am using VEP right, thank you...


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## IFM (Aug 20, 2011)

SvK,
I have gotten the multiple load on a Mac without anything loading other than VEP...no sequencer running. After the template loaded it immediately loaded it again. This behavior, so far, went away after I again rebuilt the template with the new Play. I had already done this when Play3 came out so perhaps you have to do it every time there's an update? Doing a memory purge after loading also gives me back a ton of free ram but again this is running all on OSX.


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## rgames (Aug 20, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> SvK @ Sat Aug 20 said:
> 
> 
> > DECOUPLED explained:
> ...


Correct - I get the double-load behavior and I run everything decoupled.

However, I don't think my slave loads *everything* twice, just some things. You can see it in the task manager - if you watch it while Play loads, memory use rises, then falls, then rises, then falls, then rises, etc.

rgames


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## JohnG (Aug 20, 2011)

Simon, are you looking for help or just want to insult and contradict those trying to help you?

If you know so much "I am using VEP right, thank you..." then why do you repeatedly contradict those who are not having problems and who have been trying to steer you in the right direction?

From your difficulties, it is obviously, you are in fact doing something wrong / inefficient. SvK has spent a lot of time sorting all these issues through, in detail. If you want help, I suggest you meticulously follow his advice. 

If you are just an angry person who wants to abuse us and EW, that's your affair. I am done trying to help you while you conduct yourself this way.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 20, 2011)

JohnG @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> Simon, are you looking for help or just want to insult and contradict those trying to help you?
> 
> If you know so much "I am using VEP right, thank you..." then why do you repeatedly contradict those who are not having problems and who have been trying to steer you in the right direction?
> 
> ...



What advice? Obviously there is some problem with either Play or a combination of Play and VEP. 

I am just a person hoping to get Play performing decently and use more than 50% of the available RAM without starting to induce clicks and pops. If You can point me to advice that will help me do that I am all ears.


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## rgames (Aug 20, 2011)

JohnG @ Sat Aug 20 said:


> If you are just an angry person who wants to abuse us and EW, that's your affair. I am done trying to help you while you conduct yourself this way.


In fairness to Simon, Steven's comments can come across at worst as condescending and at best as unhelpful. After all, we keep getting told that Play runs "LIKE BUTTER" but, unfortunately, we don't know what "BUTTER" is or how far from "BUTTER" we are. System specs are one thing, but details about patches loaded, CPU usage vs. buffer size, number of simultaneous voices, etc. are much more helpful.

If someone doesn't want to take the time to provide that info, then fine, but when that person keeps jumping in and saying how great his setup is it becomes annoying. Worse yet is when that person starts assumnig that people are doing certain things (like coupling) and that is the cause of their issues. How about asking: are you decoupling? That would be a better approach rather than assuming right off the bat that such is not the case and it is the cause of the problem - don't assume people are doing it the wrong way, ask first. Otherwise, you come across as condescending.

So I can understand Simon's frustration. I am frustrated, too, though less so because I'm using Play a lot less so I can work around its limitations much better. However, I would still like to see the issues resolved because it will improve my workflow. I'm losing about 3 GB of sample space on my slave that has to be made up on my DAW, but the performance is much better if I can get it all on the slave.

rgames


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 20, 2011)

Hmm... I do seem to have read these threads a lot over the years with Play. Person A has a problem, Person B says "it's your fault, it's great on my system, you're doing THIS thing wrong", Person A says "but I'm not doing THAT thing", Person B says "you must be", Person A says "but I am not" etc etc. I've seen it time and again - this has been happening since 0.x. It's hard to escape the conclusion that Play is still a fussy beast. When I see some of the recommended "wow it really flies" configs involving bidule, multiple standalone instances, ADAT lightpipes.... and people wonder why some of us prefer Kontakt libraries and still, despite the great sounds, are avoiding HB and HS?!!!

Meanwhile, anyone able to answer my question about the most sanitary and safest way to roll back to 2.x? It took me so long to get Play working with my existing libraries at all after changing DAWs, I don't want to risk things not working again...


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## SvK (Aug 20, 2011)

My frustration, impatience stems from the fact that I don't understand, why those of you who are struggling with bugs / problems stemming from trying to run PLAY3 + VEpo in server mode.....
( i'll concede that you are coupling / decoupling correctly and that the "twice load bug" is real)

When you could be loving your HS/HB libraries if you used PLAY3 in ASIO mode for now...


It just works.

Best,
SvK


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 21, 2011)

SvK @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> My frustration, impatience stems from the fact that I don't understand, why those of you who are struggling with bugs / problems stemming from trying to run PLAY3 + VEpo in server mode.....
> ( i'll concede that you are coupling / decoupling correctly and that the "twice load bug" is real)
> 
> When you could be loving your HS/HB libraries if you used PLAY3 in ASIO mode for now...
> ...



And how exactly do You know that this is the origin of our problems? I will accept your conclusion if you tried the server option, had the same problems as we are describing, moved to soundcard solution and then those problems were gone.

If not, it could be something Else causing the problems. Personally it would baffle me if Play worked radically different when running on VEP using LAN compared to ASIO - that would seem very illogical from a "how software is working" standpoint so I am not buying it unless you really tried both solutions.


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## synthnut (Aug 21, 2011)

As I said in an earlier thread , I was contemplating getting the combo pack of HS and HB , but these threads keep me further and further away from doing so .....

If I may suggest something that was done years ago with a little program called GigaStudio ....

There were some folks like myself who had good running systems, and there were many who had systems that did NOT run worth a hoot .... Rather than the "you did this " and " but you did that " and playing the blame game , we posted what machines we had, and what components and software we ran , and our settings .... It was am approach that was used to narrow down what may have made Giga run on some machines and not on others .....Start a stickie of who has a good running machine using Play , and list the other software in the machine .....Lord knows that there are plenty of conflicts with various software that just doesn't PLAY well with others .... Mention the relavant points in the working systems such as "couple " " decouple " ..... It may just lead to more good running PLAY computers .... There are so many variables to deal with here, and sometimes you stumble on the right combination .....Maybe this will work , and maybe it won't , but it will at least give some kind of reference to what works , and stop the blame game .....I do understand the tempers flaring ....It was the same way with Giga .....It got to the point where people were pissed that you had a good running system !!..... We're all in this together and should remember that ...... The last 10 years or so of software development , we the public have been nothing more than beta testers on the various software that has come around the pike anyway ....We have to stick together ....Jim


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## hbuus (Aug 21, 2011)

Simon, I think you missed John's point:

If you continue to be so aggressive towards those people that are in fact kindly taking their time to help you, then you may end up in a situation where no-one will help you at all.
Have you ever thought about this?
A little courtesy and a humble attitude goes a long way.

Hope you get your problem fixed.

Henrik


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 21, 2011)

Honestly, I think the only people able to solve this are VSL + EastWest. I know they are reading, so I just hope they are not ignoring it. But the fact that neither Nick or anyone else EW have chimed in with a definite answer to how PLAY handles memory and pre-load buffers, makes me wonder if they are just trying to silence the discussion to death. Or maybe they just don't know for sure themselves.


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## SvK (Aug 21, 2011)

Simon...

I have tried VEpro in server mode extensively....

Thats why i ended up rebuying rme cards....
Because for me the CPU hit on the MaC side was to big....( i however did not have the load twice thing going on..amd i am sorry this happening to you )

i also started out with HS on the MAC and ended up trying to make that rig work by purchasing ueber expensive Hardware RAID cards for it and 4 ssd drives etc......that's how I ended up switching HS / HB over to the Slave PC...

like I said, after 7 months and a whole truckload of money, i arrived at a working, stable solution for big HS / HB templates:

HS/HB + PC I7 + PCIssd + VEP asio

I posted about my experiences extensively so others could avoid my headaches and fruitless results...

only to be told by some how "ethernet audio" 
Is not the problem and i cant possibly be right...or how its not possible that on a MAC the performance is not improved by RAID-0, or how my MAC issues with PLaY3 are imagined...see where I'm going here? 

So yes between your's and Rgames' refusals to accept my advice, my tone did get condescending, frustrated and angry....

Ive have posted so much data on getting big HS / HB templates to work...

Best,
SvK


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 21, 2011)

SvK @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> Simon...
> 
> I have tried VEpro in server mode extensively....
> 
> ...



ASIO might be the best route, I am considering that myself (I still prefer how my GigaStudio PC's behave - no strain on CPU on the host at all - it just works). I am just trying to understand why I get in trouble when I go over 8GB loaded samples on a 16GB equipped PC with PLAY - seems like a pretty steep overhead

But, you are now talking about running PLAY in VEP on a Mac - I am talking about running it on a slave PC (via ethernet). I don't know if you tested that with PLAY 3? Since PLAY 3 is so new I assume you switched to ASIO while still running PLAY 2, and haven't tried PLAY 3 on a VEP slave PC (ethernet).... ? Because experience on Mac and PC is pretty different - and also there's a huge difference between trying to run everything on the same rig or using slaves. So I really think it sounds like we are comparing apples with oranges here.

And sorry, but.. can't you summarize your findings if I am wrong? What I want to know is:

1) On your xx GB machine equipped slave PC running VEP over ethernet, how many GB can you load into PLAY 3 without getting performance problems (? (clicks, pops, dropouts).

2) On your xx GB machine equipped slave PC running VEP over ASIO/MIDI, what is the situation here? You can obviously load more than 19GB onto a 24GB machine now - can you do the same when running ethernet or did you experience problems?

If you haven't tried both scenarios with PLAY 3 - then we can't compare our performance or experience really.


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## SvK (Aug 21, 2011)

simon,

I am simply ticking of all the issues ive had over the past year,that led me to my current system....

After abandoning the Idea of running big HS templates on the MAC, I went with VE pro SERVER mode on a Slave PC.......due to latency / cpu hit issues the final change to that sytem was ASIO....

I was able to run circa 17.5 gig templates on server-mode, but like I said the CPU/latency hit on my DAW machine ( a mac ) was to big, so i tried ASIO and became happy...... 

Best,
SvK


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## Jack Weaver (Aug 21, 2011)

> Thats why i ended up rebuying rme cards....
> Because for me the CPU hit on the MaC side was to big....



That, for me, would be the number one reason to go ASIO when having a Mac Master and a PC Slave.

I don't have the dreaded Double Load. 
SSD's give me the throughput to load quickly and playback all the samples I have needed. 
My latency is acceptable (but better is better - I think Yogi Berra said that first.)

My experience is that when having connected multiple VEP instances on both the Slave and the Master then these contribute heavily to the buildup of Single Core Overload. It really is a Mac/VSL issue. Apple/Logic is the one who should figure this out within their product. Their stated workaround is insufficient. 

So for me, this thread has been helpful. Thanks to all who contributed. 

.


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## rgames (Aug 21, 2011)

SvK @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> the CPU/latency hit on my DAW machine ( a mac ) was to big, so i tried ASIO and became happy......


Steven, as was already pointed out, nobody said you were wrong about that, just that it doesn't make sense. There's some type of issue with VE Pro or Mac OS or Logic because network bandwidth and latency are both much better than what you can get with audio hardware. You can measure it and prove it to yourself.

So, again, nobody said you're wrong about that, just that it doesn't make sense. There's room for someone to do some serious optimizing there because the network hardware is capable of much more than what you can get with a sound card.

Also, I tried loading my Play template in the standalone version of VE Pro and the behavior was the same - it still has the multiple-load problem.

rgames


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## rgames (Aug 21, 2011)

Just as a point of reference, this is what the load looks like on my machine. I have about 8 GB of VSL/Kontakt that loads up then about 5 GB of HB. You can see where HB unloads the samples then re-loads them - VSL and Kontakt do not exhibit that behavior.

Also, note that I finish with about 3 GB RAM still available. If I go beyond that, memory use slowly drops back down to about that level over a period of 20 - 30 minutes. At some point during that time, Play starts to misbehave. So, basically, in order to load 5 GB of Play samples, I need to leave about 3 GB free. I have an identical slave that runs VSL/Kontakt only and I can push it to about 800 MB free without any problems, so the limitation is with Play, not the machine or VE Pro.

Also, I tried this same test with both the server and standalone versions of VE Pro and both behaved the same.

Can someone without the double-load problem post a screenshot of the memory use during your load? Seeing how it goes on a functioning setup might give some insight into where the double-load issue arises. My hunch is that it's related to the issue that prevents us from using more of our free RAM...

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 21, 2011)

rgames @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> SvK @ Sun Aug 21 said:
> 
> 
> > the CPU/latency hit on my DAW machine ( a mac ) was to big, so i tried ASIO and became happy......
> ...



The only thing that really matters on the subject howeveer is what Vienna says, not what you think it should be:

Karel says: _"The reality is that if you have favorable networking conditions (great network cards, smooth and lean system with well behaved drivers), you will have a performance in line with what you get from a good soundcard and MidiOverLan/physical midi. In reality you will notice it is very hard to come down to the latency offered by VEPro with a hardware setup, especially if you want ot mix "in the box" on your host."
_

As always, there are 2 ways to deal with software, as you think it should work or as it actually does work.

I recommend the second choice. 

And btw, if you are loading Kontakt instances in the same m-frame as Play instances and using Kontakt's memory server, you need to load the Play stuff first.


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## rgames (Aug 21, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> Karel says: _"The reality is that if you have favorable networking conditions (great network cards, smooth and lean system with well behaved drivers), you will have a performance in line with what you get from a good soundcard and MidiOverLan/physical midi. In reality you will notice it is very hard to come down to the latency offered by VEPro with a hardware setup, especially if you want ot mix "in the box" on your host."
> _



Yes, I saw that quote, but it is ambiguous: the second sentence seems to say the same thing I'm saying: i.e. it's hard to match the latency offered by VE Pro (over network) when using audio hardware. You could also interpret it to mean what you are saying.

Regardless, here are a couple facts:

1. Gigabit ethernet has bandwidth equivalent to 450+ audio tracks at 24/44.1 (theoretically it's about 473 but you'll always lose some bandwidth to overhead).

2. Typical ethernet LAN's have a latency around 0.2 milliseconds (equivalent to a buffer of about 8 samples at 44.1 kHz)

It's easy to measure both of these and verify for yourself.

So, what audio interface uses a buffer of 8 samples and handles 450 tracks?

See where I'm coming from?

Again, neither of these facts means you or Steven or anyone else is wrong about your observations. However, it makes it pretty clear that there's serious room for improvement in the software and/or OS if you can't do 10x the latency and 1/10th the bandwitdh (which is basically what the best audio hardware does - slightly worse, actually).

Also, as I mentioned, I did see a big improvement in performance when I switched from audio hardware to ethernet. Yes, I'm not using a Mac, but that also lends credence to the idea that, at the hardware level, the potential performance gains are there (because the hardware is basically the same on Mac and PC). So, again, there's room for improvement on the software side.

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 21, 2011)

It isn't ambiguous to me Richard. It is saying that under absolutely ideal circumstances a network based setup could almost match what is possible with a good audio card and Midioverlan.

And once again, I could not care less whether or not "there's serious room for improvement in the software and/or OS" or "potential performance gains." 

I deal with things as they are. So if I get a decent paying project and buy a slave PC, I will simply take the word of SvK and John G., who have tried this both ways and save myself time and aggravation.


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## rgames (Aug 21, 2011)

Ok Jay - again, nobody is saying you're wrong. I just can't explain it and I haven't seen anyone else explain it.

My curiosity requires more 

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 21, 2011)

rgames @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> Ok Jay - again, nobody is saying you're wrong. I just can't explain it and I haven't seen anyone else explain it.
> 
> My curiosity requires more
> 
> rgames



It isn't a matter of ME being right or wrong. I don't have a PC or even a second Mac to test it out. I am just relying on what Vienna and guys who have done extensive testing tell me. My curiosity requires no more 

I'd much rather spend my time composing than worrying about that kind of thing.


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## rgames (Aug 21, 2011)

Yes, I have the luxury of plenty of time to ponder things like this. And politics.

Which is why whenever I render an opinion on either, everyone should listen and agree 

rgames


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## Christian Marcussen (Aug 21, 2011)

rgames @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> Yes, I have the luxury of plenty of time to ponder things like this. And politics.
> 
> Which is why whenever I render an opinion on either, everyone should listen and agree
> 
> rgames



Agreed.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 22, 2011)

SvK @ Sun Aug 21 said:


> simon,
> 
> I am simply ticking of all the issues ive had over the past year,that led me to my current system....
> 
> ...



OK fair enough - but I am not having CPU hit issues or latency issues. What I am experiencing is that PLAY "falls apart" when I go above about 8GB memory use. Below that, all seems pretty well. So to say that going to ASIO would solve MY problem is not well founded. I could give it a shot, but it might turn out to give me the exact same performance problems and the only thing I gained was a small hole in my pocket...


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## rgames (Aug 22, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> OK fair enough - but I am not having CPU hit issues or latency issues. What I am experiencing is that PLAY "falls apart" when I go above about 8GB memory use. Below that, all seems pretty well. So to say that going to ASIO would solve MY problem is not well founded. I could give it a shot, but it might turn out to give me the exact same performance problems and the only thing I gained was a small hole in my pocket...



My hunch is that it's all related to the weird memory behavior, which is the same whether you're running w/ audio hardware or ethernet.

Maybe Play *thinks* it's running out of memory and starts dumping samples to the page file. That would explain why Play "falls apart" even when there's plenty of RAM available.

rgames


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 22, 2011)

rgames @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Mon Aug 22 said:
> 
> 
> > OK fair enough - but I am not having CPU hit issues or latency issues. What I am experiencing is that PLAY "falls apart" when I go above about 8GB memory use. Below that, all seems pretty well. So to say that going to ASIO would solve MY problem is not well founded. I could give it a shot, but it might turn out to give me the exact same performance problems and the only thing I gained was a small hole in my pocket...
> ...



Which does not explain why it is not "falling apart' for SvK, John G. and other users.

I am not doubting what Simon is reporting but when it happens to some but not to others it gets hard to know what is going on.


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## SvK (Aug 22, 2011)

For 60 bucks an hour Vision DAW will remotely log on to your Audio PCs and configure every tweek known to man

They are THE company for hollywood composer PCs

Visiondaw.com

Best,
SvK

Ps: john g and i use them.
They were alsomtesters form EW on HS and HW
They build turnkey solutions foe HS and HB as well.

I bet theyncan solve your memory bug remotely.

Best,
SvK


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## rgames (Aug 22, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Which does not explain why it is not "falling apart' for SvK, John G. and other users.


Correct, but have you seen screenshots of memory/CPU use during load and playback on a fully functioning machine? And what of the questions you were directing to EW?

So, again, we don't have anything to compare to - we're still searching for that ever-elusive "BUTTER"... I searched for the "LIKE BUTTER" button in my copy of Play and I can't find it. Maybe I didn't download the "LIKE BUTTER" version. I'll check the website...

These repeated comments of "it works for me" are not very helpful and, as I already said, are actually quite annoying. Do you go into an oncologist's office and shout "I don't have cancer! Sucks to be you!"

What good does that do?

If you have some meaningful information to add, please do. But it's not very helpful when you continue to remind us that it sucks to be us and others are much better off.

rgames


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## Mike Connelly (Aug 22, 2011)

Just for the sake of troubleshooting, do the issues with server mode that are fine in ASIO show up with Kontakt and other plugins/libraries, or just PLAY? Seems like that would give some idea if that mode is totally unworkable or if it might be a compatibility issue between PLAY and VEP that could potentially be fixed.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 22, 2011)

Just tried something else.

On the 16GB machine with PLAY saying 8500 MB loaded, which works without too many clicks and pops (but still some, and some notes don't get triggered right/are missing), I loaded my full template of another library on top of that in Kontakt (still inside VEP), maxing out my used physical memory at around 14,5GB out of the 16GB.

Guess what - the Kontakt programs with a preload buffer of 18KB per sample play back almost 100% fine, save the occassional glitch. The PLAY instruments are having a lot of trouble though. Not as bad as when I loaded 85% of the 16GB with PLAY instruments, but still simply triggering a staccato sample causes hickups. It is pretty clear to me that there is something fishy going on between PLAY and VEP, or just with PLAY in general. My SPECULATION is that PLAY uses a much bigger preload buffer (I think 64kb, but it could be 32) than I am using with Kontakt, and still it is having massive problems. That doesn't make sense. So something funny must be going on here.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 22, 2011)

rgames @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Mon Aug 22 said:
> 
> 
> > OK fair enough - but I am not having CPU hit issues or latency issues. What I am experiencing is that PLAY "falls apart" when I go above about 8GB memory use. Below that, all seems pretty well. So to say that going to ASIO would solve MY problem is not well founded. I could give it a shot, but it might turn out to give me the exact same performance problems and the only thing I gained was a small hole in my pocket...
> ...



That seems to make sense. Also, unloading an instance of VEP with PLAY takes FOREVER. I just tried deleting one instance of Kontakt - instant. Then I deleted one instance of PLAY, with a modest (around 14) number of patches loaded - that took about 70 seconds! 

When you delete an instance, you can see memory use is actually INCREASING (I open the Resource Monitor and look under Memory) for the first long time, then it starts giving back memory to the system. Funky!

However, I am not so sure about the swapping going on, after doing some number tests.

1) I add one instance to a fresh VEP server on the slave machine.

Readings in Resource Monitor:
*In Use: 1304 MB, Standby: 204 MB, Free 14537 MB.*

2) I load up one instance of Kontakt with 16 string patches, some sustains with 12 layers + RT, some staccs.

Resource Monitor says:
*In Use: 2543 MB, Standby: 2466 MB, Free: 11280 MB*

3) I try the same thing with one instance of PLAY with a combinations of sustains and staccs, not any "powerful system" patches.

Now PLAY loads up the patches 1st time, and towards the end the readings are:
*In Use: 5400 , Standby: 7500 MB , Free: 1500 MB*

4) PLAY then dumps the memory to this reading:
*In Use: 3900 MB, Standby: 8700 MB, Free: 2100 MB*

... and starts loading again (samples are now somewhere cached and loading is really quick).

Resource Monitor says:
*In Use: 6327 MB, Standby: 8984, Free: 918 MB*

I think it's safe to say that PLAY at least handles memory VERY differently from Kontakt, at least in connection with VEP. When I loaded 1239 MB into Kontakt "Free Memory" goes down about 2900 MB. When I load 3784 MB into PLAY, "Free Memory" goes down *9180 MB*!

The factor is about the same here (factor of three), so to find out if that was relevant or not, I loaded up 4 instances of Kontakt that took up 4333 MB - that brought down Free Memory by *11469 MB*! So it seems this is not important to the performance.

Now… I gave it a try in PLAY standalone as well, just to get some numbers from there.

Before:
*In Use: 1304 MB, Standby: 204 MB, Free: 14537 MB.*

I loaded up a bunch of violins patches.

After:
*In Use: 3610 MB, Standby: 4297 MB, Free: 8319 MB.*

In Use went up 2306 MB, Free went down 6218 MB - a factor of three almost. Same thing as in VEP, same thing with Kontakt.


So… I can't conclude anything from this really, the numbers look pretty much the same when I use PLAY as when I use Kontakt. However, performance isn't the same. It is clear that something funky is going on regarding memory allocation in PLAY. Also, I can load up Kontakt samples until my physical memory is pretty much 100% full and playback is still without any problems.


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## Mike Connelly (Aug 22, 2011)

When you load up PLAY in standalone on PC, do you get the crackles and glitches when playing them?


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## Gusfmm (Aug 22, 2011)

Simon,

What you just posted is very clear and probably helpful. 

A couple of thoughts:

a) You're seeing a factor of three between used/reserved memory. Maybe this is some sort of allocation for Play to be ready to load the (two?) other mic positions more efficiently, same instruments, same articulations.

b) I remember Nick P. has always mentioned the need to load Play first to any other engine. He's also mentioned this practice of memory allocation, typical of Kontakt, for instance. So can't help but wonder if loading order in your case may be a factor to research into.

c) Since your main issue has always been clicks & pops, ......... just read Mike's comment above, fast poster ....... I was heading in the same direction, so your addressing that will help.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 22, 2011)

rgames @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Aug 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Which does not explain why it is not "falling apart' for SvK, John G. and other users.
> ...



Well, an oncologist generally cannot tell someone why they contracted cancer when a person with a less healthy lifestyle has not other than "it sucks to be you" so that does not help your point 

It seems to me that SvK been pretty specific throughout several threads about what he is running that runs "LIKE BUTTER" and basically for him it has been no good deed goes unpunished.

As soon as I have some specific answers from EW, which obviously I could not get over the weekend, I will post them.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 22, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Simon,
> 
> What you just posted is very clear and probably helpful.
> 
> ...



Nope - as I write in the thread, it is the same with Kontakt - so that is not the culprit. I have no idea what is going on really - I think only the people behind PLAY can fix this, if this is a universal problem. Maybe it is only a problem inside VEP.



> b) I remember Nick P. has always mentioned the need to load Play first to any other engine. He's also mentioned this practice of memory allocation, typical of Kontakt, for instance. So can't help but wonder if loading order in your case may be a factor to research into.



If you read what I wrote, I am loading PLAY first - and even then PLAY isn't running too well, and I can only fill about 50-60% of my memory. For test purposes, I then loaded Kontakt on top of that - which ran perfectly well.



> c) Since your main issue has always been clicks & pops, ......... just read Mike's comment above, fast poster ....... I was heading in the same direction, so your addressing that will help.



Mike's question must be for SvK - I don't have a chance to test ASIO performance on that machine since there is no soundcard in it.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 22, 2011)

Simon Ravn said:


> If you read what I wrote, I am loading PLAY first - and even then PLAY isn't running too well, and I can only fill about 50-60% of my memory. For test purposes, I then loaded Kontakt on top of that - which ran perfectly well.



Well, this's been a long tread, with a lot of unnecessary baggage in between facts, so my apologies if I missed an earlier detail. But I was going by what you described in your last post and it sounded to me you loaded Kontakt before Play, thus my note.

I know you said you're very well versed with MAC's and PC's, so this is just for my own benefit... couple of questions:
- What kind of drive(s) are you running HS from on your slave?
- From you very first post, I assume you're running Win7 x64 SP1, right?
- What motherboard do you use on your slave?

From the parallel tread on *VSL's*, it seems that a few other folks are reporting having no issues with Play3 stand-alone, just when used along with VEP. I'm curious to hear any word from VSL on this. 
(*Disclosure:* I do own VSL products, I do not represent or have received free products from any manufacturer)



Simon Ravn said:


> Gusfmm said:
> 
> 
> > c) Since your main issue has always been clicks & pops, ......... just read Mike's comment above, fast poster ....... I was heading in the same direction, so your addressing that will help.
> ...



Good call, I missed that. Steven doesn't have any issues with his rig though, so not a question for him either.


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## germancomponist (Aug 22, 2011)

Wasn`t the hardware time a good time?


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## Gusfmm (Aug 22, 2011)

One more thing, I'm not sure if clicks/pops are still your main concern as at some point through the tread you said you'd managed to reduce or eliminate most. Lately, the question to me has somewhat changed to whether Play is double/triple/4-5 times loading samples. In any event, would you be able to determine at what point in your memory usage, a single instance of Play3 hosted in VEP on your slave, would start presenting clicks/pops? Since you also looked into # samples a few days ago, and Nick P. et. al. have indicated their findings of such empirical 100k samples threshold, it'd be interesting to consider that in your testing. (I'm aware at some point in your past testing you quite passed the 100k, and sounded convinced this was not an issue, but there was no further follow-up on that).


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 22, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Simon Ravn said:
> 
> 
> > If you read what I wrote, I am loading PLAY first - and even then PLAY isn't running too well, and I can only fill about 50-60% of my memory. For test purposes, I then loaded Kontakt on top of that - which ran perfectly well.
> ...



One Samsung Spinpoint or a WD Caviar Black (don't really remember which) + a Crucial C300 SSD.



> - From you very first post, I assume you're running Win7 x64 SP1, right?


It is Win7 x64, not sure if I have SP1 though, but I could check up on that. I think so.



> - What motherboard do you use on your slave?



The machine is a Shuttle SH67H7 - their own motherboard.



> From the parallel tread on *VSL's*, it seems that a few other folks are reporting having no issues with Play3 stand-alone, just when used along with VEP. I'm curious to hear any word from VSL on this.
> (*Disclosure:* I do own VSL products, I do not represent or have received free products from any manufacturer)
> 
> 
> ...



Well SvK reported he had trouble running VEP as an ethernet slave, and that it runs fine with ASIO - so I think the question was for him, since he could tell us if he had the same problems with Kontakt as he had with PLAY.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 22, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> One more thing, I'm not sure if clicks/pops are still your main concern as at some point through the tread you said you'd managed to reduce or eliminate most. Lately, the question to me has somewhat changed to whether Play is double/triple/4-5 times loading samples. In any event, would you be able to determine at what point in your memory usage, a single instance of Play3 hosted in VEP on your slave, would start presenting clicks/pops? Since you also looked into # samples a few days ago, and Nick P. et. al. have indicated their findings of such empirical 100k samples threshold, it'd be interesting to consider that in your testing. (I'm aware at some point in your past testing you quite passed the 100k, and sounded convinced this was not an issue, but there was no further follow-up on that).



The only way I was able to reduce the clicks was by offloading some of the patches to reduce memory load. PLAY is loading everything several times, but not using more memory in doing so, as far as I can tell. That is just an annoyance but I don't think it is the heart of the problem.

It doesn't matter if it is a single or several instances. The clicks/pops start and increase depending on how much memory PLAY is using.

Regarding the 100k limit, SvK is waaaay over that and he has no problems. So I don't think that is it either. Nothing magical happens at 100.000 samples. One thing in that discussion I am not 100% clear about is whether the "steps" that PLAY shows while loading equals "number of samples" - but I guess it does since Nick hasn't said otherwise. So when PLAY is reading about 8500 MB (and task manager is reading about 11GB), I have about 130.000 samples loaded. So SvK must have much more than that.


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## rgames (Aug 22, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> One more thing, I'm not sure if clicks/pops are still your main concern as at some point through the tread you said you'd managed to reduce or eliminate most. Lately, the question to me has somewhat changed to whether Play is double/triple/4-5 times loading samples. In any event, would you be able to determine at what point in your memory usage, a single instance of Play3 hosted in VEP on your slave, would start presenting clicks/pops? Since you also looked into # samples a few days ago, and Nick P. et. al. have indicated their findings of such empirical 100k samples threshold, it'd be interesting to consider that in your testing. (I'm aware at some point in your past testing you quite passed the 100k, and sounded convinced this was not an issue, but there was no further follow-up on that).


The clicks and pops only start when the memory use goes up. I'm using only about 5 GB of Play samples and need to leave about 3 GB free in order to get good performance.

As long as I leave that extra RAM unused it works like a charm. The issue is being able to use all available RAM.

As I mentioned elsewhere, Play acts like it thinks it's out of RAM and starts using the page file. This behavior is the same whether you load Play first or last - see the plot I posted earlier: it looks the same whether I load play first or last and it looks the same for both ethernet and audio hardware setups. I'm still hopeful that someone with a working setup will post h similar plot so we can see where the differences are...


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## SvK (Aug 22, 2011)

Simon

My slave PC performs one task only. It runs PLAY3 versions of HS / HB within ASIO VEpro...

There is NO Kontakt
There are NO plugins of any sort

Nada..

JUst VERpro ASIO and HS / HB via PLAY3

best,
SvK


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## Gusfmm (Aug 22, 2011)

Simon,

Your slave does seem to have an integrated soundcard as most recent ones do. It maybe worth trying that ASIO driver to test Play3 directly on your slave, and see if you can replicate the issues.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 22, 2011)

rgames @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> The clicks and pops only start when the memory use goes up. I'm using only about 5 GB of Play samples and need to leave about 3 GB free in order to get good performance.
> 
> As long as I leave that extra RAM unused it works like a charm. The issue is being able to use all available RAM.
> 
> As I mentioned elsewhere, Play acts like it thinks it's out of RAM and starts using the page file. This behavior is the same whether you load Play first or last - see the plot I posted earlier: it looks the same whether I load play first or last and it looks the same for both ethernet and audio hardware setups. I'm still hopeful that someone with a working setup will post h similar plot so we can see where the differences are...



Understood Richard. 

Just one clarification- Play3 doesn't 'start using the page file', Windows manages that at a low kernel level for all memory services/software. 

Could you check the size of your page file, and where it is hosted? Is it your main system drive (most likely)? Is your system drive a fast SSD? If so, I'd tend to think that the possibility of issues even in the event of Windows paging to disk should be relatively much smaller than if your drive were a mechanical. 

Your graph is great, and from looking at it again I still get the impression that Play3 seems to be creating three memory allocations, probably on purpose. 

In that regard, whatever you're loading on Play3, is it just one mic or two/three? If just one, could you try loading two mics and tracking the memory usage again? Sorry I can't try all this from my end...


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## rgames (Aug 22, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Just one clarification- Play3 doesn't 'start using the page file', Windows manages that at a low kernel level for all memory services/software.
> 
> Could you check the size of your page file, and where it is hosted? Is it your main system drive (most likely)? Is your system drive a fast SSD? If so, I'd tend to think that the possibility of issues even in the event of Windows paging to disk should be relatively much smaller than if your drive were a mechanical.


My page file is on a separate partiton on my system drive (HDD, not SSD). All my Play samples are on 2xSSD's that bench at about 550 MB/s each.

Understood about Windows managing the page file - but I think the app can affect that behavior, not sure though...

I am loading only one mic position (Main).

When I look at the memory allocation during sample load, it seems like Play loads up some samples, then says "crap, I'm running out of memory, let me unload." Then it says "No wait - I'm OK - let me load some more." Then it repeats that process. My guess is that during that process, there are chunks of memory that get obligated to samples that aren't actually loaded. It seems that if that were the case that those "phantom samples" would show up as allocated and available memory would drop, but that doesn't happen. Can't explain that one.

However, I know that windows uses a prioritized memory cache (that's why "Available" memory can be large when "Free" memory is zero), and those "phantom samples" might be given the highest priority in the cache. That would result in that memory being unused because the OS thinks something is going to re-allcoate the memory to those samples. So even though that memory is actually available, it might not load additional samples into those memory addresses. Instead, it goes to the swap file and the phantom memory remains unused. And, of course, when you try to run the samples out of the swap file instead of physical RAM, you get pops and clicks.

I have no idea if that's what's actually happening but it is an exlpanation that matches the observations.

Is there any way to tell how much swap file memory is allocated to Play?

Again, it would be great if someone with a functioning system could post a similar plot of memory use during their loads...

rgames


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## DDK (Aug 22, 2011)

I am also having similar problems as Simon

Has anyone here gone from VE-PRO to stand alone VE-PRO ASIO

I am thinking of doing it because I find that the latency when playing in
parts using VE-PRO to be pretty bad. I know if you are on Logic it is better
but I am using Cubase

It is a hard to go back, because I do like the ease of use of Ethernet audio from slaves


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## José Herring (Aug 22, 2011)

eclipse @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> I am also having similar problems as Simon
> 
> Has anyone here gone from VE-PRO to stand alone VE-PRO ASIO
> 
> ...



Hard to go back but well worth it in my opinion. I've never gotten ethernet audio to work well without some snap crackle and pop and I can't imagine trying to put up a huge template and trying to get it to work over ethernet consistently. I have gotten it to work really well on the same machine using the network loop back protocol. That's working well with Kontakt.

I was at a VEPro seminar run by the guys at Vienna and he had his slave set to 2 buffers over ethernet. I figured if that's the best the designers of the software can do then I won't fair any better. And, I didn't.

Honestly the most stable snap crack pop free low latency performance is with standalone. And if you use Cubase then it works 90% like a plugin even when running it externally. The only thing you'll miss is faster than real time bouncing. And since most people have to decouple VEPro anyway then you even have to save VEPro separately. For Cubase users running VEPro over ethernet is only marginally more convenient. Running it standalone, your VEPro will work "like butter". :lol: 

Jose


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## rgames (Aug 22, 2011)

josejherring @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Hard to go back but well worth it in my opinion. I've never gotten ethernet audio to work well without some snap crackle and pop and I can't imagine trying to put up a huge template and trying to get it to work over ethernet consistently.


My experience is 100% opposite Jose's experience 

When I switched from ASIO to ethernet several years ago, I got much better performance (lower latency and higher bandwidth with ethernet). I currently run my DAW at 128 samples w/ 1 buffer to the slaves. I have about 75 stereo pairs coming back into the DAW from VE pro over ethernet.

I have documented this performance here: 

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22055

and here:

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22511

Obviously the smart thing to do is to try both approaches and see which works best in your setup.

If you do, please share the details of your experience. I haven't tried the ASIO route in several years and am curious if I might actually do better that way.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any details of performance comparisons using current hardware.

rgames


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## rgames (Aug 22, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> It seems to me that SvK been pretty specific throughout several threads about what he is running that runs "LIKE BUTTER" and basically for him it has been no good deed goes unpunished.


Jay, we all appreciate the help from all who have provided information. However. several specific questions have been posted several times and remain unanswered.

Again, of course nobody is obligated to do anything to provide additional info. But it sure would help. Actually, maybe not, but at least it *might* help.

So yes, some good info provided. But not yet enough for us to make sense of what's going on. Rather than assuming that we don't know what we're doing and offering proclamations of what the problems are, a better approach would be to work with us and respond to what we're asking, or offer a solid explanation of why what we're asking makes no sense, not just a statement that some smart guy says that's how it is. We're smart, too; explain it to us - that approach is much more likely to yield good results because several minds thinking together often reach an understanding faster than one mind working alone.

rgames


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 23, 2011)

Guys, I just realized that me may be comparing the wrong figures here.

When I said PLAY was using 8GB of my 16GB, I was reading of PLAY's GUI - but PLAY seems to only show the raw loaded sample material, not how much memory is used in total. So on my side, Task Manager is showing about 11 GB used before things get problematic. That's 11GB out of about 15, which is far from the 50% overhead I have been talking about. So essentially I was wrong about that.

So what numbers are you referring to, SvK and rgames? Let's at least agree on reading off Activity Monitor if we hadn't already, since that is a more real comparison. SvK's reading of 19GB out of 24GB would make more sense that way too. Wouldn't be too far from my experience, really. Except I still have some problems with missing notes and clicks and pops at 11GB. I could test and see when the clicks and pops start to be more prominent.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 23, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> Simon,
> 
> Your slave does seem to have an integrated soundcard as most recent ones do. It maybe worth trying that ASIO driver to test Play3 directly on your slave, and see if you can replicate the issues.



Would be rather cumbersome since I don't have any cables to make the connection etc., and ASIO rarely works very well on built-in soundcards. So I don't think that would help me to find out whether this was the solution. But I might end up getting a soundcard for at at some point anyway, since I don't like the stress it puts on the host, to deal with all those slaves.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 23, 2011)

rgames @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> josejherring @ Mon Aug 22 said:
> 
> 
> > Hard to go back but well worth it in my opinion. I've never gotten ethernet audio to work well without some snap crackle and pop and I can't imagine trying to put up a huge template and trying to get it to work over ethernet consistently.
> ...



That might be true, but aren't you forgetting that your host is also using a lot of energy (CPU) playing back the stuff on your slaves? At least I can see that Logic is using a lot of CPU and getting occassional spikes (and even playback stops) when dealing with some/many channels of playback on one/two VEP slaves. That will never happen if you have a soundcard on your slave, here the stress on your host is close to zero CPU - everything is handled by the soundcard and the PCI bus.

I haven't dont a big arrangement involving my two VEP slaves yet, but considering that I have seen playback stops when just using 5-10 patches, I can only fear what will happen if I get into a heavy arrangement... My buffer is at 256 and I would be reluctant to up it to 512 since it will induce too much latency for comfortable playing.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 23, 2011)

Incidentally, that applies to Kontakt too. I think many of us make the mistake of reading the figures on the plugin and think that's all the RAM its using - in both cases it only shows the RAM used in the samples. As I discovered, if you're on low preload buffers in Kontakt, the instrument itself typically uses around 4x that quoted RAM. You don't have that preload buffer option in Play, an extra 25-33% sounds about on a par with the Kontakt defaults I think.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 23, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> Incidentally, that applies to Kontakt too. I think many of us make the mistake of reading the figures on the plugin and think that's all the RAM its using - in both cases it only shows the RAM used in the samples. As I discovered, if you're on low preload buffers in Kontakt, the instrument itself typically uses around 4x that quoted RAM. You don't have that preload buffer option in Play, an extra 25-33% sounds about on a par with the Kontakt defaults I think.



Yes, but preload buffers are allocated by the plugin too. Which is also why 8GB samples uses 11GB RAM (or so, I dont have the exact figures now). But PLAY is still wasting 3-4GB RAM and it begins giving me serious problems around this point. And it stars doing (pretty often) clicks/missed notes way before that.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> Would be rather cumbersome since I don't have any cables to make the connection etc., and ASIO rarely works very well on built-in soundcards. So I don't think that would help me to find out whether this was the solution. But I might end up getting a soundcard for at at some point anyway, since I don't like the stress it puts on the host, to deal with all those slaves.



Not sure whether you're speaking out of past personal experience. These consumer built-in audio solutions do not definitely offer high-end A/D/A's, so sound may not be as pristine, but they definitely work. There is a reason why Intel, for instance, packs them into their own motherboards. Not what I use for my studio audio, but I've tried several times my Intel X58 board's Realtek ASIO, w/o noticeable issues. 

If you what to try to rule out whether it is Play3 or VEPro that are causing the crackling and popping, I'd definitely suggest you try this. In the end, all you simply need is some headphones... you got to have some around.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

eclipse @ Mon Aug 22 said:


> I am also having similar problems as Simon
> 
> Has anyone here gone from VE-PRO to stand alone VE-PRO ASIO
> 
> ...



Just from this tread, Steven and JohnG both use VEP w/ ASIO, and Play3 w/ HS. Apparently, no issues there. Reason why I think it's worthwhile for others to try it that way as well.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 23, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> Yes, but preload buffers are allocated by the plugin too. Which is also why 8GB samples uses 11GB RAM (or so, I dont have the exact figures now). But PLAY is still wasting 3-4GB RAM and it begins giving me serious problems around this point. And it stars doing (pretty often) clicks/missed notes way before that.



No, I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. 8GB is used by the actual samples, Play needs another 3GB to do its business with all that lot. The point is that Kontakt here is exactly the same - if you're on normal preload buffers IN KONTAKT you'll find an additional 25-33% that is used by the sampler itself above what it reports. That's normal - I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Play to eliminate that 3GB! I'd expect that overhead in Kontakt too.

So the next question is - is the remaining 5GB really free or is it used by other apps?


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

rgames said:


> My page file is on a separate partiton on my system drive (HDD, not SSD). All my Play samples are on 2xSSD's that bench at about 550 MB/s each.
> 
> Understood about Windows managing the page file - but I think the app can affect that behavior, not sure though...
> 
> ...


It's been quite a while, and things might have slightly changed with Vista/7, but applications "reserve" memory, the OS manages the actual memory allocation/virtualization. What I think Play3/HS probably does is reserve/commit to a certain amount of memory, probably a good chunk of it, to try to have the best chance at allocating actual physical (fast) memory, and not page'd (disk) memory, thus Doug/Nick recommendation to load Play3 first, and also possibly devote a slave to running only HS, being such a memory hogger.

That's why I was curious about loading two mic positions, as opposed to just one. How would your memory log change in that case?



rgames said:


> Is there any way to tell how much swap file memory is allocated to Play?
> rgames



I'm on an XP machine right now, not 100% sure on Win7, but don't believe so. However, on Win7, try Resmon.exe. Maybe you've used it already. You can see a good amount of detail there.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

By the way, I did track Play3's memory usage yesterday with SC/VotA, using a full VotA male/female choir. I forget exactly, but around 1GB worth of memory allocated. I did not see any double/triple loading at all. No resemblance to your HS graph Rich. So feel strongly that what you're seeing is very particular to HS and not a Play3 issue. It's probably a memory allocation strategy Eastwest decided to program into HS. Again, just as Nick mentioned Kontakt pre-reserves addtl' memory for future potential use.


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## rgames (Aug 23, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> That might be true, but aren't you forgetting that your host is also using a lot of energy (CPU) playing back the stuff on your slaves?


CPU use on my DAW is about 15% - 20% and is basically independent of how many tracks are running. That's with a buffer of 128 and 1 buffer through VE Pro. My standard setup has 6 instances of convo reverb (Waves IR1) and maybe 15 - 20 plugins across the 75 stereo pairs coming back in to the DAW.

However, when I add a bunch of Play samples on my local machine, that goes up to about 30% - 35%. That's why I'm very interested in being able to use the extra 3 GB of RAM I have sitting out there on my slave  Getting everything off the DAW gives me much better performance.

Also, if I add 4 or 5 tracks of Omnishpere on top of my full orchestra I sometimes need to move to 256 samples for the buffer.

rgames


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## rgames (Aug 23, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> When I said PLAY was using 8GB of my 16GB, I was reading of PLAY's GUI - but PLAY seems to only show the raw loaded sample material, not how much memory is used in total.



The numbers I have been quoting are as reported by Task Manager and are, indeed, more than what is reported by Play.

Interesting that we're both stuck at the 3 GB mark - maybe there's something there.

rgames


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 23, 2011)

rgames, Yes at around 12GB (out of my available 15-ish) I start getting bad performance.

BTW what soundcard are you using that enables you to run at 128 buffer size? MOTU PCI here.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

rgames @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> Interesting that we're both stuck at the 3 GB mark - maybe there's something there.
> 
> rgames



That's probably a good approximation to the point when paging to disk becomes more intensive, as you're basically running out of RAM. That's why I was asking about your system drive. I'd think that if you ran your your page file from a SSD, you'd probably greatly reduce clicks/pops. I think Steven's slave is 100% SSD...


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 23, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> rgames @ Tue Aug 23 said:
> 
> 
> > Interesting that we're both stuck at the 3 GB mark - maybe there's something there.
> ...



You're not running out of RAM with 3GB RAM free...

Thought about the SSD pagefile thing, that might be worth trying even though I'd prefer to not get into using the pagefile at all.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> You're not running out of RAM with 3GB RAM free...



You got to better understand how virtual memory works in Windows... it is not that simple, it's more complex and lenghty to explain here. But do try moving the page file to a SSD if you could, I get the feeling it'll help.

Post edit: It's commonly agreed upon that NOT using a page file will likely be detrimental to your system performance. 99.9% of people never mess with that though, so it's enabled by default. All I'd say is do try and change where Windows saves the page file, rest untouched.


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## sin(x) (Aug 23, 2011)

Isn't moving your page file to an SSD a sure recipe to significantly shorten that drive's lifespan? From what I understand, flash memory still has limits on the number of write cycles it can handle, and memory swapping is the very definition of an r/w-heavy access profile.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

Two thoughts on that:
a) Swapping memory to disk should not be a common occurency. The Pagefile is basically an extension of your physical RAM, thus only used when needed, when available free RAM is 'very low'.
b) Millions are using SSD nowadays for system drives... and that is r/w intensive indeed. Common to see 3 to 5 year warranties on SSD's, not different to HDD. I'd not be utterly concerned, frankly.


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## sin(x) (Aug 23, 2011)

True on b), I admit my knowledge might be a bit dusty in that regard. Maybe it's not a problem anymore.


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## Gusfmm (Aug 23, 2011)

sin(x) @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> True on b), I admit my knowledge might be a bit dusty in that regard. Maybe it's not a problem anymore.



Dusty??? This is all relatively new stuff, for most of us (yours truly leading the charge). 

But really, I think I recall Intel stating their estimate for life expectancy of their X25-M 80GB being 5 years, when you use it at a rate of 100GB/writes/day... most of us don't even get to do 1% of that...


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## Mike Greene (Aug 23, 2011)

This is a fascinating thread. Even aside from matters specific to PLAY, I've had several _"Oh! I didn't know that!"_ moments. Granted, Simon could probably get a functional system if he obediently duplicated Steven's (very expensive) rig, but it's in all of our interests to explore the hows and whys of what is and isn't necessary with PLAY and VE-PRO.


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## sin(x) (Aug 23, 2011)

Gusfmm @ 2011-08-23 said:


> Dusty??? This is relatively new stuff, for most of us



What can I say, I got my studio in an old farm house. Things get dusty fast around here.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 23, 2011)

> It seems to me that SvK been pretty specific throughout several threads about what he is running that runs "LIKE BUTTER" and basically for him it has been no good deed goes unpunished.



It would seem his LIKE BUTTON button was possibly VisionDAW. If they did a whole bunch of back-end tweaking within the BIOS and god knows what else this discussion with him could be irrelevant.

Also he has a butt load of RAM in his machine, while most of us have 16GB. To me 16GB doesn't seem to be enough for at least HS.

I use HS Gold, no slave, Studio One Pro, Mac Pro Quad 3.0ghz Xeon, 16GB of RAM

HS GOLD is split between various drives, but they are STANDARD drives.

Essentially when I load all 5 parts for a string ensemble, using the "Powerful System" patches, utilizing both the Slur and Port combined patches, my system chokes because it's close to 16gb of RAM taken, even though the actual memory is much less.

It seems on this post, the same thing may be happening on PC? Everyone seems to choke if they don't have an overkill setup on their machine.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Hi Nathan,

I think of you go with any I7 Quad core with 24gig of RAM and substitute my RME (650$) for a EMU (100$)

and substitute my "Revo3 250 gig SSD Pci" for 2 "Vertex 120gig SSD drives...."

you'll still get really great results on a 1900$ machine or less.

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Nate

1 more thing on a PC a full load of HS with MAINS and DIV A +B takes up 1/2 the RAM it takes on a MAC...

In other words a HS template on the MAC that is 10 gig large, on PC will be 5 gig large.

The MAC version of PLAY3 is no where near the PC version.



best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

I have installed and run HS and HB on two different MAC systems and on 2 different PC systems in every cinfiguration you can come up with using VEpro as hosts and Logic / MAC as a DAW.

In the end in order to write for full HS/HB orchestra palettes with 1 computer, there was only 1 solution that fully works without clicks and pops and without compromises...

1 PC Slave with 24 gig RAM and VEpro ASIO host and MOL midi,litepiping to DAW / MAC.

Want to know what TJ, Colin O'Malley, John G myself have in common on our working rigs?

ASIO soundcard based Slave PCs

best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

SvK @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> Nate
> 
> 1 more thing on a PC a full load of HS with MAINS and DIV A +B takes up 1/2 the RAM it takes on a MAC...
> 
> ...



That's not what I found. My exact same HS template takes the same amount of RAM in OSX as it did on Win7. I think you are looking at wired memory. Once you do a purge that all goes away.


----------



## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

DragonWind,

I have a PC template that is 19 gig large on my PC,
When I try to load that on my MAC, I run out of memory....

wanna know how much RAM my MAC has?

32gig of RAM

PS: im looking at "free RAM" not "wired".

best,
SvK


----------



## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 23, 2011)

It's a big discussion that almost is worth of dumping Macs for any kind of memory intensive processes.

Also before anyone says "KONTAKT doesn't do that!" it's completely irrelevant. Kontakt scripting is different then PLAY scripting. EW has said this countless times.

But yes the Macs will eat up so much RAM, and CONTINUE to increase as you play. As fas this thread the the PC problems, well....it's a PC.

There are a number of things that can cause inefficiency in a PC. Whether that be plugins, windows/taskbar apps or porn


----------



## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Dragon wind,

How much RAM is on your MAC?
And do you own VEpro?

You open for the pepsi challenge?

cause I'll put my money where my mouth is right now:

best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

SvK: Is the Mac switched for Fast Disk Mode like the PC? I am guessing that is the one setting that affects preload size.
I have 16gig of ram and of course I have VePro...I wouldn't be discussing this otherwise.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

fast disk mode was on

BTW "fast disk mode" is MAC only

SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Dragonwind,

this will be good (no snark intended).

I will now build you a template on my PC that takes up 13gig of RAM .....

I will give you a link to that template, and have you open it on your MAC...

let's see what happens.

deal?

best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

the only other info I need from you is what mikes are on your drives for HS.

best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

Why so confrontational? I didn't say what you experienced didn't happen but I'm telling you that didn't happen to me...maybe it would now with Play3 on the PC with with 2 it was the same as 3 is on my Mac.
Just trying to see if we all can get to the bottom of this. In the end I wish they stuck with Kontakt but oh well.


----------



## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Dragon,

You got me all wrong, 
I've wanted confirmation on this for a long time....help me out here

We will get to the bottom together ok?
now what HS mikes do you have installed?

best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

Ah okay cool. Maybe it is all changed now with Play3. I sold off the PC (have a Mini slave but haven't brought it online yet) so I can't quickly test an a/b. I have Main and Mids on the SSD but lets just do a Main Mic template. I always run a section per VEP instance (meaning I have 5 instances). Toss one together and save as a Metaframe and I'll load it up. I'm heading to the studio now to fire everyone up.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

you got Divs?

my template is MAINS, MIDS and DIV A...

I can rebuild quickly if you like

best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

No Divs, I can, however just for loading purposes, pup in the original drive that HS came on (it is updated to the latest 2.0) and load off of that. It will take longer but at least we don't have to play around (no pun intended).


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

im rebuilding the template with just mains...will make it circa 12.5 gig on PC...gimme a couple minutes.

Dragon...no worries...I'll do a mains only template, dont want you to have to do the legwork 

grab a beer , redbull or something 


best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

SvK @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> grab a beer , redbull or something
> 
> best,
> SvK



I'm getting some Irish whiskey. o-[][]-o


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## Elektroakoustika (Aug 23, 2011)

SvK @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> I have a PC template that is 19 gig large on my PC,
> When I try to load that on my MAC, I run out of memory....
> 
> wanna know how much RAM my MAC has?
> ...



I find it fascinating that EW still firmly says that PLAY uses equal memory on both systems when there are these kind of results.

PLAY on my MAC uses ridiculous amounts of memory, even though I'm only using HS Gold. Even my EWQLSO patches take up 10x the amount a similar patch in Kontakt fills up. Its incredible.

I love the guys at EW, I just don't know how they see that PLAY on Mac and PC are on the same playing field, memory wise that is.

Cheers


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

shit I m going to need you to load the mids after all.

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

5 more minutes almost done

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Dragon,

load these

With latest PLAY3

https://files.me.com/svonkampen/p8dig2

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

The size of the DragonWind Load on PC:


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

I'll have to point it to the full HS set as apparently some of the mid mic patches are loading mics from other sets. I discovered this to be the case too with surround mics.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

ok

thats fine
thanx,

best
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

Hmm, still trying to load 1st violins. It makes me search then it hangs on load at about 80%. What is stranger is that I can continue to do other things in VEP including loading other patches while 1st violins stops loading.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

yup

there's a lot of that on the MAC version. Shut down the MAC and load the stuff right after the MAC is rebooted .....all will load faster.
And make sure all other APPS are shut down...

Open up the activity monitor as you load and watch the free memory....

thanx,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

SvK @ Tue Aug 23 said:


> yup
> 
> there's a lot of that on the MAC version. Shut down the MAC and load the stuff right after the MAC is rebooted .....
> 
> ...



Actually I've never seen this behavior before on a Mac...and that solution didn't work. I think it is trying to find samples I just don't have. You also are loading HB samples and I don't have HB. 
Oh well it is getting late.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

no there are no HB samples....

you DL the DRagonwind.zip right?

SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

HS diamond right?

SvK


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

BRB


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

Yes I did but it specifically went looking for HB samples (had a pop-up error). I'll recheck in the AM if you have redone it or I can send you my template and see what it takes on the PC...I'd be curious too!
Chris


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

Ok here....

sorry fixed it,

https://files.me.com/svonkampen/2s0b2c

best,
SvK


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## IFM (Aug 23, 2011)

Okay I'll grab this in the morning and post a screenshot of the ram usage.


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## SvK (Aug 23, 2011)

send me yours as well.
(if by any chance it asks for HB sample, just hit ignore)

best
SvK


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Hi Nathan,
> 
> I think of you go with any I7 Quad core with 24gig of RAM and substitute my RME (650$) for a EMU (100$)
> 
> ...



Sure - only problem is: You can't. There exists no 8GB RAM modules non-ECC at the moment. So you can't go higher than 16GB on a non-server class motherboard. If it existed, I would boost my 16GB to 32GB.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Ok here....
> 
> sorry fixed it,
> 
> ...



Going to check that as well later (not that I am using HS on Mac but it's an interesting experiment).

I'll also do a quick comparison on memory usage PLAY vs xxxxx - it just seems to me that PLAY is using an EXTREME amount of memory. Could be wrong and HS is just that many samples compared to anything else but I am gonna test it anyway.

EDIT: I can conclude that I was wrong on that. I loaded up Symphonic Choirs mens WB in both Kontakt and PLAY. Kontakt used a total of 577MB, PLAY a total of 717MB. And AFAIK PLAY uses 24-bit samples. So about the same here - this was with Kontakt using a 48kb preload buffer.


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## Garlu (Aug 24, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Sure - only problem is: You can't. There exists no 8GB RAM modules non-ECC at the moment. So you can't go higher than 16GB on a non-server class motherboard. If it existed, I would boost my 16GB to 32GB.



It may be an actual solution: :D 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211564


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 24, 2011)

Garlu - nice! I knew Samsung was doing 8GB modules but I haven't found any. Now.. they just have to find their way to Denmark - I checked here and there is nothing to find - as far as I know that brand isn't even distributed here. It is not very widespread when neither OCZ, Crucial, Corsair, Kingston or the likes have it. And as you can see, this is the one 8GB desktop module offering Newegg has. But hopefully soon it will become more common.


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## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK,
Your template took a bit of persuasion to load but I think the bug was that the screen wouldn't update with the loaded set (happened on 1st violins and cello) but by copying the channel in VEP solved the problem. It did again ask for HB samples so I ignored. After it completely loaded I did the purge. I will agree that Play still reserves way more ram than is needed when loading. I have a RAM meter that runs in the toolbar and that reports the real number wether purged or not (not in screen shot). Regardless here is a snapshot and I seem to be using less RAM that you? :shock:


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 24, 2011)

Here are some answers to some specific questions raised here from the EW software development team:

Q-What is the pre-load buffer for Play 3? Does it change for individual patches and/or within individual libraries? How much more RAM does a given patch in HS or HB take to load it on a Mac than a PC? It seems to be much more.

A- The prime buffer size of PLAY is constant for all patches and uses 8k of sample frames for each sample (1 mono sample takes 8k*4 bytes of ram). PLAY shows the size in the PLAY window (bottom/right). The file cache usage is different on Mac and PC. The PC has a fixed pre load size five times the prime buffer. On Mac it depends on the sample length, and it is hard to give a simple formula to calculate the exact memory usage. 

Q-Does it change for individual patches and/or within individual libraries?

A-On Mac, yes.

Q-How much more RAM does a given patch in HS or HB take to load it on a Mac than a PC?

A-It is hard to give an exact value, it depends on the samples, for short samples it is greater than on PC.


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## clonewar (Aug 24, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Nathan,
> ...



Or you could do an X58 i7 build, which have six DIMM slots on the MB.


----------



## jamwerks (Aug 24, 2011)

That's interesting info Jay. The question comes to mind as to why the differences between Mac & PC. If the guys developed it that way, I'm sure it's so for a reason.

Is it because Mac OS's have so many features (compared to Windows) that it handles things in a different fashion?


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 24, 2011)

jamwerks @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> That's interesting info Jay. The question comes to mind as to why the differences between Mac & PC. If the guys developed it that way, I'm sure it's so for a reason.
> 
> Is it because Mac OS's have so many features (compared to Windows) that it handles things in a different fashion?



That is beyond my level of knowledge, although because the Mac emphasizes graphics so much, it seems to me PCs, which also usually have had faster processors, have always done raw number crunching better. 

I do know is that EW's Play 3 developers have had to do a lot of fancy footwork trying to get a 64 bit version Mac version that was anywhere near comparable to the PC version. Rest assured, they are totally committed to continuing to try to improve it.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 24, 2011)

clonewar @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> 
> 
> > SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> ...



Didn't know about that one. That's true - still double the price of a similar performaing "mainstream" system. And X58 chipset doesn't seem to support newer low voltage RAM, and I am trying to keep my new systems as cool running and energy efficient as possible (which is also why I would probably use an i5 and not an i7 for my new system since I think i7 is overkill for this use). But thanks for the tip!


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 24, 2011)

jamwerks @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> That's interesting info Jay. The question comes to mind as to why the differences between Mac & PC. If the guys developed it that way, I'm sure it's so for a reason.
> 
> Is it because Mac OS's have so many features (compared to Windows) that it handles things in a different fashion?



I don't think anyone would agree that OS X has "so many features" compared to Windows..  It is just different, built on a different concept, so you have to handle some things differently. 

Jay, thanks for the answers - so PLAY uses a 32kb preload buffer for each mono sample. Would be nice if that buffer could be changed by the user in the future to take advantage of SSD speeds.


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## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

Okay so SvK is right in a sence...but becuase OSX does the cache differently. At this point does it even make any sense to run HS on a Mac? I got rid of my PC a while ago but maybe I'll have to get another small one...yuck.


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## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragon wind,

I believe we are not supposed to do the "purge" on the MAC since you are "purging" from RAM the bits PLAY needs for streaming...

Nowhere does it say "hey load all our PLAY stuff" an d then purge....  

EW told us NOT to purge...

Eastwest Lurker?

best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragon,

How much RAM does my template take up on the MAC prior to purge?

PLease make a good readable screenshot of Activity Monitor....or post

Free
Wired
Active
Inactive
Used

thanx for all your assistance I appreciate it,

best,
SvK


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> EW told us NOT to purge...



Oh? Well then guess I shouldn't... :?


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## Gusfmm (Aug 24, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> A- The prime buffer size of PLAY is constant for all patches and uses 8k of sample frames for each sample (1 mono sample takes 8k*4 bytes of ram).



Jay,

Maybe just me, but the above left me as intrigued as before. I'm glad others seem to have gotten it. Questions (to me):

a) What is 'prime buffer'? Are there "secondary buffers"???
b) What is a sample frames?
c) "(1 mono sample takes 8k*4 bytes of ram)" sound to me as if every single sample, no matter what, has a fixed size of 32Kb. Does not make any sense whatsoever. Maybe explain what the definition of sample is in this context.

Thanks.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragonwind @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Okay so SvK is right in a sence...but becuase OSX does the cache differently. At this point does it even make any sense to run HS on a Mac? I got rid of my PC a while ago but maybe I'll have to get another small one...yuck.



IMHO, it depends on how much of it you want to run simultaneously. I am doing so but not copious amounts of it.

I think there is little doubt now that a good PC slave makes sense if you have the coin.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Dragon wind,
> 
> I believe we are not supposed to do the "purge" on the MAC since you are "purging" from RAM the bits PLAY needs for streaming...
> 
> ...



That is my understanding as well.


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragonwind,

How much RAM does my template take up prior to purging the memory?

Your "free ram" figure prior to purge. That's all I care about.
The screen cap is blurred.

best,
SvK


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

I'm not home so I won't be looking again at this till tonight. The forum wouldn't let me past an IMG large enough. grrr.


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## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragon,

Just open the image in "preview" then "save as" jpeg...a slider will appear with which yoiu can reduce the size of the file to just under 128kb.....

best,
SvK


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 24, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> 
> 
> > A- The prime buffer size of PLAY is constant for all patches and uses 8k of sample frames for each sample (1 mono sample takes 8k*4 bytes of ram).
> ...



c) It makes perfect sense - every sample uses a 32kb preload buffer.


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 24, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> clonewar @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> 
> 
> > Or you could do an X58 i7 build, which have six DIMM slots on the MB.
> ...



You can build either one for about the same cost nowadays: Intel X58 + i7 950 = $450; Intel P67 + i7 2600 = $400. And there certainly is an advantage of additional memory possible, 48 vs. 32 (or at this point, 24 vs 16). I, personally, don't think of an audio slave as a maintream PC. 

My X58 i7 950 runs 24Mb of 1.5V DDR3 16000 memory. Lowest voltage in the market being 1.25V, highest 1.65V. The .25V difference is probably used in excess by the few LED's on your chassis...

An i7 has hyperthreading, totalling 8 cores; an i5 has no hyperthreading, thus only the 4 main cores. This is a key issue if your running multiple instances of audio samplers. Both second generation i7 and i5 consume 95W... both equally 'green'.



Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> c) It makes perfect sense - every sample uses a 32kb preload buffer.



I'm glad some of the questions are clearer now for you.


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

BTW:
regarding "Hyperthreading"

One of the very first tweeks VisionDaw performed on my BIOS was turning OFF hyperthreading....

best,
SvK


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 24, 2011)

I'm curious as of why Steven, you're crippling the processor. Why not buying a slightly cheaper processor/board then?


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## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

I don't know. All I know is VisionDaw service most all of the Top composer's PC's here in LA / SoCal.

they really know there stuff.

Im sure they've got a good reason. Maybe something to do with the fact that only on thing is being done on the Slave which is running PLAY3 via VEpro maybe?

best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Here ya go,

http://www.visiondaw.com/productcart/pc/in_clients.asp

after I checked that list and made some calls, I simply stopped worrying. 
They build audio PCs for Hollywood, they service the studios that run them. They remote login to anyone's PC...

remote login to your system for 60 bucks an hour.

best,
SvK


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 24, 2011)

This used to be kind of a myth out there. People used to say Vista would drag your system with hypertheading enabled, for instance. 

But checking the public VEP specs, I don't see any multi-thread support mentioned. I never thought about this, interesting.

Sonar, NI stuff, etc., they do support big time multithreading, thus this being an advantage.


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 24, 2011)

You know what, I knew I'd seen it somewhere. Just look under Preferences in your VEP. Audio tab. See the bottom drop-down? "Multiprocessing"...

I'm very curious Steven. How many threads do you see listed there?


----------



## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 24, 2011)

Hyperthreading isn't quite the same as multi-processing. I can probably see why it would be better in a dedicated slave to turn this OFF. Hyperthreading isn't using multiple processors, it's using VIRTUAL processors within a physical core.


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 24, 2011)

I stand corrected, messed up the terminology. Back to the issue, what is your concern, that a highly efficient +3Ghz core cannot keep up handling audio streaming? It'd be interesting to find the rationale behind this, as I can think of several other factors and limitations before concerning myself with my i7 processing power. We've talked about HDD's, SDD's, memory, etc...


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK,
There must be something wrong with the files because I still cannot get 1st Vln and Celli to load completely. For example the Celli file stops at 23800 of 29933.


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

nope

nothing wrong with them....
With every sample that you load and get closer to the end of available "free ram" the loading gets slower , and slower and slower....until it takes forever...

also loading is much faster when you reboot the MAC than when it has been on....

I believe you will run out of memory circa 1/2 through loading my template....

best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragon,

send me your MAC metaframe for HS

thanx,

best,
SvK


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> nope
> 
> nothing wrong with them....
> With every sample that you load and get closer to the end of available "free ram" the loading gets slower , and slower and slower....until it takes forever...
> ...



This is where we'll disagree as the 'freeze' isn't a freeze per say and it happens on the very first thing I'm loading...has nothing to do with RAM and to clarify I would still have over 1/2 showing as FREE with that happens and it is always EXACTLY at the same point on that one file.


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

hmmmm


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

Here the link to my Metaframe... 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9989207/Hollywood%20Strings.mframe64 (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9989207/Hollywo ... s.mframe64)


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

Here is the Activity Monitor.


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

...and here is the shot after a Purge command.


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

OK here is my last try for my stuff:

https://files.me.com/svonkampen/qmp5a5

best,
SvK


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Just like I said:

Before the purge (which we are not supposed to do , since purging screws up the MAC streaming)

You have cmpletely run out of Free RAM....your swapping files at that point....

BINGO 

that same load on my PC is less than 1/2!! the size.

thanx so much for confirming on a 3d MAC
(I've tested on 2 macs (a MACpro 1.1, and a 5.1)


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

Dragonwind tis my point...

A "9 gig" PC load will take "18.x gig" to load on a MAC.

Any MAC

best,
SvK


----------



## IFM (Aug 24, 2011)

Actually, I've never found streaming to get messed up after the purge but whatever. My boot drive is also an SSD. 

I really hate Play... :x


----------



## SvK (Aug 24, 2011)

So you've purged with HS on MAC? On PLAY3?
Or with other libraries in Play2?

well why not try to compose now.....

Try running 2 , 1st VI legato lines
and another 2 2nd VI legato lines

2 VA legato lines
a Celli Legato line

and some basses

use the 12lt legs if you like


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 25, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> 
> 
> > clonewar @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> ...



Maybe in the US, but not in Europe. Cheapest Intel P67 mobo is around $130 here - the X58 is twice the price. And the X58's go way up into the $400-600 depending on specs. i7 950 is $300 here, i7-2600 is $400. So the X58 system would be around $550, the P67 would be $430. Not much of a difference, you are right, but I am not so sure you are right about needing an i7 for this kind of work. Of course you can never have too much CPU power available, and also considering how much cheaper 4GB modules are compared to the (almost non-existing) 8GB, the X58 system might be the sensible choice. Thanks for the recommendations, I will do a bit more research on that chipset and some mobo reviews.

EDIT: Turns out this chipset is pretty old, and maxes out at 24GB RAM. I think I could manage, but I might hold on and see what happens to 8GB modules.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 25, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> Just like I said:
> 
> Before the purge (which we are not supposed to do , since purging screws up the MAC streaming)
> 
> ...



No he has not - you can't just look at the "free" number and jump to that conclusion. "wired", as well as "active" and "inactive" has a lot to say as well. If he was out of RAM, he would clearly feel that on PLAY's (and everything elses) behaviour. And as far as I recall Dragonwind didn't say anything about this template you sent him not being able to run fine?


----------



## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 25, 2011)

If you run out of free RAM on a Mac in OSX, the program appears to run ok, but eventually it pops/clicks and then will crash. Fact is what SvK is showing is a PROBLEM.

And honestly I would really love it if EW would at least acknowledge that. Because the fact I CANNOT run HS Gold effectively (pops/clicks missing samples) with powerful patches on a Quad 3.0ghz Mac with 16GB seems kind of unacceptable to me.

In fact, in Play 2 I was able to run all 5 sections of power patches, coming right up to the brim of my RAM limit and still functioning.

If you look at inactive RAM is pretty much takes up double of what the active is taking, and that inactive RAM takes up the free RAM space.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 25, 2011)

Nathan, are you sure that the low "free ram" is a real problem, and that the "inactive ram" isn't just as good, and just as available? Haven't read up too much on these things, so you might be right.


----------



## IFM (Aug 25, 2011)

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 25, 2011)

Dragonwind @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342



Right. If that is true, we shouldn't worry about "free" being zero or close to that, as long as there's enough "inactive" RAM. You can also see in your example that only 7GB of the total real mem (16 GB) is in use by PLAY and Vienna. And that doesn't get changed much after purging.


----------



## SvK (Aug 25, 2011)

Simon 

I beta tested for EW the ONLY number we were told by EW to watch is FREE ram....

Best,
SvK


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 25, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> Simon
> 
> I beta tested for EW the ONLY number we were told by EW to watch is FREE ram....
> 
> ...



And according to EW Swap, you don't want anything going into that.


----------



## Elektroakoustika (Aug 25, 2011)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> If you run out of free RAM on a Mac in OSX, the program appears to run ok, but eventually it pops/clicks and then will crash. Fact is what SvK is showing is a PROBLEM.
> 
> And honestly I would really love it if EW would at least acknowledge that. Because the fact I CANNOT run HS Gold effectively (pops/clicks missing samples) with powerful patches on a Quad 3.0ghz Mac with 16GB seems kind of unacceptable to me.
> 
> ...



+1 on EVERYTHING you just said.


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 25, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> SvK @ Thu Aug 25 said:
> 
> 
> > Simon
> ...



From the above, if nothing else should go into free RAM, then EW is basically saying is that users should devote a single computer to running HS, following the minimum hardware requirements posted on the HS section of the web site?


----------



## Mike Greene (Aug 25, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> Dragonwind @ Thu Aug 25 said:
> 
> 
> > http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342
> ...


The way they (Apple) define "free" and "inactive," it would seem that that's true. But for whatever reason, all over the internet, people complain that inactive memory is slower and purging (converting inactive memory to free memory) speeds things up.


----------



## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 25, 2011)

I will have to run some tests in the future to show this, but basically if you have no free MEM left, and say 10GB of inactive RAM, PLAY3 still claims that memory is full and your system starts to choke in a bad way. In fact when you get to 1-2GB of free RAM it can start to choke, regardless of what inactive says.

Purge may solve this, but I think it re-loads everything eventually anyway. Not to mention as you play the inactive RAM continues to go up.

Also in the beta forum EW said that the differences in Mac and PC RAM wise were very close, but we are not seeing that.

There's got to be some kind of odd issue going on here. Whether it's the programming or the library, or some kind of process via MacOSX that's interfering. EW may have a test machine that's been gutted OS wise that isn't preventing this problem.


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## SvK (Aug 25, 2011)

Regarding turning off HYPERTHREADING:

From VsionDaw:

Hi Steven.
 
I just wanted to shoot you a quick email to reply back to you about your question yesterday about why we turn hyper threading off. Hyper threading can work great when you are not working with a real time application, for example visual fx or video games, but when it comes to pro audio which demands real time; hyper threading is not the best option. Hyper threading may look great because of the four extra cores, but since these are virtual cores and not actual cores you can run into some problems including pops and clicks in the pro audio world. I hope that sheds some light on hyper threading for you. If you have any more questions feel free to give me a ring or call.
 
Best Regards,
VisionDaw


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 25, 2011)

Gusfmm @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Aug 24 said:
> 
> 
> > A- The prime buffer size of PLAY is constant for all patches and uses 8k of sample frames for each sample (1 mono sample takes 8k*4 bytes of ram).
> ...



a) The prime buffer is used to store the beginning of an audio file (pre-load buffer). 
The secondary buffer is the system memory manager.

b) A sample frame is a single sample of a recorded audio file.
c) The sample in this context is the audio file. Files are usually in stereo format so you would get a pre-load buffer of 64Kb per audio file.


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## R.Cato (Aug 25, 2011)

Hm at least I got over my fear updating to Play3 would crash my current Cubase projects and/or destabilize them. After deleting the old play.dll file and inserting the updated one manually into Cubase I immediately realized that the loading times decreased a little bit. Everything worked allright until I opened the Play vst window and closed it once, then douzens of critical error messages popped up and even after that the project worked. Just when I hit Play Cubase crashed immediately and the only thing I saw was my beautiful dekstop wallpaper :shock: ..... great..... this will be my 5th support ticket because of play. :|

After all the performance got better...... :lol:


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## SvK (Aug 26, 2011)

The VisionDAW MOBO is:

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128423

best,
SvK


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## clonewar (Aug 26, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> Regarding turning off HYPERTHREADING:
> 
> From VsionDaw:
> 
> ...



I don't agree that visual fx or video games are not real time applications, but I've also found it best to disable hyperthreading on my PC DAW's. It doesn't have negative affects on all audio programs, but there are certain ones that have problems with it enabled (like older versions of Cubendo, not sure about the latest versions).


----------



## clonewar (Aug 26, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> EDIT: Turns out this chipset is pretty old, and maxes out at 24GB RAM. I think I could manage, but I might hold on and see what happens to 8GB modules.



True, this was the mainstream performance chipset for the first generation core i7. The second generation i7 processors are faster per core, but the motherboards only have four DIMM slots, which was a big step backwards for DAW slave builds IMO. 

The X79 chipset looks like it's going to be DAW heaven.. Six core Sandy Bridge CPU's, EIGHT DIMM slots!

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Gigabyte ... 6109.shtml


----------



## Udo (Aug 27, 2011)

SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> The VisionDAW MOBO is:
> 
> GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
> 
> ...


There are only 2 6GB/s SATA 3 ports on that board, all others are SATA 2, i.e. 3GB/s. Mind you, only SSD SATA 3 drives can make use of that 6GB/s speed, 7200rpm HDD SATA 3 drives don't get anywhere near that.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Aug 27, 2011)

Just found a little thing I would add to the topic.

Regarding the "PLAY loads twice" bug, I just discovered that this happens with Kontakt 4 too! Can anyone else confirm? Watch closely, because it you have (like me) "background loading" turned on, you will have to look carefully to notice, since only the patches are loaded twice - the samples only load once because they start loading after the instance is fully loaded. But I can clearly see that all instances load their patches twice!

So this is clearly a VSL problem, NOT an EastWest problem!


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 27, 2011)

Udo @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:
> 
> 
> > The VisionDAW MOBO is:
> ...



Two SATA3 ports will be more than enough. I doubt anyone streaming samples are saturating SATA 2...

EDIT: The article says all ports are SATA3...


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## IFM (Aug 27, 2011)

The ability to have gobs of ram is great but from a cost standpoint wouldn't it be better to buildnsome cheaper smaller units? I used to run HS on a 6 core AMD with 16 gig or ram. I only used the main mics in the template and even with powerful patches running I never got close to the CPU maxing out...it was usually 1/3 at most. The bottleneck is still the drive. 

I guess it may not matter either way but I can gut one of my old Giga PCs and update it with some components to be back where I was for $400. And if you go intel instead of AMD why not get the i5 if you are going to shut off hyper threading?


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## synthnut (Aug 27, 2011)

If more SSD's are needed , you can always add a High Point SATA III card that will give you the same thruput as the GiGABYTE MOTHERBOARD does .....Be advised that both the M.B. and the SATA III card have the same Marvel controller , not the Intel controller ....Still very fast ....Jim


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## Udo (Aug 27, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Udo @ Sat Aug 27 said:
> 
> 
> > SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:
> ...


The GA-X58A-UD3R has 8 x SATA 3Gb/s and 2 x SATA 6Gb/s.

You're probably referring to the upcoming Gigabyte LGA 2011 motherboard. It has has 6 x SATA 6Gb/s, driven by the X79 PCH.


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 27, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Just found a little thing I would add to the topic.
> 
> Regarding the "PLAY loads twice" bug, I just discovered that this happens with Kontakt 4 too! Can anyone else confirm? Watch closely, because it you have (like me) "background loading" turned on, you will have to look carefully to notice, since only the patches are loaded twice - the samples only load once because they start loading after the instance is fully loaded. But I can clearly see that all instances load their patches twice!
> 
> So this is clearly a VSL problem, NOT an EastWest problem!



I've just taken a look in K4 - the loading is so fast I honestly can't tell how to see if they're loading twice! By the time I've actually pressed enough buttons to look, the loading is either finishing or finished.


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## Udo (Aug 27, 2011)

synthnut @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> If more SSD's are needed , you can always add a High Point SATA III card that will give you the same thruput as the GiGABYTE MOTHERBOARD does .....Be advised that both the M.B. and the SATA III card have the same Marvel controller , not the Intel controller ....Still very fast ....Jim


... and some SSDs apparently don't perform properly with the Marvel controller.


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## Simon Ravn (Aug 27, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Sat Aug 27 said:
> 
> 
> > Just found a little thing I would add to the topic.
> ...



Try turning off background loading, that should make it easier to tell.


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## SvK (Aug 27, 2011)

THIS THE SSD INSiDe MY VsionDaw:


http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... CEAQ8wIwAw

This drive streams both HS and HB....it doesn't blink 
transfer speeds up to 1 GB/s
585$

(i only put the mics i use on it)

Best,
SvK


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## SvK (Aug 27, 2011)

Its like butter.....only smoother


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## Daryl (Aug 27, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Aug 25 said:


> Regarding turning off HYPERTHREADING:
> 
> From VsionDaw:
> 
> ...


This is a very simplistic view, IMO. There are combinations of hardware and software that can cause problems with HT switched on, but the easy fix is not to use those combinations. By switching it off on all machines VisionDaw is making support easier for themselves, but also potentially knocking 25% performance of the machines in the process.

FWIW if having HT switched on made machines unsuitable for Pro Audio, nobody would be using a Mac. :wink: 

D


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## Gusfmm (Aug 27, 2011)

You got it Daryl. Same conclusion you reach as of using an X58 + i7, to only enable the main 4 core threads -> Ensure you sell the best most oversized machine with the least possibility of underperformance to ensure customer satisfaction at the least cost to the provider. In the end, it is the customer who is paying the cost...

Most companies are updating their software to x64 code and multithreading, when this offers an advantage to the application. I mentioned DAW's such as Sonar, other major library companies such as NI, even VSL as I confirmed, as VEP does use multithreading. I guess such providers should be able to substantiate their claims with more factual references.


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## IFM (Aug 27, 2011)

Wait, why is there a Play Memory Server app running...should the hosting app be handling the RAM usage? I thought the PMS (lol) was only there for the 32bit version so you could load outside of the limit?


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 27, 2011)

Dragonwind @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Wait, why is there a Play Memory Server app running...should the hosting app be handling the RAM usage? I thought the PMS (lol) was only there for the 32bit version so you could load outside of the limit?



Don;'t know about the PC version, but on the Mac, the memory server is still a big part of how Play 3 64 bit does what it does.


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## IFM (Aug 27, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Don;'t know about the PC version, but on the Mac, the memory server is still a big part of how Play 3 64 bit does what it does.



Maybe that's the problem. What is stranger still is I am trying to redo my template with just HS Gold and I can't even load as much. Eventually VEP just crashes (caused by Play)...no purging going on.


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## SvK (Aug 27, 2011)

Regarding hyperthreading on vs off:

I love the way you IT types discuss and wax poetic about this stuff in the abstract. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is running as many PLAY3 HS/HB streams without clicks/pops and crashes....if that means purchasing way to much of a machine that has its power dialed back by 20% to achieve just that, so be it.

Best,
SvK


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## Mike Greene (Aug 27, 2011)

SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> I love the way you IT types discuss and wax poetic about this stuff in the abstract. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is running as many PLAY3 HS/HB streams without clicks/pops and crashes....if that means purchasing way to much of a machine that has its power dialed back by 20% to achieve just that, so be it.


Not all of us are willing to drop two or three grand on a machine just to use a string library. Mind you, if that's truly the price of admission, then yes, "so be it."

But that fact of the matter is that PLAY does have some sort of flaw(s) going on here. If nothing else, being forced to buy a PC rather than Mac shouldn't be part of the "price of admission." So abstract or otherwise, getting to the bottom of this is in all our interests.


----------



## Gusfmm (Aug 27, 2011)

SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Regarding hyperthreading on vs off:
> 
> I love the way you IT types discuss and wax poetic about this stuff in the abstract. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is running as many PLAY3 HS/HB streams without clicks/pops and crashes....if that means purchasing way to much of a machine that has its power dialed back by 20% to achieve just that, so be it.
> 
> ...



On the contrary, there is nothing poetic, abstract or theoretical about this. I mentioned there are practical facts that support the use of multithreading. VEP implements and employs that tecnology. Kontakt uses it as well. The fact of the matter is that there is a lot of smoke an mirrors around some of these myths. Ask for facts Steven and see if those can be provided. Not just vague assumptions.

I like to know and understand the tools I work with, just as I like to master the work I do with the use of such tools. Nothing wrong about that. I just don't like smoke and mirrors.


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## JohnG (Aug 27, 2011)

Apologies, but SvK is correct. Find out what the companies that build dedicated sample slaves do and follow the lead. It doesn't matter what is correct for other applications or purposes; audio is unique.


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## IFM (Aug 27, 2011)

Seeing as Kontakt doesn't suffer from having to load tons of information into inactive RAM (just checked and it didn't load anything into inactive) my money is still on Play. It's fine for the smaller libraries but the big ones suffer on a Mac. Maybe by version 4 they'll have it sorted. In the mean time I'll guess I gut the GigaPC and put a HS PC together...didn't want to spend the money but I'm not getting anything done spending all my time screwing with getting it to work well on a Mac. Quality or not I think I'm done buying EW products.


----------



## Daryl (Aug 27, 2011)

JohnG @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Apologies, but SvK is correct. Find out what the companies that build dedicated sample slaves do and follow the lead. It doesn't matter what is correct for other applications or purposes; audio is unique.


And as I said, switching HT off has nothing to do with sample slaves. It may have something to do with PLAY though, but to say that all machines should have it switched off is just wrong. I'm not saying that you shouldn't switch it off for PLAY, I was just correcting an assumption that HT off is correct for all slave machines.

D


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 27, 2011)

JohnG @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Apologies, but SvK is correct. Find out what the companies that build dedicated sample slaves do and follow the lead. It doesn't matter what is correct for other applications or purposes; audio is unique.



There are 2 kinds of users of sophisticated products.

Type A says "I will consult with experts and take their advice until my subsequent experience proves it flawed."

Type B says, "I don't care what experts say if they can not or will not explain to me all the reasons why to my satisfaction."

I am Type A but I understand where Type B is coming from, I just don't have the time or interest.

My brother kept a Ford Pinto long after he should have because he could take out the carburator and rebuild it on his kitchen table. We was really upset when with his next car, a Toyota Celica (and subsequent cars) he could not longer do so.

But the Celica was a much better car


----------



## Mike Greene (Aug 27, 2011)

JohnG @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Apologies, but SvK is correct. Find out what the companies that build dedicated sample slaves do and follow the lead.


Apologies right back at you, but I didn't get to where I am today by being a "follower."

I think the frustration you and Jay and Steven might be having with this thread is that it's about much more than just _"What's the quickest way to get a working system going?"_ If that were the case, then it would be a simple one-page thread with the solution of _"Buy a VisionDaw rig with these specs. Done."_

But some people want to know *why* and even *if* certain things really need to be done the way some "experts" say they do. Call if curiosity, call it a rebellious _Question Authority_ attitude (musicians . . . rebellious??? Whoda thunk it?), call it cheapness . . . whatever you want to call it, this is the sort of thinking that will move us forward. Which needs to happen, because I, for one, ain't gonna buy a tricked out PC just so I can run a string library.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 27, 2011)

Mike Greene @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> JohnG @ Sat Aug 27 said:
> 
> 
> > Apologies, but SvK is correct. Find out what the companies that build dedicated sample slaves do and follow the lead.
> ...



I am not frustrated, more bemused. 

You only need a PC if you want to run a lot of the most powerful HS patches, I am managing (with some strategy admittedly) to get it done on my Mac. But it is your choice. 

I can tell you that Doug has told me that demand for HS and HB has been so high that it is hard for them to keep up.


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## SvK (Aug 27, 2011)

Mike Greene said:
" because I, for one, ain't gonna buy a tricked out PC just so I can run a string library."



If that string library sounds a glorious as HS, you bet I will.

best,
SvK


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## noiseboyuk (Aug 27, 2011)

SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Mike Greene said:
> " because I, for one, ain't gonna buy a tricked out PC just so I can run a string library."
> 
> 
> ...



If HS was the only way to get a great silky smooth and realistic string sound, I'd agree. But it isn't, and I don't.


----------



## Mike Greene (Aug 27, 2011)

SvK @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> Mike Greene said:
> " because I, for one, ain't gonna buy a tricked out PC just so I can run a string library."
> 
> If that string library sounds a glorious as HS, you bet I will.


Exactly. For you, it's worth it. For me, it is not.

I do have HS, by the way, and as Jay said, it runs fine on my Mac as long as I don't do monster patches.

But still, I'd like to have complete freedom to load whatever I want, including the monsters, *on my Mac.* I'm not saying EW is under any obligation to give me that freedom. But in order for me to get to the point where I'm tempted to use it as often as I use LASS or the VSL Symphonic Cube (which I also own and love,) then it's going to have work properly on my Mac(s.) And I believe threads like this, including (and even especially) all the abstract questions, are valuable in possibly getting me/us there.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 27, 2011)

Mike Greene @ Sat Aug 27 said:


> [




But still, I'd like to have complete freedom to load whatever I want, including the monsters, *on my Mac.* I'm not saying EW is under any obligation to give me that freedom. But in order for me to get to the point where I'm tempted to use it as often as I use LASS or the VSL Symphonic Cube (which I also own and love,) then it's going to have work properly on my Mac(s.) And I believe threads like this are valuable in possibly getting me/us there.[/quote]

Believe me, EW would like nothing better and is working hard on it. Doug and Nick are both Mac guys.

It just isn't there yet because a this point, the PC platform has some advantages for this.


----------



## synthnut (Aug 28, 2011)

I guess I would have to be in the catagory whereby I would have to know "who , what, when , and why" ..... If I copied a setup, and it worked great , and then all of a sudden , it stopped working so well , I would not know where to begin to trouble shoot it .... It's like the kid in school who copied off of your paper ....He got the same grade as you , but does not know the material covered ..... I would much rather be dazzled with brilliance , than baffled with B.S. ..... Enquiring minds want to know .....Jim


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Aug 28, 2011)

synthnut @ Sun Aug 28 said:


> I guess I would have to be in the catagory whereby I would have to know "who , what, when , and why" ..... If I copied a setup, and it worked great , and then all of a sudden , it stopped working so well , I would not know where to begin to trouble shoot it .... It's like the kid in school who copied off of your paper ....He got the same grade as you , but does not know the material covered ..... I would much rather be dazzled with brilliance , than baffled with B.S. ..... Enquiring minds want to know .....Jim



In between knowing nothing and knowing everything is kind of a wide swath.

When I was a teen if my car stalled because the engine was flooded, I knew to open the hood and stick a screwdriver into the lid of the carburator until some of the gas evaporated and then the car would start. That is what i need to know to troubleshoot. 

I could not have told you how a carburator did what it did and still can't. I did not need to know that to troubleshoot.

People call me (and pay me) to come over or on the phone help them get Logic and/or VE Pro working and I have written 2 advanced user books on Logic.. One friend calls me the Logic Yoda. but I cannot tell you why Logic requires a Direction Mixer plug-in to do true panning instead of balance on a stereo track while it does true panning on a mono track.

I am sure you get my point.


----------



## jamwerks (Aug 29, 2011)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Aug 29 said:


> but I cannot tell you why Logic requires a Direction Mixer plug-in to do true panning instead of balance on a stereo track while it does true panning on a mono track.



Sorry for the OT, but have you noticed the the Logic Direction mixer doesn't work. What do you personally use for panning stereo VI's?


----------



## devastat (Aug 29, 2011)

I'm slightly baffled by this behavior in Cubase I noticed while I made a larger template (Cubase only) for the first time with some Leg Slur+Port patches from HS and Kontakt instruments. 

Every time I start up my computer and load the project for the first time my memory gets down to 2GB free mem only (from 24GB RAM). Also the performance is very sluggish I cannot play HS patches without clicks. Now if I exit Cubase and load the project again suddenly the second time I have 12,5GB free memory and the performance is perfect. I don't know if this is PLAY or Cubase related.. will have to experiment more. I am running i7 920 (Win 7) and latest PLAY in Cubase6 64bit, HS running from a SSD drive.


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## EastWest Lurker (Aug 29, 2011)

jamwerks @ Sun Aug 28 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Aug 29 said:
> 
> 
> > but I cannot tell you why Logic requires a Direction Mixer plug-in to do true panning instead of balance on a stereo track while it does true panning on a mono track.
> ...



It certainly works here and it is what I always use for panning and adjusting the width stereo audio tracks. What it pans is the center of the stereo base. A lot of times orchestral instruments are pre-panned in that they were recorded in their seating position so the Direction Mixer it is in fact working but you may not be getting the expected result. If instead of LR, you choose MS with some instruments because of the mic techniques employed, you may get the result you want. Also, if you hard pan it to -180 or + 180, the channels simply switch sides. I usually pan stereo V.I.s using Logic's pan knob because I don't care that it is a balance control and therefore sounds actually starts to disappear from the other side when you move it to one side as in an orchestra that is kind of what you hear. Sometimes I pan V.I.'s inside their gui. 

Anyway, this is OT, so we should start another thread or pm if you want to discuss it further.


----------



## rgames (Aug 29, 2011)

devastat @ Mon Aug 29 said:


> I'm slightly baffled by this behavior in Cubase I noticed while I made a larger template (Cubase only) for the first time with some Leg Slur+Port patches from HS and Kontakt instruments.
> 
> Every time I start up my computer and load the project for the first time my memory gets down to 2GB free mem only (from 24GB RAM). Also the performance is very sluggish I cannot play HS patches without clicks. Now if I exit Cubase and load the project again suddenly the second time I have 12,5GB free memory and the performance is perfect. I don't know if this is PLAY or Cubase related.. will have to experiment more. I am running i7 920 (Win 7) and latest PLAY in Cubase6 64bit, HS running from a SSD drive.



I have similar experiences - Play needs a lot of RAM wiggle room in order to function correctly - the extra RAM shows up as available but it seems that Play needs it for some reason. Why it loads up a bunch of RAM then doesn't need it next time it loads is baffling, but I've seen that behavior, as well. One thing I discovered is that if you try to push the memory usage it slowly unloads RAM over 20 - 30 min or so. So one thing that would be interesting is for you to load the project (when it gets down to 2 GB free) and let it sit for 20 - 30 min and see if your available memory increases. On my slave, it does, by several GB.

Also, are you sure everything works correctly when you re-load and get the 10 extra GB? My guess is that there's some kind of weird buffering behavior where it's actually not loading some samples, so if you explore all the patches you might discover that some don't play.

The bottom line is that when using Play you need to leave a *lot* of RAM unused in order for it to behave. At least that's my experience and it seems consistent with the experience of others.

rgames


----------



## Diffusor (Aug 29, 2011)

Are these memory problems with Play 3 mac related? I haven't noticed anything anomalous on Windows 7.


----------



## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 30, 2011)

I've completely forgot about the issue at hand for this thread...

That all being said, I just wanted to comment on the Multithreading issue. Obviously, VisionDAW had turned it off since Play does not give you the option to turn it off (that I know of)

Most apps include the option to turn it off just in case.


----------



## Daryl (Aug 30, 2011)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Tue Aug 30 said:


> That all being said, I just wanted to comment on the Multithreading issue. Obviously, VisionDAW had turned it off since Play does not give you the option to turn it off (that I know of)
> 
> Most apps include the option to turn it off just in case.


Are you sure you're not getting Multiprocessing and Hyperthreading mixed up? :wink: 

D


----------



## devastat (Aug 30, 2011)

rgames @ Mon Aug 29 said:


> Also, are you sure everything works correctly when you re-load and get the 10 extra GB? My guess is that there's some kind of weird buffering behavior where it's actually not loading some samples, so if you explore all the patches you might discover that some don't play.



At least the 7-8 HS patches that are in the template - that don't work in the first load (clicks) - works after I load up the project second time. Also I have loaded some additional HS patches and they have worked fine also. I haven't experimented much with this yet, but I worked with it all day yesterday and the patches in the template seemed to work fine.

I will try what you suggested to let it hang for 20-30 minutes and see if the ram usage goes back to low.

My solution that seems to work is to load a light version of the template with only the PLAY samples and then close cubase and then reload the larger real template. I don't know if it would make a difference if I would load all PLAY patches in VE Pro instead. I'll try that in my next template. I'm slightly worried tho that this might prevent me from having the number of HS patches in my template that I should be able to given the ram.

When the woodwind libraries comes out i'll get my first slave..


----------



## TheUnfinished (Aug 30, 2011)

I look at the recommended tech specs for Hollywood Strings on the East West website, then I look at this thread (and the many more like it). Ho hum...


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Aug 30, 2011)

TheUnfinished @ Tue Aug 30 said:


> I look at the recommended tech specs for Hollywood Strings on the East West website, then I look at this thread (and the many more like it). Ho hum...



Well they had stated in the EW forums that the specs listed are required for just loading ONE of the biggest patches in the library.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 30, 2011)

The very lightest patches in HS sound very good, much better for many circumstances than other libraries. The "lite" patches are not very demanding at all, and there are several gradations, from just 3 to 13 voices per note. That allows the program to run on many levels of computer.

For a full, up and running suite of the mightiest patches from HS, you need a good, fast computer. However, PLAY 3 has lowered by a substantial amount the necessary specs to have a good experience on a PC. 

On a Mac, as reported by users, one needs a lot of memory for HS, but I'm still glad to have this, the first 64 bit version of PLAY. On a Mac I'm running pianos, SILK, MOR, and sometimes other stuff -- but I have HS and HB on PC slaves because I like to use lots of mic positions and am willing to spend more on the computer for that sound.

So, it's a range. If one uses PLAY as recommended (v3 only in 64 bit, for example), it works for me on Mac or PC.



[note: I have received free products from EW]


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## Mike Connelly (Sep 1, 2011)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Wed Aug 24 said:


> Hyperthreading isn't quite the same as multi-processing. I can probably see why it would be better in a dedicated slave to turn this OFF. Hyperthreading isn't using multiple processors, it's using VIRTUAL processors within a physical core.



The "virtual" thing is a misleading term. The original version of hyperthreading a few years back really was "virtual" in that it didn't really have anything extra in hardware but was just sort of pretending to be more than one core, and it didn't really give much if any performance benefit on anything.

But the newer chips are extra partial cores instead of just virtual cores, they actually have extra copies of some of the computational circuitry and share other parts. It doesn't give the performance gain you'd get from having twice as many full cores, but it's a respectable gain nonetheless.

To take it out of the abstract, on the mac side at least there is a significant performance gain from having HT enabled and used by audio apps like Logic. From what I've seen, in the ballpark of 30 percent. I'm not sure why windows audio apps have trouble with HT, maybe it's the OS, maybe it's the apps, or maybe it's something else. And maybe it's something that can be turned back on down the road if the code is updated in the necessary way ( I thought I had heard that it was an old recommendation and that guys doing audio on some PC apps weren't doing that any more, but I could be mistaken). But the HT hardware itself seems like it can be fine (and give the CPU boost it's supposed to give) as long as the code supports it well.v


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## bitmit (Oct 10, 2011)

I just called VisionDAW to take advantage of their Remote Assistance service, but they only offer that service on machines they build themselves, in case anyone (like me) thought otherwise.


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