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  4. VSL SE seems very CPU hungry - is this normal?

  • VSL SE seems very CPU hungry - is this normal?

    O
    O

    I am using VSL SE in DP5 on a G5 dual 1.8 with 3GB RAM with h/w buffer set to 128 samples and I am getting frequent CPU overload during record/playback. I just wanted to check if my performance seems normal or not.

    For example, in a project with just 5 instances of VI with default SE matrix files assigned for orchestral Violin (1+2), Viola, Cello, Bass I am getting CPU at about 50% when idle and increasing to around 90% during playback (which means 'in the red' half the time with frequent CPU overload messages appearing).

    (no other plugs or virtual instruments loaded and no audio recorded - just 5 midi tracks- 5 VI's)  

    In the above scenario activity monitor shows me I still have about 1/4 of my RAM free.

      

    If I then optimise all the VI's (for a pretty short piece using very small percentage of the samples - just melodies in legato patches only) I can free up half my RAM. In this scenario CPU is still hovering around 70- 90% hitting red although there are fewer actual 'CPU overload' warnings.

    Comparing VI with K2 it does seem very CPU hungry to me - I can load a comparable amount of sample content in 3 - 4 instances of K2 (16 instuments per instance) and not really have to worry too much .. certainly not if I keep the K2 instruments optimized ('update sample pool' feature).

    I should add that I am very impressed with VI and SE- I am not complaining! ... and I realise my G5 spec is seriously limited and already behind the times even for a 'single mac studio setup' (I certainly never expected to be able to load up the whole collection at once!)

    But it just seems to me that VI is pretty CPU hungry in itself even before content is even loaded - removing all content from the above project's VI's still causes CPU to hover areound 50-60% idle and hit red every couple of seconds during playback. Is that normal for 5 completely empty instances of VI ?

    Any comments welcome! Thanks

    G5 1.8 dual

    3GB

    10.4.10

    DP 5.13 - in this example buffer at 128 (24bit /44.1)

    VI SE
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC

    it might be useful to set a higher buffer size on your system or possibly your harddisk is eating a lot of CPU during file access (firewire?)

    please consider that especially legato patches rely on many single samples - are there also performance instruments loaded in K2?

    christian 

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • O
    O
    last edited
    last edited

    @cm said:

    it might be useful to set a higher buffer size on your system or possibly your harddisk is eating a lot of CPU during file access (firewire?)

    please consider that especially legato patches rely on many single samples - are there also performance instruments loaded in K2?

    christian 

     

    All SE samples are on an internal SATA drive (not the system drive) and as for the buffer setting, well, I need a buffer of 128 to track the parts... of course when mixing I can (and do) go up to 1024.

    I do understand the performance patches are rather large but when I was still getting heavy CPU usage with 5 empty instances of VI (and nothing else in the project) I really started to wonder if all was as it should be.

    I will keep monitoring things as I keep using the SE  ... but if anyone else is using VI in a similar setup to mine (see first post above) and would like to comment on their performance I'd be very grateful 😊
  • T
    T
    I noticed in VSL & Kontakt2 that many samples not being used are loaded into ram. Is this a must smooth for operations or will future updates look at the actual instruments that are addressed in the VI and be able scale them back? Possibly this is not doable but I thought I would ask. Thanks
  • M
    M

    I have noticed that when I open one instance of VE from Pro Tools it starts out at about 50%.  But if I open an stand-alone it is in the single digits. This makes me concerned for using VE as a plug-in.  I have a G5 Quad 2.5 with 4.5GB RAM, internal SATA drives.  And, like Timeline, there were no instruments loaded in the VE instances.

    Thomas 
  • O
    O
    Is there a confusion here between SE and VE? Did you really mean Vienna Ensemble ? I was just talking about CPU with Vienna Instruments instances / Special Edition :) !
  • M
    M

    Indeed.  My bad.