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  4. Why so much RAM?

  • Why so much RAM?

    P
    P
    The whole point of Gigastudio was that you could have GIGAbytes of samples on your hard drive and have access to all of them with a modest amount of RAM. I used to be able to load gigantic libraries of sounds on Gigastudio and have all of them available to my applications.

    I feel that with VI and really all VSTs, there is a much steeper memory requirement than Gigastudio ever had. Does this have something to do with the "endless wave" technology Gigastudio claims to utilize? Why doesn't VI or other VSTs do something like this?
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    @peter0302 said:

    The whole point of Gigastudio was that you could have GIGAbytes of samples on your hard drive and have access to all of them with a modest amount of RAM. I used to be able to load gigantic libraries of sounds on Gigastudio and have all of them available to my applications.

    I feel that with VI and really all VSTs, there is a much steeper memory requirement than Gigastudio ever had. Does this have something to do with the "endless wave" technology Gigastudio claims to utilize? Why doesn't VI or other VSTs do something like this?

    I have found that one VI PC is equal (in RAM loading) to almost 5 Giga PCs.

    D
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    endless wave technology (originally developed to provide a virtually uninterrupted dataflow for modems) was a milestone for sample streaming (and is btw protected by several patens from real *big guys*) - the drawback is it can only use kernel memory which limits us to about 1 GB usable memory. each stereo sample is using 128 kB as preload buffer.

    ViennaInstruments streaming engine is running in user memory which can be up to 3 GB in a 32bit OS having 4 GB RAM installed. each stereo sample takes fixed 64 kB as preload buffer which means you can load 6 times the amount of samples compared to GS (in an ideal world) - in fact you might be limited to 5 times ...

    on the other side the number of samples for a single instrument increased continuously, so you might be under the impression you can now load less (huge instruments) than before - use smaller patches or the optimize function to go even one step further.
    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • P
    P
    So are you saying that given the same number of samples loaded, (i.e. say there were a theoretical port of VI to Giga and I loaded the exact same samples) - VI needs less RAM than Giga?

    I am indeed surprirsed to hear that but the sheer number of samples in VI compared to anything I previously used in Giga must be the explanation.

    So if I have 4 GB of RAM in my 32-bit PC, I can use up to 3 GB of that for VI?

    What if I had 64-bit Windows? I take it VI is not able to use 64-bit memory spaces? Is that on the horizon?
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    32bit applications can use any address space the operating provides, but will (by design) always be limited to 4 GB addressable memory (there are a few hacks in the server world, but forget about this for VI)

    be aware everything in the chain on such a (64bit) system has to be 64bit, including audio drivers, VST-host, midi devices, ect
    christian

    btw: i've been already wondering how relative big or small 16 GB RAM will appear to us once we can access them ...
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
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    @Another User said:

    What if I had 64-bit Windows? I take it VI is not able to use 64-bit memory spaces? Is that on the horizon?

    You could theoretically use up to 4GB, rather than 3GB.

    DG