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  3. Another Gigastudio / RAM / XP question...

  • Another Gigastudio / RAM / XP question...

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    My first day working with Gigastudio and XP has thrown up some interesting revelations.

    I find Gigastudio to be very unstable. I have had many crashes, although from reading the TASCAM forums I see that some of these may be due to my choice of the m-audio midisport 4x4 midi interface. However, the crashes are pretty rare. The main problem is Gigastudio RAM allocation...!

    I've read that Giga can only allocate 1 Gb of RAM. So, I bought 1.5GB, with the thought of getting Giga to run in 1Gb of it, and the OS to run on the 500mb that was left.

    But, in gigastudio, I can only load samples up to 80% of my memory...? Is the 'memory' indicator in Giga representative of entire system RAM, or just the stuff that's already assigned to Giga? If the former, then this could be understandable.

    However, when I check in task manager / processes, only 572mb appears assigned to Gigastudio (well, the Msg32.exe - though I could be wrong in looking at at that)

    So far I have loaded in Giga (Approx):
    11 sustain instruments
    17 staccato / short note instruments
    6 performance / legato instruments

    Trying to load another perf / legato file on top of that gives me an error - not enough RAM.

    Is this usual for a machine with 1.5Gb of RAM, or is Giga ignoring some RAM somewhere?

    Sorry if this is newbie stuff - but then, as far as Gigastudio is concerned, I'm as green as they come!

    Any advice or comments gratefully accepted!

    Cheers,

    Ben
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    @Another User said:

    Trying to load another perf / legato file on top of that gives me an error - not enough RAM.


    VSL's performance legato files are notoriously RAM-hungry. I can only load 6 or 7 of them into my 1GB machine before I run out of memory.
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    @Chompy said:

    My first day working with Gigastudio and XP has thrown up some interesting revelations.


    Just a question here: Everyone seems to be talking about Giga on XP. Anyone here still use Win2000? How does it work on that OS? This is coming from a big fan of Win2000 that until now has stalwartly refused to upgrade the OS. In fact, I have bought computers within the past year and opted for a Win2000 instead of XP installation. After all, if it's not broke . . .

    ~Chris
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    Every engine in our company runs under windows 2000,
    recording - editing - mapping, everything

    never change a winning team [:)]

    Herb
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    I had to buy a PC to run the VSL,via the Gigastudio,and,though not wishing to dredge up the old Mac vs PC debate,being a Mac user has made me realise how lucky I've been.There are no such issues of the OS only seeing part of the RAM.Also Gigastudio quite regularly refuses to launch properly.I've consulted the company who configured this system and "optimised" it for music,but they are unable to satisfactorarily answer the issues concerning the PC's alarming unreliability.I've run the two side by side and the Mac wins hands down every time in terms of reliability.Also I've found that sometimes certain instruments take an age (up to ten minutes!) to load,yet on other occasions,load with no discernable tardiness.What's that all about?
    Because of the huge demands on memory the VSL places,RAM has suddenly become a real problem issue for Gigastudio:the very thing that Tascam/Nemesys claim differentiates it from "traditional" RAM based samplers.Of course,thet couldn't have forseen the monstrously large VSL.Tascam state they have no plans to produce a Mac OS version.What a pity.Me?My intention was to purchase a couple more PC's,and also run the VSL on the EXS platform,since I'm a Logic user.But now I'm thinking,maybe I'll wait and see if the guys can produce a version for the EXS that will impliment all the sophisticated features found on the Gigastudio,which is undeniably powerful.Then I'll be off like a shot,sell my PC,with its awful OS and return to a truly stable environment.That's the problem with PC's -Windows.But I'm sure as Hell glad I bought this library:my next showreel,which I'll be taking to Cannes,will really give me an edge.Can I ask,Herb,How many PC's did it take to create your impressive "demos"?Some of those instruments and effects (eg:glissandi,cor anglais)are not yet available to us.
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    Hello Strawinsky,

    most was done on one engine.
    But it was more a workout, to find out the final mapping scheme, and also what features should be developed (our Performance Tools).

    Really an non inspiring work flow, but so important to find the right mapping and feature solutions.
    So I hope that my future compositions will be more musical.

    Herb
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    i feel i have to step in regarding the postings from chompy, galleddrim and kevin,

    ahead have a look at http://www.glasstrax.com/Tips/gigaexpert/unloadunmapped.html">http://www.glasstrax.com/Tips/gigaexpert/unloadunmapped.html - if this helps anybody, feedback would be welcome.

    the method, virtual memory is accessed by the system, is different in W95/98/ME and W2K/XP, as well as the allocation of memory-adresses.

    it is not a long time ago, computers itself could not adress more memory than 512 KB - everything above was virtual (i.e. located on your harddisk) and W95/98/ME can access physical memory above in theory, but you will run into a lot of problems trying to do so.

    W2K/XP can manage physical memory up to 4GB, although a single process can only use up to 2GB - and there are actually only a few motherboards out there, which can manage 2GB or more.

    that means, that it has something to do with W2K/XP, because this kind of issues simply could not (or at least hardly) ocurre with former systems.

    there is a nice tool in W2K/XP which has been mentioned: the task manager
    using the tab *processes* you can select a column (menu view) and display the virtual memory used by each process. have a look at msg32.exe (which is part of the *endless-wave-engine*) to discover the difference in memory-usage compared with the display shown in GS.

    the behavior you will notice is quite nonsense, if you have 1GB or more in your computer, as access to vitual memory is slow(harddisk!) and timeconsuming (kernel-process!) and might have been useful in W98/ME but is a handicap with W2K/XP in junction with big physical memory.
    this process has simply not been designed to work with the kind of virtual memory in W2K/XP.

    also this msg32.exe (notice: developed by conexant corp.) shows another bad behaviour in W2K/XP: it does not free memory if data is not used and from about 800 KB used memory and above it becomes unstable (looks like a kind of deadlock), crashes/frezzes the machine and leaves locked processes - forcing a scandisk during restart of your computer.

    we have heard of only one machine until now, which seems to be able to handle 2GB RAM with GS - this is under investigation - nothing very special with this computer - maybe except it's running XP [;)]

    generally there is not much difference between W2K and XP, maybe the *nice* surface looking like a playmobile-toy, maybe the bunch of assistents nobody needs. anyway you will need to disable a lot of services in XP to get the same performance compared with W2K, see
    http://www.musicxp.net/ for details.

    finally some points why users on a mac seem to be happier:
    there is a lot fewer hardware for macs and therefore a lot fewer issues
    you cannot *build* your mac, everything comes out of one hand
    there is not as much to adjust, install, configure as in windows, so it feels you have to care only about your music (and the software to produce it)
    the architecture of the G3/G4 is *RISC* and therefore faster on audio- and video-related processes as P3/P4, so even a *slow* mac gives you a practible performance
    since macOS earlier than X is not multitasking, software for *near-realtime-tasks* like audio is written to work *bypassing* the system and therefore very close to the kernel

    so there is not much, what can happen to a mac-user compared to a win-user, but hey: wait for apps running with OSX

    forgive me, if my excursion was boring for you, beeing primary interested in music than in computers, but is not as simple as companies like to make us believe

    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
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    Thanks for the replies so far.

    @cm said:

    have a look at msg32.exe (which is part of the *endless-wave-engine*) to discover the difference in memory-usage compared with the display shown in GS.

    I'm looking at msg32.exe in the task manager and it's only using 639mb. There's a few other processes running, but they're only using a few mb each, certainly no more than 128mb all together. So I should have about half a gig of memory still left free, of which gigastudio could use 361mb, but it appears to be ignoring it! Why is it topping out at 639mb? It's confusing. I'm new to XP as well so I don't know if there's anywhere where I can specify that GS should use more RAM... (I second the guy earlier who mentions Macs - after working on OS 9.2 for the last 6 months, coming back to windows has been pretty unpleasant...)

    In GS, the 'memory' indicator is at 78%. I can't load in any more samples, no matter how small they are. I get an 'Error code: 5', then 'Unable to allocate memory...'

    So yeah... if GS can use up to 1Gb of RAM, how can I force it past 639mb?
    What are other people's msg32.exe's topping out at in terms of memory usage?

    Any help, as always, greatly appreciated.

    Cheers,

    Ben
  • cmC
    VSL Team
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    @Chompy said:

    I'm looking at msg32.exe in the task manager and it's only using 639mb. There's a few other processes running, but they're only using a few mb each, certainly no more than 128mb all together. So I should have about half a gig of memory still left free, of which gigastudio could use 361mb, but it appears to be ignoring it! Why is it topping out at 639mb?
    [...]
    In GS, the 'memory' indicator is at 78%. I can't load in any more samples, no matter how small they are. I get an 'Error code: 5', then 'Unable to allocate memory...'

    have you added the value of the virtual memory used by msg32.exe?
    this (error 5, which obviously comes from GS, not from win) looks like a problem known from W98: if your virtual memory gets too big, some processes are not able to get free adresses.
    by default W2K/XP reserves the same amount of virtual memory as you have physically installed - this is not always clever, if you have a lot of RAM.
    try to reduce the size of your pagefile (= virtual memory)
    right-click my computer, choose properties | advanced | performance options - see virtual memory - click change and reduce initial and maximum size to 512 MB (write down the original values, if you have to reset it in case you expect any strange behaviour - which should not happen, but who knows...)
    you might recieve a warning saying *the system may not be able to create debugging information bla-bla - continue?*, click yes - you need to restart

    what have you done? as you have 1,5 GB physical memory (fast) you limit the usage of virtual memory to 0.5 GB, setting both fields to the same value prevents *dynamic resizing* (slow kernel-job) an you will end up with a total of 2 GB memory, which can be used by applications.
    (the minimum you are allowed to select is 2 MB - i choose this on a graphic computer with 2GB and it became incredible fast)
    lets say 120 MB is taken by windows, so GS has plenty room left

    virtual memory is mapped into a hig adress-area (above 3 GB), so hopefully you are save now to avoid this error-5 _and_ have more data in your fast physical memory

    would be interesting, up to how much percent you get now and which chipset is on your motherboard (usually found as name of the ide-controller)

    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
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    I am reading a number of statements in this topic that worry me. I am afraid that the advise being passed is not accurate, complete or even true and I would seriously like to advise that you consult multiple sources for issues on OS versions, memory management, etc.

    As far as I have understood it (a few years ago when I was working more actively as software engineer/consultant):
    Virtual Memory is NOT the same as the swap file on disk. Virtual Memory is the entire system that can provide applications and services with a heap of memory blocks that the applications see as PRIVATE memory - the applications cannot see the memory of the other applications. This is what is meant with the word VIRTUAL.

    Virtual Memory (VM) systems are meant for managing blocks of memory on behalf of the running applications and services. Swap files are always a standard component of such memory managers. The operating system can swap out the least recently used memory blocks from RAM out to disk, when there are no more free memory blocks in physical (fast) memory, thus freeing RAM memory. When the application needs to use information in memory blocks now residing on disk, the OS will make sure the contents are read back into physical memory, using a similar swap out/in scheme.
    If you think about this, you should notice that the swap file is thus NOT some type of alternative type of memory management. Neither is it worse, or something to avoid. It is just part of a smart, larger system to provide all applications with more memory than is available in RAM.

    Windows XP is actually Windows NT 5.1 and Windows 2000 is actually Windows NT 5.0. So, if you trust Windows 2000, it does not make sense to completely distrust Windows XP. They are very similar under the hood, and both (I believe) quite robust and stable systems, meant for doing a lot of complex things at (nearly) the same time...
    Now, with GigaStudio, we are dealing here with a very special and dedicated type of application, that is built around the feature of LOCKING allocated memory blocks. This means that memory blocks, once allocated to GigaStudio, have to remain at a fixed location in physical RAM, and thereby severely limiting the Operatings System to constantly keep moving blocks around, merging and swapping them to disk, if the usage count drops.

    This locking feature is typically meant for small and critical drivers and kernel-type of routines, interrupt handlers, etc. GigaStudio however uses it to "aggressively" try to get hold of a maximum amount of RAM memory, which is quite opposite to the goals of Virtual Memory managers.

    Of course, the OS will not allow an application to lock ALL physical memory, because that would render the OS itself unresponsive or even out of service. Here lies a big difference between the Win95 family (95/98/ME) and the NT family. The former require only 64-128 Mb for itself to run in, the latter at least double that amount. Also, under Windows 98 the user can reduce the amount of disk caching (the famouse [vcache] setting in System.ini). Under the NT OS-es this is not possible, and the OS takes a much larger percentage of the RAM for disk caching. Please note, that disk caching has NOTHING to do with the swap file.

    Finally, to wrap up, GigaStudio has a known bug that limits it internally to use only up to 1 Gb of memory (if you followed my explanation of locking), that practically means: physical memory. Under XP this bug has worse consequences than under Windows 98 because of the size of the OS and the amount of disk caching.

    So, if you want to get the most out of GigaStudio, please use Windows 98. This is a far less complex OS than XP and gives you really 30-50% more samples to load with the same amount of RAM. Win98 may be less stable, but if you only use it for GigaStudio and once you have it running well, it will be solid as rock. Keep the machine clean from other applications, install 1 Gb of Ram and make sure to specify a setting for the disk caching.
    I have tried the XP route as well, experimented a lot, but finally reverted to Windows 98 SE for GigaStudio. My sequencer runs very nicely on an XP machine.

    For Windows 98 SE / ME only:
    Specify in the [vcache] section in the file System.ini:

    [vcache]
    MinFileCache=32768
    MaxFileCache=32768

    If you do not do this, you may run into trouble if you have more than 512 Mb RAM installed.

    Hope this long story clarifies some points about memory management in general.

    Cheers,

    Peter Roos
    peter.roos "at" deltaworks.nl
  • cmC
    VSL Team
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    @Peter Roos said:

    I am reading a number of statements in this topic that worry me. ....

    peter, you are fairly right from the point of view of a programmer, although even this is not the whole story.
    i've mentioned before, W95/98/ME manages memory not in the same way as W2K/XP does and i'm sure, nobody would be interested in an excurse regarding page faults, stack, heap and similar.

    the term *virtual memory* is commonly used for a swapfile, even MSDN (microsoft developer network) is telling us: *Virtual memory is the space on the hard disk that Windows 2000 uses as memory* and the wording in the taskmanager is quite the same - so i think everybody understands, what's meant.

    fact is, that many users would be happy to use _more_ than 1GB, which is not resp. hardly possible with 98 (besides other issues with this OS, i don't want to expand here - you have mentioned one)
    unfortunately the same with most (nearly all) W2K/XP installations - but not because of the operating-system or memory-management but because of the design of the endless-wave-engine (developed by rockwell 1996 for modems, iirc)

    i will be happy to discuss with you further details via PM
    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
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    Thanks for the advice so far, but no further forward I'm afraid.

    First I tried setting the virtual memory to 'No page file', which didn't help at all, then I tried, as suggested by CM, to set it to 512mb. This also has not allowed me to load any more samples. GS still shows that I am only using 78% of the memory. In the task manager I have over 500mb of physical memory free. msg32.exe is only using 639mb.

    I will, if necessary, try running Win 98, but I don't see how this will help from a RAM point of view. Obviously 98 runs in less RAM than XP, but in theory, XP should have a whole 512mb to use, in addition to the 1Gb that GS should be able to reside in.

    TASCAM are not replying to my registration data when I try to send it to them, so I don't have a reg code, so I can't download the public beta of GS 2.53 to see if that remedies the problem. [:(]

    As for the type of motherboard chipset.. I'm not sure about this. The machine is a Matrix from these guys... http://www.meshplc.co.uk/

    well, the struggle continues...
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    If you installed GigaStudio from the discs you got in your package, you may have severe problems. For XP, you need to install the version on the website...which is a full installer, not just an upgrade patch.

    This may be the root of your problems. XP in and of itself is not unstable with Giga in the manner you describe.
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    The version on my Gigastudio installer disc is version 2.50.48, which is, according to the www.nemesysmusic.com website, fully compatible with XP. I have not installed version 2.53.00, which is labled as a public beta patch. I have not installed this for 2 reasons. Firstly, I have not been sent my registration / download codes, so not only can I not complete registration of my copy of Gigastudio, I also cannot download updates from their site. Secondly, I am wary of public betas as a rule. But, I would install this one due to the problems I am experiencing.

    I don't understand what you mean when you say that there are no instability problems 'in the manner I describe', as there quite clearly are!

    I'm not making this stuff up. [:)]
    I wish I was.
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    @Chompy said:


    I don't understand what you mean when you say that there are no instability problems 'in the manner I describe', as there quite clearly are!

    I'm not making this stuff up. [:)]
    I wish I was.


    Your version is a good version.

    What is your system configuration, including make/model of audio interface? Something is fishy. I'm not implying that you're making anything up at all. However, the behavior you're seeing is not typical, and there could be some issue with your setup which is causing the problems. Perhaps we can find it...
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    Bruce - it would be excellent if we could find it. [:)]
    At the moment I'm very close to being able to run all I need in real-time on one machine - clawing back that 20% of memory would completely nail it.

    The system is a Mesh Matrix XP 2200+, with an AMD XP 2200+ processor, running at 1.8GHz. 1.5Gb of DDR RAM. 2 HDs - One 40Gb system drive, One 200Gb audio drive, where all my .gig files reside. When running GS, it is the only program running on the machine, besides the VSL performance tool.

    The midi interface is a Midiman USB Midisport 4x4, using the latest driver from the M-Audio site. The audio interface is an M-Audio Delta 44, which GS assures me is GSIF compatible. I'm certainly getting solid, pop-free audio, and 160 voices of polyphony. Again, using the latest driver from their site.

    Hope that info gives you some ideas. I'm pretty much stumped....
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    Interesting. I've taken out one of the 512mb blocks of RAM, leaving me with just 1Gb. Now, gigastudio can load fewer samples than before, as would be expected. BUT, the 'memory' indicator is at 99%. Could it be that my problem lies with inaccuracies in GS's memory indicator? I can load more samples with 1.5 Gb of RAM installed, but GS's indicator says 78% at 'top-out' time, when it maybe should be saying 99%. So, with the full 1.5Gb installed, it looks like it is recognising the RAM, but not specifying its usage correctly in the memory indicator.

    Hrrrrmmmm. I wonder. It still doesn't explain why my task manager says that I have 500mb physical memory available when GS says 78% full and doesn't let me load any more samples.

    [Edit: Just had a look in task manager again. After having put back the 512 block to take me up to the full 1.5Gb, Gigastudio only uses 100mb more than it did before the block was put in. Not ideal.]
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    I agree with Peter Roos that Windows98se seems to run more samples than XP. A friend of mine tried both systems as an experiment with 512mgs of RAM and when he loaded the Gigapiano under Win98se, it took 12% of memory in Giga. Under XP it took 18%; we therefore concluded that since Win98 takes less RAM we can load more instruments and samples under Win98. Peter, can you tell me how to get to the "system.ini." file settings as every once in a while I get a blue screen message when quitting Giga telling me my system.ini. settings need a minimum stack of 5 pages. I haven't been able to find where I can change that but I'd especially like to set the vcache settings to what you specify. Thank you!- Frank
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    Wow, Frank - 50% more memory under XP!! That's insane.

    Nothing for it then. Tomorrow I install Win 98. XP can go to hell in a handbag.

    [8o|]

    I've had an abysmal day today.
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    Boys,

    this is simple maths:

    1. As XP needs at least ca. 210MB for the OS, it is no wonder, that with 512MB RAM, you are able to load more samples under Win98SE, which will (e.g. with 98lite) only occupy ca. 80-100MB of RAM.

    -Win98SE: 512-100=412MB for samples
    -WinXP: 512-210=302MB for samples

    2. Since Win98's VMM will refuse to boot with more than ca. 1000MB of RAM, we will be able to load up to 900MB max. under Win98SE - no matter how we set the vcache and/or limit the PhysPage. XP allows you to put in e.g. 1,5GB of RAM and when you have configured your system according to the TASCAM-guide, you will be able to load up to 93-98% shown by the GS-memory-meter, which equals around 1Gig for msg32. Lower results may occur and are part of the holy plan of the universe [;)].

    -Win98SE: 1000-100=900MB for samples
    -WinXP: 1500-210=1290MB for samples/limited to 1000MB max.

    Conclusion: You will be able to load MORE samples using XP, in case you are not one of those "poor boys" that can't get their XP-system to load the max. Shit happens [:(].

    So for me it looks like this (my experiences are based on Asus boards with VIA chipsets, Athlon processors and Maxtor drives):
    Under Win98SE I always get intermitting glitches and or choking streams, whenever the polyphony is topping 140 mono voices. The same hardware under XP gives me rock-solid 160 voices; no glitches, no choking. And around 100MB of RAM more for samples. Under Win2000 I was not able to load more than ca. 600MB before the "message of death" <error 5> has been shown. This is at least what I experienced in the past year and I am sure, that other hardware might give you different results...

    All the best

    Roman