Having to increase buffer size with VEPro 6

[andygrainger]

Hi Andi, I have been experimenting with VEPro6 (the latest version for Mac) and my old VEPro 5. I have a Mac Pro master with two Mac mini slaves all running OS 10.10.5. With VEPro 5, I was able to use a buffer size setting (inside Sibelius's Audio window) of 1024 and never had any problems playing back quite complex orchestral scores. With VEPro 6 I have to increase the buffer size to 2048 to get the same level of playback (no pops or hiccups) which in itself is not a huge problem for playback but does of course double the latency when playing into Sibelius. Is there any reason why the sample streaming performance should be worse on VEPro 6? All the samples are coming off SSD drives. I wonder if other people have experienced the same thing? Thanks!, Andy

[andi]

Hello Andy!

Maybe you don't have the optimal settings in the VE Pro preferences for your setup. I would check the VE Pro manual, pages 22-24.
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/MyVSL

I would also make sure that you add 2 buffers in the VE Pro Server Interface.

Best regards,
Andi

[andygrainger]

Hi Andi,

I re-checked all my settings and they are the same as when I was using VEPro5.  I've looked at the manual...my IP addresses are different from the ones you quote in the manual but they have always been the same numbers and I can't imagine that that would affect anything.  As far as I can tell the preferences and buffers are all the same as with VEPro 5.  I guess it's not a huge problem...My system stills works with the larger buffer size, it's just surprising to me that the smaller buffer size worked with VEPro5 but not VEPro 6 with the same settings.  Both my Mac mini slaves only have two cores each - one has three instances and the other five running on it...maybe this has something to do with it.  The increased latency is not ideal for playing into Sibelius but I will continue to try and tweak some of the other variables.

Would you normally expect the streaming performance to improve with VEPro 6?

Thanks!  Andy

[andi]

Hello Andy!

Why do you need three and five VE Pro instances? It might help to have only one on both slave computers. If you need more than 16 channels or different sound sets on the same slave, you can use the VE Pro Event Input as described in the "Optimizing Sibelius Playback" manaul, page 5.
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/MyDownloads/Notation_Related

The streaming performance mostly depends on hardware. It should be the same with VE Pro5 and VE Pro 6.

Best,
Andi

[andygrainger]

Hi Andi,

Thank you...You learn something new everyday!  I did not realize I could configure my system in ths way.  I did know that you recommend two instances for a two core machine etc so I will try it out and see if it makes any difference.  The only disadvantage I can see is that only one of the event input plugins can be used for automation data so if on my two core machine I use two instances, only one can have automation.  Am I right with this assumption?  This still does not explain why I have a different performance level between versions 5 & 6 with everything else staying the same but it could certainly be more convenient to have all my instruments in one or two instances on my slaves.  I will continue to experiment!

Best,   Andy

[andi]

Hello Andy!

As far as I know, Sibelius doesn't offer plugin automation at all except MIDI automation. MIDI automation can be used for every instrument in VE Pro, regardless if you trigger it directly or via VE Pro Event Input.

I don't know why you had a slightly better performance with VE Pro 5. Maybe you had different multithread settings in the VE Pro preferences. Maybe the project you had with VE Pro 5 was smaller. VE Pro 6 doesn't take more power than VE Pro 5 in general.

Best,
Andi

[andygrainger]

Hi Andi!

Thank you for the clarification on the automation!  I will try using only two intances on each of my two-core slaves and see if I get any increased performance.

Best,  Andy