VSL crackling after a period of time (RAM usage issue)

[MqcCheezePiano]

After a while of using VSL synchron player. I have noticed the RAM usage of VSL in task manager drops significantly. This will cause crackling as I'm assuming VSL thinks voices are cached in memory but then needs to go fetch it from the storage when it finds out it doesn't exist.

I use all the mic positions of my VSL Synchron D with a preload size of of 16384 samples. VSL reports that it is taking up around 13.9GB of RAM. I use it within Cakewalk so the RAM usage you see here is a little higher than expected.

After a while of use be that 30 mins or an hour, VSL will suddenly start crackling and this is not because I am loading too many voices at the same time for my computer to handle.

Going into task manager, the RAM usage will now sit at around 5GB, this keeps happening and eventually Cakewalk (with VSL loaded) or the standalone player will dwindle to only around 1-2GB usage.

To solve this:

I have to either restart VSL, or click each mic to disable and re-enable it to "reload it" to memory. The crackling has now stopped occuring.

I have tried contacting VSL through email but absolutely no help was provided to the actual issue, only the classic "have you got the latest version, have you formatted your drive, make sure that no firewall or antivirus software is blocking anything VSL related (?????????).

I am currently using Windows 11 with a Ryzen 5 7500F. If anyone has solutions or ideas please comment

[Ben]

Sounds to me like Windows is offloading RAM into the page file since it things these data are not frequently used. It's hard to tell how to solve such an issue since it highly depends on your current hardware, Windows, and host configuration.

One thing that improved this for me in past was to lower the page-size (virtual memory), so Windows is less likely to unload samples from RAM.
Completely disabling virtual memory is usually not a good idea and will cause some applications to not work properly. But since it's easy to revert you can try it out as well, but be aware that your computer will instantly freeze-crash in case your RAM is completely filled when not having virtual memory enabled!

Another thing that usually works is playing back the song in loop for a few minutes, so Windows loads data back into RAM again. But of course this is quite annoying when you want to start working right away.

Also, make sure you are running the latest BIOS version for your mainboard and the latest mainboard drivers.

[MqcCheezePiano]

@Ben said:

Sounds to me like Windows is offloading RAM into the page file since it things these data are not frequently used. It's hard to tell how to solve such an issue since it highly depends on your current hardware, Windows, and host configuration.

One thing that improved this for me in past was to lower the page-size (virtual memory), so Windows is less likely to unload samples from RAM.
Completely disabling virtual memory is usually not a good idea and will cause some applications to not work properly. But since it's easy to revert you can try it out as well, but be aware that your computer will instantly freeze-crash in case your RAM is completely filled when not having virtual memory enabled!

Another thing that usually works is playing back the song in loop for a few minutes, so Windows loads data back into RAM again. But of course this is quite annoying when you want to start working right away.

Also, make sure you are running the latest BIOS version for your mainboard and the latest mainboard drivers.

My paging file size is set to 5120MB. What would you say is a good setting to keep it at?

[Ben]

It depends on the amount of RAM installed, but you could try running with 512MB or 1024MB. But keep in mind that this will reduce the OS' capability to unload not required data, so your memory will hold more data at all time.

To revert this change simply set the option to "System managed size" and Windows will decide what it thinks ios optimal for your setup.