How well does VI pre-rendering work?

daveyboy · Post by **daveyboy** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:01 pm

I don't think it's ready for prime time. It's now disabled on my system but prior to that BFD2 would be all out of sync unless the bfd2 window was closed. Or, I'd have to disable/reenable tracks to get it to sync up properly. I have word from a beta tester friend that they were complaining about this to motu a while back but it's not fixed. Oddly he's now on Logic, which really has the vi thing down in terms of prerendering. not for me though...I'll stick it out!

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:30 pm

Frodo wrote:I guess that would hinge on what aspect of VIs are being prerendered-- just the MIDI note on/off or the sample audio along with it. I can't imagine those sample libraries that load part of the sample into RAM and stream the rest starting somewhere at the end of the initial "paged" data. That would indeed be a mess and sort of defeat the purpose or VI pre-rendering.

If pre-rendering works how I imagine, once you've written the MIDI the samples are no longer referenced at all. They basically go offline, as if you've frozen the track and disabled the plugin. At that point, the disk-streaming protocol of any particular sample-based VI would be moot.

I read somewhere else on the board that samples were reloaded every time a change was made to a track. This backs up my theory, but also points to other obvious problems.

zed · Post by **zed** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:17 am

blue wrote:If pre-rendering works how I imagine, once you've written the MIDI the samples are no longer referenced at all. They basically go offline, as if you've frozen the track and disabled the plugin. At that point, the disk-streaming protocol of any particular sample-based VI would be moot.

I read somewhere else on the board that samples were reloaded every time a change was made to a track. This backs up my theory, but also points to other obvious problems.

Yep. You've got it. It is basically like a frozen track, methinks. As soon as you put a track into record, it loads the samples again. Take it out of record and it dumps them.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:15 am

I've experienced the same problems reported here -- things getting out-of-whack when I introduce a change. It sometimes takes a minute before they're all pre-rendered again. So far I've not clicked a single "run-in-realtime" button, but I think it would probably speed things up a lot to do so on simple projects. Large, complex projects no doubt benefit from pre-rendering, but simple ones do not.

I wish there were a global default preference for pre-rendering/realtime.

Shooshie

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:20 am

Shooshie wrote:I wish there were a global default preference for pre-rendering/realtime.

I was thinking the same thing. What might be nice is an extra check box for pre-rendering in the new Plugin Manager preferences. I would love to be able to turn it on/off globally for each VI, or for all VIs and save that as a set. Some of the synth plugins I use eat up 1/4 of my CPU with just one voice! Play a 4 part chord and my G5 is crackling. It would be cool to always have that one pre-render, while maybe setting sample-based plugs to always run in real time.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:24 am

blue wrote:
Shooshie wrote:I wish there were a global default preference for pre-rendering/realtime.
I was thinking the same thing. What might be nice is an extra check box for pre-rendering in the new Plugin Manager preferences. I would love to be able to turn it on/off globally for each VI, or for all VIs and save that as a set. Some of the synth plugins I use eat up 1/4 of my CPU with just one voice! Play a 4 part chord and my G5 is crackling. It would be cool to always have that one pre-render, while maybe setting sample-based plugs to always run in real time.

Cut! Print it! That's a wrap!

I think you (we) should send that idea to MOTU ASAP. That's exactly how it needs to be.

Shooshie

fst · Post by **fst** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:50 am

zed wrote: As soon as you put a track into record, it loads the samples again. Take it out of record and it dumps them.

The question is, was this a known side effect of the way pre-rendering was implemented, back when it was was coded? If so, i find it hard to believe that MOTU would miss that one, as it's plainly unworkable for those working with large sample sets, myself included

Therefore, hopefully it's just broken and will get fixed in a point update.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:31 pm

Shooshie wrote:
blue wrote:
Shooshie wrote:I wish there were a global default preference for pre-rendering/realtime.
I was thinking the same thing. What might be nice is an extra check box for pre-rendering in the new Plugin Manager preferences. I would love to be able to turn it on/off globally for each VI, or for all VIs and save that as a set. Some of the synth plugins I use eat up 1/4 of my CPU with just one voice! Play a 4 part chord and my G5 is crackling. It would be cool to always have that one pre-render, while maybe setting sample-based plugs to always run in real time.

Cut! Print it! That's a wrap!

I think you (we) should send that idea to MOTU ASAP. That's exactly how it needs to be.

Shooshie

Glad you agree. I'll put it in the suggestions box.

Tonio · Post by **Tonio** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:44 pm

Good dead on that suggestion Shooshie !, VI pre rendering is loading the Vi for any moves.
It like a perpetual loading. Knock it off would ya

There is definately a latency going on. I cued back to start from mid tune, and the VI tracks were all wacked. end of sequence and the VI samples are still playing back??
I finally got DP6 today& installed on my lowly G4 dual 800. Oddly DP6 gives a 25% CPU, and on my original 4.61 project its about 50~75% usage.
I also noticed that a VI outside of VI racks, is still odd too. theres a latency that is creating a sustian @ 800 hz on a piano track in ST 2.5 (Sampletank).
woah, splain that?
T