Warning. Power draw sometimes occurs when plug ins shut off

[Kurt Cowling]

Hmmm... Does for me.

[toodamnhip]

I've read and re-read TDH's OP, and it still confuses me.

I never leave any VI's instantiated in a project - I always record a VI
part as audio and then save the VI's settings as a DP user preset, and then
I remove the VI. But pulling plug-ins from audio tracks - no, I never do that.
Not sure what the benefit would be of putting plug-ins in a separate chunk -
seems like a lot of extra work would be needed to "get them back" when re-opening the project file.

Normally I record VI parts at a 256 buffer, which works to reduce latency for all but a few VI's - Amplesound guitars and Omnisphere seem to need a 128 buffer to be playable. If I'm just recording audio (like vocals or guitars) then I leave things at 512 buffer. Mixing I put buffer to 1024.

I have been burned in the past by VIs and plug ins that were saved in DPs proprietary format as a pre set and then, after a new release of a plug in, the DP pre set failed. This happened with several plug ins, most notably Ozone. Also, I used to use MAS plug ins and found them problematic, especially Ozone. SO switching from MAS to AU caused pre set problems.

Thus I have found that the most RELIABLE method is to save the pre set inside the actual VI or plug in’s pre set menu.

IF a plug in updates, etc, it is far less likely that that company will abandon their old pre sets. It is somewhat possible that the company will abandon DPs proprietary formats or MAS.

As you all might know, I am the archive stickler around here, ever vigilant. ..so this has been my policy, not relying on DP’s pre set capabilities 100%.
That said, your idea of using DPs proprietary preset menus is a good one David, as long as it is also backed up in each VI as a pre set in the specific VI.

As far as not understanding WHY I make a folder containg all VIs, bounced MIDI etc, . You have to imagine a VERY NEAT folder containing ALL my past versions of MIDI, VIs etc, all takes etc. It is VERY convenient to have all of the neatly arranged in ONE folder, as opposed to have pre sets all over the place in pre set sub menus.
If I re-do drums, I don;t have to search, I go to “bounced drums”. re-enable the track, create a copy of the last take, revise, re-freeze..boom...done! CLient happy.

As for doing this with pre sets, I am not so sure this is as elegant a path back into the past of one’s song. After awhile, there will be so many pre set sub menus as to make this method cumbersome if you ask me.
There are also advantages to your method too , such as pre sets being available to all songs.
That IS cool.
So it is all a matter of how much redundancy and security and effort one wants to put into al of this.
But I am very disappointed that my method of ONE neat folder having everything neatly arranged from past VIs in any given song, has had to be complicated with now throwing that folder into another chunk.
Again, one can use my method as long as the computer is not bogging down. So make a folder containing all old VIs ...”at first”..
But when one sees CPU start to BOg, either make pre sets like Dave said, or...make a new chunk and put your old VI folder into another chunk, as Dave #2 said...

And as far as you guys that create massive templates that each new song loads, with tons of VIs disabled. Well, you guys might be a bit out of luck.
Try VE pro, it;s more efficient.
And, do some tests on your own and let us all know how it comes out.
My findings are that 50% or so power remains eaten by disabled VIs.

[David Polich]

Ok TDH, well, I gotta agree with Kurt - on my system, I can "click the blue button" to disable a VI and - sure enough, I see the CPU usage meter drop
back down. So I'm not sure why that isn't happening for you.

Regarding VE Pro5 - I bought it, used it for awhile. But I found it annoying
to always have to go through launching it before launching DP, and creating
a new instance of it and...well, suffice it to say it wasn't a time-saver for
me, nor did it reduce my CPU usage significantly enough to warrant its use.

Then again, I just do pop music, I don't do TV and film stuff. No huge orchestral templates. Maybe this is more for the TV/film guys.

[toodamnhip]

Ok TDH, well, I gotta agree with Kurt - on my system, I can "click the blue button" to disable a VI and - sure enough, I see the CPU usage meter drop
back down. So I'm not sure why that isn't happening for you.

Regarding VE Pro5 - I bought it, used it for awhile. But I found it annoying
to always have to go through launching it before launching DP, and creating
a new instance of it and...well, suffice it to say it wasn't a time-saver for
me, nor did it reduce my CPU usage significantly enough to warrant its use.

Then again, I just do pop music, I don't do TV and film stuff. No huge orchestral templates. Maybe this is more for the TV/film guys.

Hmm,
Well, the question isn;t whether or not your CPU usage goes down when disabling the VIs’, its whether or not DP or the VI’s give back 100% of the used CPU bandwidth.
You might not really be able to test this thoroughly until you push a file to the edge of CPU power, whilst have a folder full of “disabled” VIs.
Once you start to hear the creaks and groans of a taxed computer, get rid of those supposedly “disabled” Vis and see if your computer can breath again.
At the least I hope my experience provides users something to try should they hit the proverbial CPU wall.
Maybe only certain Vi’s or VI combinations “stick” cpu resources. Maybe only certain files get corrupted. Maybe it’s because I used an old file that was brought back to life in DP from DP 5, 6, 7 and then 8.
Who knows. But there is no doubt cpu bandwidth was being ROBBED and this fixed everything.
So user can either make this a way of doing business, as it will be for me, or, they can remember my experience and try getting disabled VIs out of their session files when things get tight for the CPU.
Again, hope it helps.

[toodamnhip]

Ok TDH, well, I gotta agree with Kurt - on my system, I can "click the blue button" to disable a VI and - sure enough, I see the CPU usage meter drop
back down. So I'm not sure why that isn't happening for you.

Regarding VE Pro5 - I bought it, used it for awhile. But I found it annoying
to always have to go through launching it before launching DP, and creating
a new instance of it and...well, suffice it to say it wasn't a time-saver for
me, nor did it reduce my CPU usage significantly enough to warrant its use.

Then again, I just do pop music, I don't do TV and film stuff. No huge orchestral templates. Maybe this is more for the TV/film guys.

Hmm,
Well, the question isn;t whether or not your CPU usage goes down when disabling the VIs’, its whether or not DP or the VI’s give back 100% of the used CPU bandwidth.
You might not really be able to test this thoroughly until you push a file to the edge of CPU power, whilst having a folder full of “disabled” VIs.
Once you start to hear the creaks and groans of a taxed computer, get rid of those supposedly “disabled” Vis and see if your computer can breath again.
At the least I hope my experience provides users something to try should they hit the proverbial CPU wall.
Maybe only certain Vi’s or VI combinations “stick” cpu resources. Maybe only certain files get corrupted. Maybe it’s because I used an old file that was brought back to life in DP from DP 5, 6, 7 and then 8.
Who knows. But there is no doubt cpu bandwidth was being ROBBED and this fixed everything.
So a user can either make this a way of doing business, as it will be for me, or, they can remember my experience and try getting disabled VIs out of their session files when things get tight for the CPU.
Again, hope it helps.

[FMiguelez]

TooDamn, how many tracks were you using in this project in the active chunk?

[David Polich]

Ok, TDH, I've read your first post again. And I have to admit, I still don't understand it.

What u seem to be saying is, once you're done with VI's and plug-ins for
a project, remove the VI's and plug-ins and put them in a separate new chunk. That is my understanding.

But let's say you have to go back to the project again to re-mix, re-record some tracks, whatever. Wouldn't you have to then drag the disabled plug-ins back in to your current "working" chunk? And re-enable any VI's you wanted toagain? And wouldn't that mean you'd be back to the same situation again -
a chunk with lots of active plug-ins and VI's?

Just trying to figure out what you're recommending.

[monkey man]

Well Dave, he first puts 'em in a folder. Then if he starts to hit or sense he's about to hit a wall, or even just wants to free CPU for increased snappiness, he shifts the folder to another chunk.

If he later needs to reinstate anything, he can drag it from the 2nd chunk's TO or whatever to the Original TO. There's obviously no need to drag the whole folder back; as you rightly point out, you'd be back where you started from.

[bayswater]

Well Dave, he first puts 'em in a folder. Then if he starts to hit or sense he's about to hit a wall, or even just wants to free CPU for increased snappiness, he shifts the folder to another chunk.

If he later needs to reinstate anything, he can drag it from the 2nd chunk's TO or whatever to the Original TO. There's obviously no need to drag the whole folder back; as you rightly point out, you'd be back where you started from.

If distributing tracks across chunks is involved, why not just put each VI in a V-Rack and turn them on and off as needed? No dragging required.

[toodamnhip]

Ok, TDH, I've read your first post again. And I have to admit, I still don't understand it.

What u seem to be saying is, once you're done with VI's and plug-ins for
a project, remove the VI's and plug-ins and put them in a separate new chunk. That is my understanding.

But let's say you have to go back to the project again to re-mix, re-record some tracks, whatever. Wouldn't you have to then drag the disabled plug-ins back in to your current "working" chunk? And re-enable any VI's you wanted toagain? And wouldn't that mean you'd be back to the same situation again -
a chunk with lots of active plug-ins and VI's?

Just trying to figure out what you're recommending.

Yes, Id have to copy the Vi and it's MIDI track to the clippings window bring and that BACK into the 1st chunk. But I wouldn't grab EVERY VI, just what I needed. A few VIs coming back for edits is not the same as brining the whole folder back with 15 Vis or more. Basically, that whole folder is just like a time machine available to me to get back to the original version of anything I have done. Not sure why this is so hard to understand or a foreign concept? Things need changing, keys need changing, alt mixes need to be made unexpectedly...it is import to be able to access all of that no? I think it is smart to have a folder with all past versions in it. Never expected the memory to get stuck like this.

[toodamnhip]

Well Dave, he first puts 'em in a folder. Then if he starts to hit or sense he's about to hit a wall, or even just wants to free CPU for increased snappiness, he shifts the folder to another chunk.

If he later needs to reinstate anything, he can drag it from the 2nd chunk's TO or whatever to the Original TO. There's obviously no need to drag the whole folder back; as you rightly point out, you'd be back where you started from.

If distributing tracks across chunks is involved, why not just put each VI in a V-Rack and turn them on and off as needed? No dragging required.

I would love some 1st hand evidence that using V Racks improves CPU usage on a song that uses ONE chunk?

[toodamnhip]

TooDamn, how many tracks were you using in this project in the active chunk?

I dunno..60?
It doesn't matter because the point is, taking the disabled VI and old audio OUT of the chunk allowed the chink to then run totally smoothly without the slightest CPU strain.

I could add another 100 tracks at this rate and would have been fine once the old disabled tracks and VIs were removed.

[bayswater]

I would love some 1st hand evidence that using V Racks improves CPU usage on a song that uses ONE chink?

If you use V-Racks, then you have at least two chunks. But that's beside the point. I was responding to the suggestion that you can remove CPU load for unused VIs by dragging their tracks to an another chunk which would be inactive. That's just a more complicated way to get what you get when you put the VI in a V-Rack and then deactivate it in the Chunks window.

[Shooshie]

2DamHip, just verifying all the troubles that you report could be a full-time job. Unless something has changed very recently (like since yesterday), I simply do not experience a power draw when a VI is off.

I also use V-Racks, which allows me to keep my sequences intact, without the intrusion of a VI track within a sequence. When I turn off a V-Rack, there's simply no chance of it drawing power from my sequence chunk.

I don't know what's going on at your location, but it has not been happening here. I've read where several other people have said the same thing. What bothers me is that now you've announced to the world that DP sucks at managing its resources, when it clearly does not.

I turn off VI's all the time not to save CPU resources, but simply to cut down on loading times when I'm beyond the need of the VI. The file opens almost instantly, not having to wait for the VI to load, and if a VI does not load, it cannot draw CPU resources. I'm content with that conclusion, and no, I'm not going to go chasing your premise. It would take a serious chunk out of my already vanishing day.

I think you could consider the titles of your threads before posting "Warning. HUGE..." on a topic that is questionable at best, and which clearly is not affecting others in the way that you describe. Maybe it's a problem with your particular VI.

And as for the V-Racks issue, I recommend that everyone use V-Racks. It's so simple to manage, and you will never again have to wonder if you found and turned off all the VI's in your sequence. If you get just as good results using VEPro, then that's ok, too. But there are too many advantages to V-Racks to ignore them.

Shooshie

[FMiguelez]

All my VIs are in lots if V-Racks, and I DEPEND on DP freeing system resources when disabling them for my current setup.

Needles to say, it works perfectly for me every time. The second I disable a V-Rack I can see the CPU going all the way down (as shown by Menu Meters).

So I'm with Shooshie on this one: It works asexpected here.

OTOH, having too many tracks in an active chunk, even if ALL are disabled, does slow my computer down quite a bit.