Settings for Buffer below 1024?

[Vorakas]

After battling for the past several years with another DAW and workflow killers, I've decided to try the demo for DP 8. Thus far, I am extremely impressed with the features, particularly with scoring to picture which is my primary need. DP 8 is miles ahead of when the last time I used it almost 10 years ago.

However, I'm running into an issue that for the life of me I can't figure out. I have tried this on BOTH the Mac demo and Windows demo and the results are exactly the same: I can't run DP 8 at a buffer setting lower than 1024 without getting horrific pops, dropouts, stuttering, overloads, etc. Unfortunately, 1024 is right at the cusp of the latency being just slightly too high that trying to play rapid passages is proving troublesome for me.

Considering I've used other DAWs at 512 or lower with a fairly large orchestral template, clearly it is my lack of knowledge about DP's settings that is causing this. But I've looked throughout the menus and changed numerous settings all to no avail.

Some information about the rig I'm using and/or settings I have:

- One master sequencing machine
- Two slaves running VEPRO 5. Buffer usually set to 512. Currently at 1024 because DP is at 1024
- 23 instances of Kontakt 5 spread over the two of them. Multiple HDDs at 7200 RPM
- MOTU 828 MK II firewire interface. All drivers are up to date.
- Gigabit connection between all machines. All are using independant network cards: nothing on-board
- If I'm using my PC as my master sequencer it is an i7 2600K, 16 gig of RAM, ASUS|P8Z68 DELUXE/GEN3 motherboard
- If I'm using my MAC as my master sequencer it is an older MacPro 1,1 that I upgraded to two Xeon 3 ghz chips and 16 gig of RAM
- Slave is a PC: i7 960 with 24 gig of RAM, GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R motherboard.
- Inside DP 8, I have it set to run Virtual Instruments in real time.
- I'm only running 4 Valhalla reverbs on AUXes and one multiband equalizer. Turning them off had no effect.

Is there other settings that need to be taken into account in DP 8? I'm quickly coming to realize that it is a very deep program, deeper than I originally thought and possibly other DAWs so I'm hoping there is some magic setting that I'm missing. I would really like to make this my new DAW of choice.

[daniel.sneed]

Can't help that much, but did you gave a try to play VI non-real-time?

For sure, my own projects are *light* but I can play at buffer 128, sometimes even 64, if rhythm is picky and tempo is up.

Of course, while tracking, disabling any unnecessary plugin, as you did with reverb and multiband, may help somewhat, too.

[Vorakas]

Yes, setting the dropdown to Pre-Gen mode only made the problem worse.

I should have mentioned that this is during playback 95% of the time. SOMETIMES when playing without recording I'll get some dropouts. Setting to Pre-Gen makes it impossible to even play, let alone record.

[David Polich]

Yes, setting the dropdown to Pre-Gen mode only made the problem worse.

I should have mentioned that this is during playback 95% of the time. SOMETIMES when playing without recording I'll get some dropouts. Setting to Pre-Gen makes it impossible to even play, let alone record.

23 instances of Kontakt 5? I'd expect that to fold just about any machine running DP at less than 1024 buffer.

Sorry, I don't do tv and film scoring, just pop, so I'm not really an authority on this. I understand the need for large templates. Still, I
think 23 instances is a bit of overkill, even if you're running slaves with VE Pro.

We do have a number of film and tv "dudes" here on the forum, maybe they
can help you out. All I know is, for pop, I'd never run more than two instances of Komntakt 5. In fact I never run more than two VI's at a time
at all.

[Marc7777]

I can't run DP 8 at a buffer setting lower than 1024 without getting horrific pops, dropouts, stuttering, overloads, etc. Unfortunately, 1024 is right at the cusp of the latency being just slightly too high that trying to play rapid passages is proving troublesome for me.

That statement right there has been my problem ever since going to DP8. I have the same issue going on and I am working with MOTU to figure it out. I'll let you know if I find anything major. I was thinking it was system specific, but if you read this forum enough, you'll find many users experiencing the same thing. (okay it may be system specific, but there must be a common thread here.)

Here's some things to help that i've found:

Check the Preference in VEP that shows number of audio channels. For me, I can't go over 32 per instance because DP freaks out. It seemingly lets you type any number, but when I went over 32 channels, DP did some weird things.

Also, there's been debate on this, but from what i've heard (both from MOTU and VEP) it's better CPU wise to use few instances and many Event Inputs. Rather than a whole bunch of instances.
I think this is because, if you go into the bundles -> Instruments, you'll see all your VEP instances in there. and if you had 20+ of these.. well that table would be HUGE!


In my setup I have VEP with 3 instances - each with about 12 Event Inputs going to each of them. I did tests and confirmed that at least with more Event Inputs, I can get by on 512 buffer, but just barely. Once the session loads up I will switch to 1024. Still CPU pops will happen after a few hours of working. Simply restarting DP seems to alleviate issues for a few hours. When I tested having 36 instances.. DP really freaked.

Also, your 23 Kontakts isn't that big compared to mine and other composers I know templates. that's on the light side for me. My "Big" template has well over 40..

The really odd thing is that in DP7, I didn't have any CPU performance issues. I did have dropouts, missing notes, type stuff, but never "hit the limit" on my Mac Pro. with DP8 I seemingly easily "hit the limit". I don't want to go back since DP8 did fix many other issues I was having with DP7, mainly they fixed the latency compensation with VEP.

I have some downtime next week and i'll really dig into this problem then. I'll get back to ya!

[Vorakas]

Thanks for the info. That news is both encouraging and depressing at the same time. Encouraging because I'm not the only one experiencing this, but depressing that it hasn't been nailed down yet as to what's causing it and sadly I doubt it will be discovered in the next two weeks which is when my demo expires. I need to definitely work with it more so I'm not sure if it's a deal breaker for me yet or not.

I definitely don't have more than 32 audio inputs per instance. I was even considering knocking it down some because you're right: the list in DP is ridiculously long.

I've avoided the Event plugin because I've read that it specifically causes more issues with Digital Performer in regards to dropouts. The Vienna crew has been notified and, last I've heard, they've said it's not a trivial fix and might not be fixed ever. Perhaps I need to investigate it more. I've never used it.

I'm glad to hear you've created templates that are significantly bigger than mine. After I go completely SSD for my sample drives my intention was to load even more and with all the new libraries coming out soon, it's going to be a necessity.

Please keep me posted with what you find, I'd appreciate it.