DP / VIs / Audio Stopping / Processor Performance

[oknussen]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone could shed some light on a problem I am having.

Problem: On playback - especially in dense sections - I get lots of stuttering - and then finally, the audio goes out completely: DP won't make any more sound until I reset the audio engine by switching to MIDI only, then switching back to MOTU Audio system and picking my audio outs. Audio in other apps works fine during this. Also, getting lots of stuck notes. Good times.

I am writing a chamber orchestra piece in DP with a bunch (20-25ish) of instances of Kontakt (+ a few UVI samplers and a couple Pianoteq instances) hosted by Bidule. I am sending patch change info through Transmidifier. Kontakt Memory Server/Activity Monitor shows about 11ish gigs of RAM taken up by samples. No VIs are hosted by DP. Audio is coming back into DP from Bidule with subgroups for winds, brass, keyboards, percussion and strings.

Here's the weird thing:

DP's Performance Monitor pegs red during stuttering/audio dropouts (but the Activity Monitor shows modest usage). This monitor is supposed to not be accurate (it doesn't correspond to the Activity Monitor), but its peaks do correspond to hiccups and dropouts in the audio.

Activity Monitor shows RAM usage as stable (i.e. samples seem to be loaded into RAM and aren't being swapped out).

Overall RAM usage is high but not super high. All samples hosted on 1TB internal SSD.

I've tried this in DP 7.24 and DP 9.0.
Buffer Size 2048
Host Multiplier (2 or 4 - I've tried both)
Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro 2.6 GHz i7
OS 10.9.5
Berlin WW + Exp Packs, Spitfire Solo Strings, Spitfire Percussion, XCE Complete, CineBrass Pro, IRCAM Solo Instruments, some VSL

The pegging audio performance meter suggests that DP is being taxed too hard (but I wrote a bigger full orchestra piece in the spring that didn't kill the cpu but used VEP on the laptop and a couple slaves).

I've thought about redoing this template in VEP, which I have, but don't like keeping track of the dongle. I could offload some of the VIs on some slaves, but for personal reasons, would like to keep this all on my laptop.

So, I am not sure where the problem lies and thus don't know which steps to take to resolve this. The piece is due in a couple weeks but this problem is preventing further work on it.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

[oknussen]

Forgot to say that my machine has 16 gb RAM.

[oknussen]

When working in DP 9 on this project, this message came up:

"The MOTU Audio System has been turned off. You may be able to turn it back on with the Audio System menu, but consider saving your file first.

The audio hardware did not respond.

(MotuAudioSystem Mas [57:0])
"
----

This seems to be what was happening in 7.24 but no message box came up.

Can someone shed some light on this - does the audio system shut down when DP gets too taxed?

If so, what's taxing this project. I've got 4 ProVerbs and just MIDI notes (being sent out to Bidule).... (why is there no head scratcher smilie?)

[David Polich]

Ok...a few things to take care of.

Please update to Yosemite 10.10.3. You really have to bail from Mavericks, that is a hit-and-miss
O.S., at best. Yosemite 10.10.3 is the best version of OSX I've used since Mountain Lion 10.8.5.

Second - ALL your samples on an internnal 1TB drive - which one? Is it the same as your system drive? Your samples really should be on a separate drive - IF you are running as many instances of
Kontakt as you say you are.

Are you on the latest version of Kontakt 5? The most recent update was just a couple of weeks ago. Also, have you got Kontakt's memory server turned OFF? It should be set to OFF, unless you are running DP in 32-bit mode, which I hope you aren't, because it is pointless to run DP in 32-bit mode.

Bidule is known to be fussy. I bailed on it a year ago. Not sure why you're using it.

Ok, let us know...

[mikehalloran]

What is your buffer on playback? Set it higher.

[oknussen]

@ David Polich

Thanks for this. Very helpful! I will try these ideas out in the am.

[oknussen]

@ mikehalloran

Buffer is at 2048 - I'll try 4096.

Thanks!

[mikehalloran]

@ mikehalloran

Buffer is at 2048 - I'll try 4096.

Thanks!

Well, 2048 should be enough but, if going to 4096 makes a difference, it's a clue.

[oknussen]

@ David Polich

Just wanted to thank David and report back in case other people encounter similar problems.

The problem seems to center on using Bidule in situations where you push it hard in terms of RAM and Kontakt instances. Moving a couple instruments (with a couple gigs of RAM) to an external hard drive immediately made things run more smoothly. (I also updated Kontakt to the latest version and VEP to the latest version. I had updated Bidule to the latest but that didn't seem to do anything. I haven't upgraded my OS - will do that soon.)

I've gone further though as recommended by David P - and redone most of the template using VEP - running instances of VEP off the internal drive (all on the laptop) and things are so much better (so running most off of VEP and the strings off Bidule). I will move strings to VEP today to a slave and be done with Bidule. I expect things to be as stable as my last orchestra piece (which was solid) which was all VEP.

So - many thanks for the good advice. I had searched about Bidule but hadn't found anything about it's flakiness. The template started small - and Bidule worked fine - but as it grew, things got flakier.

FWIW - I've found DP9 to be pretty solid so far. A few anomalies have shown up but it's not clear to me yet if it's user error or something genuinely flaky. It seems more stable and useful as X.0 release than I remember of 7 and 8. (my $.02).