KVR Audio

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:19 pm

Instead of hijacking the perfectly good Omnisphere thread, I thought it was best to just continue the conversation on this thread.

Joey and I were discussing about if we're going to need a CPU upgrade or not with Omnisphere. I was hoping it wasn't like RMX with memory consumption. I had checked back in 2005 under Cubase SX. I wanted to update my findings and here they are - (and please note - RMX is by far my most used and favorite plug-in in the last 3 years...)

Ok, snuck into my studio...

Cubase launched, fresh project - ~90 megs.
RMX launched - ~300 megs
Load in 8 loops on 8 tracks - ~400 megs
Keep selecting loop after loop, flipping between sounds - grew to ~680 megs.
Saved project and quit - ~90 megs
Relaunched project with all 8 loops - ~320 megs.

It seems RMX does not clean up memory as you go. Only unloading and reloading the project cleans out the 'unused' memory. As long as you flip between loops looking for what you want, the memory will continue to grow.

Anyone else having a different experience? GlennO, any comments?

Devon

Rod Staples · Post by **Rod Staples** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:20 pm

I didn't know this, but I too don't use it much, partly because as someone said it uses RAM and interface is slow loading, and partly because of more recent releases like battery 3, I don't need to use it.

I do know that RAM is treated differently if you select grooves.

from manual -
MEMORY USAGE
In Slice Menu mode, only the selected Groove Element and the one below it in the Element column of the Browser are loaded into RAM. Slice Menu mode is much less demanding on RAM than Groove Menu mode. This is one of the reasons we chose to use Slice Menu mode as the default setting.

But I would have thought it should at least release memory when moving onto a new patch. So keeping fingers crossed for omnisphere from a performance point of view.

Rod

ckatrun411 · Post by **ckatrun411** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:24 pm

I've actually known about problems like this concerning the products from that company for quite some time. but i recall hinting once, that spectrasonics just might not be the greatest developers in the world, and what happened? I got squashed, by the fan boys....

but, yeah, I can imagine that the multi layer sounds in Omnisphere r going to eat ram. big time. and I am gonna take a wild guess, that on Macs its going to be a huge problem.

beej · Post by **beej** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:44 pm

RMX *is* quite a heavy plugin.

Now, I'm only on a little Mac Powerbook here so *every* plugin is a heavy one

but the thing that surprised me was that when I ran it on my PC, which is approximately twice as powerful as my Mac, it actually felt heavier on the PC than the Mac version did.

Mind you that was a while ago, haven't tried recently as I try to avoid using my PC as much as possible.

But I'm pretty sure that next generation instruments like Omni will also be fairly demanding on resources... the computing world moves forward, and regardless of what machine you have, sooner or later it starts getting left behind (unless you're on an Octocode MacPro, in which case you're quite safe for a while yet...)

Vectorman · Post by **Vectorman** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:32 pm

RMX felt kind of sluggish moving through sound menus on my P4, but now on the Intel Quad, it browses through things almost as fast as I can point and click. I'm sure Omnisphere will take a much bigger bite out of my CPU resources, but I guess software developers have to give all the quad owners a compelling reason to go octo, LOL.

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:18 pm

even on my pretty decent system I find that using more than 2-4 parts is cpu and memory prohibitive...

GlennO · Post by **GlennO** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:29 pm

DevonB wrote:It seems RMX does not clean up memory as you go. Only unloading and reloading the project cleans out the 'unused' memory. As long as you flip between loops looking for what you want, the memory will continue to grow.

Anyone else having a different experience? GlennO, any comments?

RMX loads the grooves within a suite as you select them. That way the previous grooves you've used within a suite are instantly selectable if you go back to them. When you move on to a new suite, the memory from the previous suite is reused. Also, once you start loading grooves, you'll always have some grooves loaded into memory. In other words, once you start loading grooves, you'll never return to the initial state where no grooves are loaded.

In summary, RMX uses the memory (and cpu) that you tell it to

, and we have gone to great lengths to make sure that is as little as possible. After all, I use it a lot myself, and I use the same kind of computers as our customers.

- Glenn

GlennO · Post by **GlennO** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:45 pm

Oh, and one other thing: while there are no known bugs in Stylus RMX at this point, there may well be ones that simply haven't been found yet. So, if you feel you've found a case where memory is not being reused properly, please email a detailed description to tech support (supportATspectrasonics.net) and I'd be glad to take a look at it.

- Glenn

Rb Floyd · Post by **Rb Floyd** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:09 pm

Since we got your attention, I was wondering if THIS is normal : In Sonar (any versions), whenever Stylus is opened, , anytime press mute or solo on any tracks or basically select or click on anything in the interface, the song lags and glitches at the same time....

is it normal ?

it's no big deal since it's my favorite plugin but if i'm doing anything wrong
I'd like to know it...

the only solution for it (at this time), is to FREEZE stylus whenever i'm satisfied with a loop.....then, it doesn't glitch

thanks in advance

GlennO · Post by **GlennO** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:26 pm

No, it's not normal.

But, I'll nip this in the bud right now: it is vitally important for a variety of reasons that any problem reports go through our tech support channel. Use the email address I mentioned above. If you do that, someone will investigate the problem, ask you for more details when required, and respond to you. To encourage people to go through tech support, we do not respond to specific problem reports on public forums. We have an excellent tech support staff and they are ready and willing to help you

- Glenn

Ranietz · Post by **Ranietz** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:56 pm

Rb Floyd wrote:In Sonar (any versions), whenever Stylus is opened, , anytime press mute or solo on any tracks or basically select or click on anything in the interface, the song lags and glitches at the same time....

Have you tried to close the synth rack in Sonar?

-Ranietz-

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:57 am

GlennO wrote: RMX loads the grooves within a suite as you select them. That way the previous grooves you've used within a suite are instantly selectable if you go back to them. When you move on to a new suite, the memory from the previous suite is reused. Also, once you start loading grooves, you'll always have some grooves loaded into memory. In other words, once you start loading grooves, you'll never return to the initial state where no grooves are loaded.

In summary, RMX uses the memory (and cpu) that you tell it to , and we have gone to great lengths to make sure that is as little as possible. After all, I use it a lot myself, and I use the same kind of computers as our customers.

- Glenn

Can you please define a 'suite' please? Is that one of the eight loop positions within the player, or the whole plug-in itself? As I flip between the 8 playable loops in the plug-in, the memory continues to grow, it never shrinks that I've noticed.

Devon

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:59 am

GlennO wrote:Oh, and one other thing: while there are no known bugs in Stylus RMX at this point, there may well be ones that simply haven't been found yet. So, if you feel you've found a case where memory is not being reused properly, please email a detailed description to tech support (supportATspectrasonics.net) and I'd be glad to take a look at it.

- Glenn

I can do that. What other information do you want besides what I have listed at the top in the post? I'll just copy that in an Email.

Devon

beej · Post by **beej** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:31 am

DevonB wrote:Can you please define a 'suite' please?

Well the manual can do that just fine

A suite is the left hand browser, and a suite can contain multiple gooves (and often does).

In groove menu mode, all the grooves in the selected suite are loaded and mapped to your keys. In slice mode, only the single groove you select within a suite is loaded and the slices of that groove mapped to your keyboard.

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:57 am

beej wrote:
DevonB wrote:Can you please define a 'suite' please?
Well the manual can do that just fine

You see, there was no 'manual' when I got RMX. That was one of my complaints in my review. I know one came out several months after release, I just don't feel a need to go back and read it now after 3 years.

Devon

Stylus RMX memory usage