THIS is why Kontakt rocks- Chris Hein and Scarbee

[koolkeys]

It's a shame that Kontakt is a bloated and annoying memory hog. Hopefully someone will come up with something better written than Kontakt with similar features.

I don't think it's bloated at all. And version 3 has gotten MUCH easier to use due to various changes.

But as for being a memory hog, it doesn't bother me. I expect a little bit of CPU for a plugin that does this much. I mean, look at a great, complex synth(which Kontakt could easily be compared to) and it will likely use just as much CPU. Also, much of what Kontakt uses is related to how much it sets aside for disk streaming. But you can adjust as needed.

So maybe I'm missing something, but I don't know that it takes up any more memory than any other complex plugin. I could very much be wrong though.

For such a powerful plugin, I can't really complain. Plus, I can load up a dozen or so instruments into one instance of Kontakt and have no issues. Plus, it doesn't use the full amount of resources for each instrument that it does to run just one because you don't have to load the plugin multiple times. So that's another reason I don't think it's that bad.

That's just me though. It may not be ideal for everyone and what they do.

Brent

[KKeene]

Kontakt takes 1 gigabyte of ram simply to start. Can you think of any other program that takes that much ram? That's bad.

[koolkeys]

Not on my machine. I've never seen it take that much.

Brent

[koolkeys]

I just did a quick test of both standalone and also the plugin version inside of Sonar.

Paying attention to Task Manager while loading, Kontakt standalone took around 25MB of RAM while starting up, and jumped to about 250MB after loading, which of course is due to my particular settings on disk streaming and it reserved that RAM for that. It never once went about 260MB, and was a bit lower after loading fully.

Then I opened Sonar and loaded it. I compared the idle Sonar numbers with an empty project and added Kontakt3. The numbers were almost exactly identical to my tests with standalone. After loading Kontakt, Sonar was only using around 275MB of RAM total, give or take a few.

So I don't know where you get 1GB, but it never once reached that number or anything even close. Maybe whoever had those numbers had their DFD settings really high?

Brent

[Bob Nova]

Me neither. Kontakt doesnt seem to want that much RAM to start.I stsay away form the convo stuff, maybe that helps.

I agree that Kontakt is the King though. Awesome sound, does what I want, what I need. I dont remember how I made music without it.

I use it more than all my other VSTis combined.I guess that says it all.

[koolkeys]

Exactly my sentiments. There is no other VSTi in my arsenal that is a guaranteed automatic plugin in every song. I love Jamstix, but even in that I subhost Kontakt or export MIDI to it! I love Wusikstation and TruePianos, but Kontakt is used ten times more than anything else.

Brent

[zircon]

Yeah, Kontakt only takes a couple hundred MB for me.. not bad considering you can load up to 64 instruments, plus what, like 16 effects per instrument within it?

[koolkeys]

See, that's what I'm saying. I don't know where he got his information because I've never seen it take that much memory.

But yeah, wrong information.

Brent

[KKeene]

The information comes from NI who says Kontakt requires 1 gigabyte of ram and will not open but crash if the system doesn't have it.

[motherfracker]

The information comes from NI who says Kontakt requires 1 gigabyte of ram and will not open but crash if the system doesn't have it.

KKeene, have you been taking recreational pharmaceuticals?

Kontakt loaded with the full VSL violin ensemble takes a mere 180MB on first load, then settles down to under 100MB after caching, etc. Performance makes little difference. The August Foerster Full Convolution (High CPU) piano, a 1.27GB beast, weighs in at 240MB.

I have used Kontakt 2 on a 512MB system.

The NI figure is for total system memory.

[Cyrosis]

The information comes from NI who says Kontakt requires 1 gigabyte of ram and will not open but crash if the system doesn't have it.

Well of course it says it requires 1gb of ram, the operating system, DAW, other vst's, and the samples loaded into Kontakt 2 all take up memory, they are saying the system you install it on should have 1gb of ram for comfortable use, not because Kontakt itself uses all of it. Seriously, with less then 1gb of ram, and any sampler, trying to load modern multi gigabyte sized libraries (like the ones Kontakt is made for) would be impossible in most practical uses.

[koolkeys]

Yeah, system requirements are never what the program itself takes. So yeah, that's wrong information.

Also, NI never says that it will crash if you don't have it. That's silly.

Brent

[KKeene]

They don't say it but it does. I tried a demo on a machine at work that only had 500mb ram and it didn't open but crashed. Others have had the same problem. So what other programs can you name that need 1 gig a ram simply to start?

[motherfracker]

They don't say it but it does. I tried a demo on a machine at work that only had 500mb ram and it didn't open but crashed. Others have had the same problem. So what other programs can you name that need 1 gig a ram simply to start?

Full Kontakt VSL string section - violins, violas, cellos, double basses - all articulations: 314MB in full performance.

KKeene, please don't polute a perfectly civil discussion with fiction. The polygraph pens are way off the chart...

[Cyrosis]

They don't say it but it does. I tried a demo on a machine at work that only had 500mb ram and it didn't open but crashed. Others have had the same problem. So what other programs can you name that need 1 gig a ram simply to start?

You realize most operating systems alone will take up about 300mb's of ram, this leaves about 200mb's with which you expect to shove a DAW and Kontakt 2 into? 512mb's of ram is EXTREMELY outdated, I don't even find the performance of a web browser acceptable on that amount of memory.