WTF Arturia?! 13.9GB and 670k files!!!?

[antic604]

I was cleaning up space on the SDD & HDD of my laptop and - to my surprise - I noticed that Arturia's C:/ProgramData/Arturia folder is a whopping 13.9GB and almost 670 thousands files

This includes:

• V6 Collection

• FX Collection 2

• Pigments3

Randomly I checked Modular V3 and it takes 600MB, out of which 530MB or 88% are ...bitmaps for various GUI sizes

I love their stuff, but this is just beyond stupid


Any other devs that show such disregard to our SDD/HDDs?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I was cleaning up space on the SDD & HDD of my laptop and - to my surprise - I noticed that Arturia's C:/ProgramData/Arturia folder is a whopping 13.9GB and almost 670 thousands files

This includes:

• V6 Collection

• FX Collection 2

• Pigments3

Randomly I checked Modular V3 and it takes 600MB, out of which 530MB or 88% are ...bitmaps for various GUI sizes

I love their stuff, but this is just beyond stupid


Any other devs that show such disregard to our SDD/HDDs?

Aturia is the absolute worst in the industry when it comes to how they handle their GUI's IMO and should be regularly called out for their inefficient graphic resource usage.

Instead of providing 200% size image resources and scaling down for smaller GUI's like U-he, they provide unique bitmaps for 60, 80, 100, 140, and 200% sizes. And to make matter worse, because of their 3D perspective nonsense, you'll have things like each individual key on their virtual keyboard having unique images. So, for example, Prophet V3 has 62 sets of unique key images, with 8 .bmp files inside each one, multiplied by the 5 images sizes I pointed out earlier. So that's 2,480 unique image files dedicated to a virtual keyboard. That's insane! And they'll do similar nonsense for knobs.

It's just wasteful, bad design IMO. My Arturia folder is 19.3GB. The vast majority of which are these graphics.

[e-crooner]

Reminds me of a video experience I had yesterday: I wanted to watch a 4.5 minute video on the Global Times site, but it would not play right. I thought, maybe they have slow servers, so I tried to download it and the download manager said it was 336 MB I aborted the download right away...

[e-crooner]

I was cleaning up space on the SDD & HDD of my laptop and - to my surprise - I noticed that Arturia's C:/ProgramData/Arturia folder is a whopping 13.9GB and almost 670 thousands files

This includes:

• V6 Collection

• FX Collection 2

• Pigments3

Randomly I checked Modular V3 and it takes 600MB, out of which 530MB or 88% are ...bitmaps for various GUI sizes

I love their stuff, but this is just beyond stupid


Any other devs that show such disregard to our SDD/HDDs?

Aturia is the absolute worst in the industry when it comes to how they handle their GUI's IMO and should be regularly called out for their inefficient graphic resource usage.

Instead of providing 200% size image resources and scaling down for smaller GUI's like U-he, they provide unique bitmaps for 60, 80, 100, 140, and 200% sizes. And to make matter worse, because of their 3D perspective nonsense, you'll have things like each individual key on their virtual keyboard having unique images. So, for example, Prophet V3 has 62 sets of unique key images, with 8 .bpm files inside each one, multiplied by the 5 images sizes I pointed out earlier. So that's 2,480 unique image files dedicated to a virtual keyboard. That's insane! And they'll do similar nonsense for knobs.

It's just wasteful, bad design IMO. My Arturia folder is 19.3GB. The vast majority of which are these graphics.

Wow, that sounds crazy

[antic604]

Instead of providing 200% size image resources and scaling down for smaller GUI's like U-he, they provide unique bitmaps for 60, 80, 100, 140, and 200% sizes. And to make matter worse, because of their 3D perspective nonsense, you'll have things like each individual key on their virtual keyboard having unique images. So, for example, Prophet V3 has 62 sets of unique key images, with 8 .bmp files inside each one, multiplied by the 5 images sizes I pointed out earlier. So that's 2,480 unique image files dedicated to a virtual keyboard. That's insane! And they'll do similar nonsense for knobs.

Damn. I'm now trying to move those files from my primary SSD to secondary HDD (internal) and it's taking ages. I think I'll have to leave the computer running for the night

[T-CM11]

Wasteful? Inefficient? Sure! But is it a problem?
It has never bothered me on my 2012 laptop with 256GB SSD - Matrix 12 CPU usage on the other hand.

[chk071]

I hate it when you install stuff on your D: drive, and then realize that it's actually installing the ressource files, which really take the space, on the C: drive...

I already bought a 256 GB SSD, because my former 128 SSD provided too little space, and now I only have 60 gigs left on the 256 GB SSD. I get it, configuration files should be in AppData/Roaming, User/Documents, or similar, but, I'd really appreciate if developers installed the big stuff in the place I set to install the stuff.

Fortunately, it's not that much for me, from Arturia, "only" 1.85 GB. Still...

[T-CM11]

You can "move" the ProgramData (or any other folder) to a different drive:
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/c ... -or-linux/

I use DirLinker for this (pretty easy program, once you understand the concept):
https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Fi ... nker.shtml

Many new laptops these days aren't very expandable - so pick one with enough SSD storage space (if you don't want to use an external drive for software).

[antic604]

Wasteful? Inefficient? Sure! But is it a problem?
It has never bothered me on my 2012 laptop with 256GB SSD - Matrix 12 CPU usage on the other hand.

Yes,wasteful and inefficient - that's the problem.

I started using computers seriously in early 90s and computers at the time could run a full music software, office suite or full game out of RAM footprint that nowadays wouldn't fit an application icon. Nowadays devs don't optimise anymore (not all, but many) because the user can always throw more & newer hardware at the "problem"

[antic604]

You can "move" the ProgramData (or any other folder) to a different drive

I know. That's what I'm doing.

[T-CM11]

I started using computers seriously in early 90s and computers at the time could run a full music software, office suite or full game out of RAM footprint that nowadays wouldn't fit an application icon. Nowadays devs don't optimise anymore (not all, but many) because the user can always throw more & newer hardware at the "problem"

Nowadays? Where you asleep the last 20+ years?
You say "problem"; but is it a problem? For you? Do you have a really small non-replaceable SSD? And what about that big amount of files? How is that problematic, from a usability POV? We're making music, right, not counting files.

edit: I just saw "VST hoarder" in your signature... ehm... I think I have nothing left to say

[zerocrossing]

Last time I said this I got attacked as a UI nazzi, but the truth is, it’s never a good idea to use resources unnecessarily, even if modern computers have a lot of memory. How does having a different key or knob graphic per identical UI element help the user? Not really at all. No one looks at their screen and says, “oh, is that really a Jupiter 8? Let me reach out and touch it… ow!” Not that I’m against skeuomorphic designs. Not by a long shot. I think in various situations using depth and a universal visual language (we all know how to use buttons, sliders and knobs… they’re literally on baby toys) is a great way to communicate functionality to the user in an intuitive way, but when you go so far it creates a ton of image resources that clutter your hard drive, consume RAM and crate long load times. Maybe I’m an old fart, but when I started doing computer UIs, memory was expensive and download times slow, so we learned to use every part of the buffalo. It’s still a good way to live. As my friend Don used to say, “touch the world lightly.”

[Sinisterbr]

I started using computers seriously in early 90s and computers at the time could run a full music software, office suite or full game out of RAM footprint that nowadays wouldn't fit an application icon. Nowadays devs don't optimise anymore (not all, but many) because the user can always throw more & newer hardware at the "problem"

Nowadays? Where you asleep the last 20+ years?
You say "problem"; but is it a problem? For you? Do you have a really small non-replaceable SSD? And what about that big amount of files? How is that problematic, from a usability POV? We're making music, right, not counting files.

edit: I just saw "VST hoarder" in your signature... ehm... I think I have nothing left to say

Sorry, but why do you have to be that rude with someone who is just giving his opinion?

[T-CM11]

Last time I said this I got attacked as a UI nazzi, but the truth is, it’s never a good idea to use resources unnecessarily, even if modern computers have a lot of memory. How does having a different key or knob graphic per identical UI element help the user? Not really at all. No one looks at their screen and says, “oh, is that really a Jupiter 8? Let me reach out and touch it… ow!” Not that I’m against skeuomorphic designs. Not by a long shot. I think in various situations using depth and a universal visual language (we all know how to use buttons, sliders and knobs… they’re literally on baby toys) is a great way to communicate functionality to the user in an intuitive way, but when you go so far it creates a ton of image resources that clutter your hard drive, consume RAM and crate long load times. Maybe I’m an old fart, but when I started doing computer UIs, memory was expensive and download times slow, so we learned to use every part of the buffalo. It’s still a good way to live. As my friend Don used to say, “touch the world lightly.”

I was just watching some Oberheim Xpander videos... that thing is huge! The (cost of the) physical space that synths took up in the 70s/80s/90s vs. a few gigabytes of SSD... well: perspective / first world problems /etc.
When I think about "the good old days", the word "unobtainium" comes to mind.

[T-CM11]

Sorry, but why do you have to be that rude with someone who is just giving his opinion?

I'm sorry if you interpreted anything I wrote as rude. It certainly wasn't intended as such.