KVR Audio

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:08 am

After 2 years of giving 18 hours a day to the Shop, I'm finally in a position where I can actually work on music again. During these two years, some really, really great native software has come out (as you all surely know) & computer buffs everywhere were purporting that Athlon 64's are now powerful enough to take on anything else out there, so I was prepared to go into this completely native & leave all my dsp cards somewhat dormant (or at least far less depended upon than before). What I'm finding in practice, though, is that my voice counts are pathetic & my computer seems to crash every 20 minutes. These are really bad crashes, too, the kinds where the mouse moves half an inch every 20 seconds so that you can't even ctrl-alt-del to shut down the application, quite unlike the dsp overloads I used to get where you simply unload the offending device & go on working like nothing happened.

So, what am I missing here???

My system is an Athlon 64 3000 with 1GB Corsair memory on an MSI K8T Neo motherboard (VIA chipset). The soundcard is a Lynx L22. Working with audio files is no problem at all, it's the VSTi's (Kontakt 2, Minimonsta, Elektrik Piano, et al) that are killing me.

Stairsteps · Post by **Stairsteps** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:47 am

My system is no where nere that spec but I have no problems running vsts and I hasve some pretty good ones I think.
System AMD Athlon XP 2000
1gig kingston DDR
7200rpm 160 HD
Audigy Ex
Asus motherboard

I have running all at once Reaktor 5, Project 5, Virsyn Tera2,Albino, FM7, DR Rythum, and Waves Platnium Desser,& Ozone3 with still 30% headroom <cpu hovering at 70%>

I think your system isnt set up right, as you should be able to run quite a few Vsti with no problem, Try going to tweak.com or look into your host DAW, I use Sonar 4 which is very Low cpu usage and written esp for Windows.

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:05 am

Sounds a little like what happens with a denormal problem - you run instances of a plugin which is vulnerable to this problem and suddenly the demand on the CPU can jump to a level that is so great you can't get the transport to accept a STOP command. This happened for me with some older versions of PSP plugs when a Cubase SX update came out a while back.

This can also happen if the total load created by playing more voices on VSTis or even just switching on a new plugin goes too much over the limit. I guess the solution is to switch everything off and add the instuments/plugins one by one so you can see which one is the culprit.

I'm not sure if disk streaming could be an issue but if you are running lots of streaming samples and you don't have them spread over enough hard drives (or have your drives defragged) you will certainly get pops and clicks - perhaps you could also bring the machine to a halt if it is waiting on too many sample file reads.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:09 am

I agree with Stairsteps; of course PC's are PC's, and they will crash lots - but I've been using VSTi's and sequencers for years and I only see problems like that when something is fundamentally wrong with the system. I have comps with several VSTi's (including Kontakt and Minimonsta) and tons of effects that run at 80-90% CPU and I do not get nasty crashes like that, only every once in a while. Definitely do some investigating in your system, could be a PCI conflict or something like that.

I'm not sure if it's a denorm problem, I've experienced denorm and it doesn't cause crashes like that for me, but every machine's different. If you're using SX 3, make sure you get the latest update; there was a big CPU problem with version 1.

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:32 am

bduffy wrote:I'm not sure if it's a denorm problem, I've experienced denorm and it doesn't cause crashes like that for me, but every machine's different. If you're using SX 3, make sure you get the latest update; there was a big CPU problem with version 1.

Yes - absolutely - get the latest build if it is SX 3.

My Denormal problem with PSP Mixpressor (older version) and SX3 meant that if I stopped the transport on a tune with several instances of Mixpressor active (and therefore no audio was fed to my Mixpressor instances) the CPU load would go through the roof (P4 2.4 GHz)and the machine became almost totally unresponsive - it would take like five minutes to obey a command like switch off a Mixpressor instance.

ResonantOrder · Post by **ResonantOrder** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:39 am

It seems that your motherboard and memory have a compatability problem.

I found this:

http://www.houseofhelp.com/forums/print ... hp?t=21946

I've never heard of a denormal problem with athlon chips. It sound like you may need to update your BIOS, or get a new motherboard.

This article has some info about the motherboard shortcomings also:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTMyLDY=

You might try cooling your machine better since the northbridge and southbridge don't have fans. Hell, put a fan up to your machine with the sides off and see if it still crashes.

I've read that the Lynx can be a little bitchy about which IRQ it's on, so you might try that angle also. A lot of people use Lynx over on the Sonar boards, so you might do a search even if your not using Sonar.

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:49 am

It might be worth noting what the CPU use level is when you get the "slow mouse" stuff happening - if it is pegged at the top you have excess processing demand obviously.

Both P4 and Athlon have denormal modes which kick in when handling very small numbers - but the effect of a switch to denormal mode on the P4 is much more drastic.

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 12:07 pm

My system is an Athlon 64 3000 with 1GB Corsair memory on an MSI K8T Neo motherboard (VIA chipset). The soundcard is a Lynx L22.

You know what the funny thing is? When I first read that I wondered to myself.. "maybe he's using Kontakt 2". Little did I suspect that you'd say you were! Haha. Kontakt 2 is a buggy piece of crap. Take it out of your chain and see how you go then. It's a really nice sampler but NI have messed it up big time.. it has so many quirky bugs and will still collapse if an imported file isn't exactly what it expects. A shame since it has some very nice features, but it's becoming buggy enough that I'm seriously considering going back to 1.5 until I can find something I consider good enough to jump ship. (I wish EMU would release a proper VST version of Emulator X

)

Also Minimonsta has high CPU load. Pick a better example of native code like impOSCar.. incredible sound and excellent CPU show that you can get a killer sound with next to no CPU hit! If you pick carefully you can get a huge amount done on native power now.

As you will probably see from numerous other replies, stability is not an issue provided you pick the right hardware combo and configure things properly. I would ditch the VIA chipset and Lynx card personally, and go with an older NForce 3 board and RME or Maudio card for stability. If you're "crashing all the time" there is something wrong somewhere.. try without Kontakt 2 first though, before you blame the hardware.

;-) · Post by **;-)** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 3:30 pm

Uncle E wrote:After 2 years of giving 18 hours a day to the Shop, I'm finally in a position where I can actually work on music again. During these two years, some really, really great native software has come out (as you all surely know) & computer buffs everywhere were purporting that Athlon 64's are now powerful enough to take on anything else out there, so I was prepared to go into this completely native & leave all my dsp cards somewhat dormant (or at least far less depended upon than before). What I'm finding in practice, though, is that my voice counts are pathetic & my computer seems to crash every 20 minutes. These are really bad crashes, too, the kinds where the mouse moves half an inch every 20 seconds so that you can't even ctrl-alt-del to shut down the application, quite unlike the dsp overloads I used to get where you simply unload the offending device & go on working like nothing happened.

So, what am I missing here???

My system is an Athlon 64 3000 with 1GB Corsair memory on an MSI K8T Neo motherboard (VIA chipset). The soundcard is a Lynx L22. Working with audio files is no problem at all, it's the VSTi's (Kontakt 2, Minimonsta, Elektrik Piano, et al) that are killing me.

I assume you have a heavy general configuration or driver problem (if it isn't the 64bit architecture and the drivers for the board). What host application?

With your machine you should be able to run 10 and more VSTis in full action without any problems.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sat Aug 13, 2005 3:33 pm

I'm inclined to suspect heat or memory issues...

Lawnmower Of The Damned · Sat Aug 13, 2005 4:32 pm

Take a look at the VSTs he's using:

"Kontakt 2, Minimonsta, Elektrik Piano, et al"

Kontakt 2 which seems to be buggy, Minimonsta which is a notorious CPU hog, and Elektrik Piano which is a multi-gigabyte sample library. I'd say the synths might actually be the problem.

If your audio host has a freeze function then give that a try. It's possible that you may be having system problems, but those 3 plugs can easily jam up a fast machine even if it's configured properly.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 12:00 am

You guys are life savers! Seriously, I knew this was the place to come with these questions but I had no idea you'd pinpoint such specific issues so accurately. Here's what it's come down to so far:

Corsair memory
denormalization problems (apparently)
Kontakt 2

It's really a shame about Kontakt 2, I was starting to feel like I'd never use another sampler again. Anyway, I'll keep looking into to things & report back.

Stupid American Pig · Sun Aug 14, 2005 12:10 am

Uncle E wrote:You guys are life savers! Seriously, I knew this was the place to come with these questions but I had no idea you'd pinpoint such specific issues so accurately. Here's what it's come down to so far:

Corsair memory
denormalization problems (apparently)
Kontakt 2
It's really a shame about Kontakt 2, I was starting to feel like I'd never use another sampler again. Anyway, I'll keep looking into to things & report back.

I have an athlon 64 3700+ and Im still looking for a UAD card. Sure I can run 3-4 x the efx /tracks that I could on my athlon 2400, but as more becomes available, more is wanted

Sw-Michael · Post by **Sw-Michael** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:23 am

Definitely look into the heat issue too. As someone suggested, take the side(s) of the case and put a ordinary fan there to see if it works better.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Aug 14, 2005 12:03 pm

Uncle E wrote:You guys are life savers! Seriously, I knew this was the place to come with these questions but I had no idea you'd pinpoint such specific issues so accurately. Here's what it's come down to so far:

Corsair memory
denormalization problems (apparently)
Kontakt 2
It's really a shame about Kontakt 2, I was starting to feel like I'd never use another sampler again. Anyway, I'll keep looking into to things & report back.

Erik, are you saying the corsair memory is a problem? That's WEIRD!

Also, you still haven't said what host you use, unless I missed it!

Native vs. DSP - What am I missing here?