z_sfyr.
ShieldsHi! I’ve been having this problem for a while now, and up til now I’ve been able to work around it but it is getting quite frustrating now. Basically, when I try to bounce a section which is around 3 mins (not sure if there is any exact length, but lengths beneath this tend to work alright) or greater, I get a crash towards the end of the rendering process. It doesn’t seem to be caused by any plugins in particular, from what I can tell. It happened on Podium Free and I thought it might go away once I upgraded my license to Podium 3.2.0, but it’s still occuring exactly as it did.
Anyone had this issue, or got any ideas how to fix it?
adimatisCould it be a RAM memory issue? Do you have plenty of it?
ZynewaveI remember a similar issue reported a while back. It’s most likely because Podium runs out of available memory. If you are trying to render the arrangement master output, try to bounce render individual plugin tracks first to see if that can reduce the memory consumption.
If you keep the Windows Task Manager open during rendering, you will be able to see the memory usage.
ShieldsI have 4GB of RAM, shouldn’t that be enough to render a 9 minute track in one go? I don’t have any other windows open when I’m rendering so there shouldn’t be much else taking up the memory.
And it’s on all tracks, not just the master – even tracks with only Sylenth1 running and no effects I can’t get to render in one go. I’ve even tried bouncing every single track, in segments, before bouncing the master completely, to no avail.
I took a look at the task manager, whilst bouncing a 9 minute track running only Sylenth1, no effects etc., and only about 4 minutes of the track actually had any MIDI. Looking at the desktop with no windows open my computer uses around 600MB RAM and 5-10% CPU. Opening an arrangement in Podium bumps this up to 1.5GB and 24% approximately. When I started rendering, the RAM slowly increased until it reached the 3.5-3.65GB region, where it went up and down until crashing at a value of 3.52GB, and used between 40 and 60% CPU throughout. Can you take anything away from these values?
Surely RAM shouldn’t even be an issue, should it not just render more slowly instead of crashing?
Really appreciate the help, I’d love to be able to render everything in one go, so I don’t get the awkward start-stop sounds throughout my tracks.
ShieldsCan I please get another suggestion on how to fix this? I have tried messing around with the audio drivers (between ASIO4ALL and Windows MME) and different audio resolutions, but nothing stops it from crashing a simple track after 3-4 mins. Realtime bouncing gives the same result. Are you sure nobody else has had this problem before in the past?
Only reason I ask is because I have a track which I need to have done in the next week and these problems are preventing me from getting it exported!
adimatisThis might not help much, but maybe you can check:
– that your Windows setting is optimized for audio. Mainly System Properties>Advanced>Processor scheduling – background services and Memory usage – programs.
– that your wi-fi adaptor, antivirus program, bluetooth, maintainance programs, etc are off or suspended.
– I suggest that you back-up your work in Podium and try then to reinitialize Podium and open the project. See if there is something changed.
– try render a one track project, with no VST on it and see if it still crashes. If not, I am afraid you’ll have to go through elimination to see what causes the fail.
ZynewaveI think I’ve identified the issue, and I’m working on a fix.
Meanwhile, you should be able to avoid the rampant memory allocation by switching to realtime bounce recording instead of offline rendering.
Another thing to check: If you are using the 64-bit engine option, you can halve the memory usage by switching to the 32-bit engine.
The TelenatorAs much as I appreciate (and do use) the 64-bit float processing option, I will suggest that more and more DAW makers are offering this more as a status or ‘nice’ feature perk to attract users to their product. Note that Pro Tools is proclaiming this new feature loudly in their latest PT11 version, yet some — Podium a prime example — have offered this for a while already.
Quality difference between 32- and 64-float? Negligible at best. Can anyone detect any audible difference in resulting file(s)? I admit I can’t.
Also, the problem reported by the OP has also turned up in rendering in other DAWs, although I can’t say if the causes were the same.
ShieldsHi again. Still having this issue, have since got a new laptop and downloaded Podium 3.2.2 and it’s still happening, is a fix still in the works?
ZynewaveHi Shields. I fixed some issues with the detection of free memory in 3.2.2, which I thought had solved the problem. Podium 3.2.2 will use up to half the available free memory for caching sound in memory, before it starts to write the cache to disk. You reported earlier that you saw memory usage up to +3 GB. That should be fixed in 3.2.2 to stay well below 2 GB on a PC with 4 GB.
For the upcoming Podium 3.2.3 I’ve added a “sound cache maximum memory usage” setting to the engine preferences page. I’ve set the default to 512 MB. This should further reduce the risk of plugins running out of memory during rendering.
z_sfyrI have had the same problem occur in the past, though infrequently. For the last year or two I’ve been able to render 2 hour files with no problem & I have no idea what changed. I do recall that real time rendering was a workaround, as mentioned above. Also, some plugins needed to have a new program saved prior to rendering.