Conquistador's Forum Page

@Zynewave wrote:

I used an arrangement like yours as test scenario for doing some optimizations on the engine. I have spent a couple of days profiling and experimenting with e.g. SSE optimizations. I’ve now managed to squeeze another 5% performance out of the engine when working with a large number of audio channels/plugins.

I can get close to 60 classic compressor tracks, with a buffer size of 512 and a Pentium D 2.8 (multiprocessing disabled). What buffer size and CPU are you using?

Just catching up here sorry…

I am actually using a buffer size of 392 in Tracktion and getting 57 tracks playing back.

I agree with Acousmod on the need for the adjustment here.

It is a very useful function. ACID pro works the same way as Vegas. I use both so I also know how useful it can be.

At least the functionality already exists in Podium 8) but I really think a global option is better. I am far more likely to look there first (set it and forget it), than use a documented key combination in real world everyday usage. 8)

Perhaps the existing implementation can remain while a global option is simply added to provide quicker access (for me anyway) to configure the play cursor behaviour.

@acousmod wrote:

I can play 8 18 channel 32-bit files at 48kHz, which equals a data throughput of 28 MB/second.

Very impressive !!

If Acousmod only managed 4, 18 channel files, (max) in his tests then to now be able to play twice as many,… 8, 18 channel files is pretty good going Frits.

Especially considering the kind of problems Acousmod had with 4, 18 channel files. 1.64 is shaping up very nicely already. 🙂

@Zynewave wrote:

It is 82 wave files playing but 81 of them are copies. Each on thier own track. Would this make any radical difference or any at all?

If you have 82 imported wave files, then it doesn’t matter that 81 of them are file copies.

If you had 1 imported file, and placed 82 phantom event copies on tracks, then of course the one file is streamed only once.

Ok…

Did the test again but this time I used 47 different wave files (47 imported files) and the results were interesting…

85% CPU, 70% of the time (roughly), peaking to 91% every so often. That is at least 10% better than in my previous test with 1 audio file and 46 copies on each of the remaining 46 tracks.

I played the project through for 3 minutes this time.

Even when I tried looping it for only two bars the CPU usage remained the same as above.

So using different wave files made a massive difference. I did not think it would make that much of a difference.

So how many tracks before hitting 100% now?…not much more, but about 50 ish.

Multiprocessing was off.

Switched on, CPU is about half at 56%.

About 50 instances of the Classic compressor were used.

Just missed your post…

@Zynewave wrote:

It was just a joke. I don’t intend to email you 3GB of wave files. As I described previously, it’s just a basic arrangement where you drag your choice of wave files onto new tracks.

Sorry that went over my head 8)

Is that 82 different wave files playing?

It is 82 wave files playing but 81 of them are copies. Each on thier own track. Would this make any radical difference or any at all?

You mentioned some time ago that you had old projects that could not play without gaps in the audio. Do these projects play ok with 1.63?

So far so good 🙂 I will have to throw a bit more at 1.63 to be 100% sure but it does appear to be flawlesss at the moment. I’ll try more projects to see how it handles.

Cheers. 8)

@Zynewave wrote:

While I was unable to find any specific ‘track count sites’ you could easily send us a test project and have a more accurate process of measuring performance on each of our systems.

The test project I have uses 3GB of wave files. Should I email it to you? 😉

I just ripped some of my CDs to wave files, and dragged those onto tracks. To test the true file streaming capacity it is important to let the arrangement play long enough so that the Windows cache manager and Podiums memory buffering of wave files are flushed. When you import a new sound file, it will be profiled for the miniature waveforms, which means that the sound file will reside in the cache.

Yes by all means send it over although I am not sure how the 3G part will work unless I use my own files if that is what you meant?

FWIW…

Here are my prelimnary comparisons…

Settings

Mixer Engine Bit resolution: 32 Bit floating point

New Sound Bit resolution: 32 bit floating point

Imported files: 16 bit 44.1

I used the multiprocessing option in some of these tests. I will indicate where I switched it off.

I used the Kjearhus Classic compressor on each track looping over 2 bars.

1.62
47 tracks
CPU 97%
47 instances of the Classic Compressor
Multiprocessing off.

With multiprocessing switched on…
CPU dropped to 54%

I increased the track count to about 82 with 82 Classic compressors taking CPU usage to 97%.

1.63
…performance wise was pretty much identical. No audio dropouts yet with some of the older projects I have though.

Also…

Moving files (that are not playing) during playback is slower than before (can take two seconds between the mouse drag and the refresh)

I did not encounter this at all even dragging files around while Podium was using about 97% of CPU. Perfectly normal during playback even under a very heavy load.

I am just setting up Tracktion to compare single processor usage with Podium.

@Zynewave wrote:

Anyone has links to websites that lists track count measurements in various hosts? I tried googling without success.

While I was unable to find any specific ‘track count sites’ you could easily send us a test project and have a more accurate process of measuring performance on each of our systems.

Have a look at this one…(you may have to wait slightly for it to load)

http://www.moar.net/cubasetest/index.shtml

If we are all using the same project it will be easy to get a much clearer idea as to what effects your optimisations in 1.63 have had.

We can of course come up with our own projects (as illustrated by acousmods very detailed effort) 😉 but using the same project in Podium may simplify feedback for you, especially if many more people provide feedback.

Up to you really.

I will make a comparison with Tracktion probably.

I’ll probably use the free Kjaerhus classic plugs in Podium and Tracktion to get a better idea.

Cheers Frits downloading now. 😉