Subject:Loops loaded to RAM?

Posted by: teknik14

Date:6/27/2003 8:47:01 PM

What are the odds of having SF design a new app, or a current one re-worked <cough>ACID<cough> that would essentially load everything to RAM instead of reading from disk? You would obviously need a ton of RAM, but it is so cheap now, it's almost silly not to have at least a GIG in a DAW.
I'd LOVE to be the beta-tester for that! Sign me up!
In fact, I'd LOVE to beta-test ANYTHING SF puts out..

teknik14

Subject:RE: Loops loaded to RAM?

Reply by: ATP

Date:6/28/2003 6:46:07 AM

i think that's possible already. just make sure all samples are played in Loop mode, it should then add them all to your ram. of course for very long samples Loop mode might not be the most practical, but they will be loaded in your ram for sure. :)

Subject:RE: Loops loaded to RAM?

Reply by: teknik14

Date:6/28/2003 1:03:20 PM

Well, my problem is that all my vocal tracks need to remain as one-shots, and changing them to loops causes all sorts of modulation issues... even when the 'transient detection' is set to minimal

I guess my post heading should have read "One-shots" loaded to RAM..

Maybe if everything was dumped to RAM, then the CPU and drives could contend with processing FX and DSP's ? Think of the headroom you'd end up with... mmmmm....

teknik14

Subject:RE: Loops loaded to RAM?

Reply by: thephantom

Date:6/30/2003 10:27:47 AM

I thought all the files WERE loaded to RAM first. Only when you turn off the computer or close acid, does it need to re-read those files. Or so I thought. I always save my .acd projects WITH the files. This makes my life a LOT easier.

Sign me up for beta testing too!! haha

Subject:RE: Loops loaded to RAM?

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:6/30/2003 10:54:11 AM

Perhaps one of the developers can weigh in on this, but it's really not that simple. We're dealing with Microsoft operating systems here. You can load something into RAM, and MS will decide that it's time to swap that memory out in case you need it for something else. Even if you have a lot of RAM unused, the OS can do this (sometimes at inopportune times).

In that case, loading everything into RAM, even files for streaming, could end up meaning that something earlier would get dumped from RAM. Because of that, we decided it'd be better to stream them, rather than loading large files in that would end up flushing your loops from RAM to virtual memory.

Just curious, are you running a LOT of streaming tracks, or having disk access slowdowns, that makes you want to ask for this?

Thanks,
Joel

Subject:RE: Loops loaded to RAM?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:6/30/2003 1:59:41 PM

Just to be thorough:

-Loops always load into RAM

-One-shots load into RAM only if they are 3 seconds or shorter; any longer and they playback from your hard drive

-Beatmapped tracks always playback from your hard drive

A typical three-minute track loaded into RAM can eat as much as 50+ MB. Multiply that times 30 similar tracks. That would mean you'd need 1.5 GB of RAM—at least. Never mind what your OS needs. (Windows XP likes 256 or more of RAM, for example.)

It would be a good idea to keep it optional should SoFo go through with such an idea, IMHO.

Just a thought,
Iacobus

Subject:RE: Loops loaded to RAM?

Reply by: teknik14

Date:7/2/2003 12:25:24 PM

>Just curious, are you running a LOT of streaming tracks, or having disk access slowdowns, that makes you want to ask for this?

No, as far as I can tell, I am not having any issues with disk access slowdowns... and I do have quite a few streaming tracks on most works.. but the 30 to 50 one-shots (vocals) that seem to be the straw that over-taxes the CPU...

Could ACID maybe use a memory space or page file in RAM that could somehow be made hidden and not available to Windows? What about a plug in USB memory stick or something similar that ACID could use for its own?

teknik14