EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

--- In exs-users@yahoogroups.com, Sean McCoy <osr@...> wrote:
>
> At 12:37 PM 02/08/2006, james page wrote:
> 
> 
> >--- Jeremy Martin <jeremy@...> wrote:
> >
> > > You might take a look at your disk I/O when playing
> > > the two libraries
> > > - I would guess the higher CPU load is caused by not
> > > being able to fit
> > > all the samples into RAM, and the computer
> > > struggling to swap lots of
> > > data in and out constantly. You can compare by
> > > watching Activity
> > > Monitor / Disk Activity.
> >
> >The manual say to turn off Virtual memory if you don't
> >need it. How does one determine that? Also what is the
> >disadvantage to leaving it turned on?  Doesn't it only
> >come into play when you run out of RAM capacity?
> 
> Yes. And this will be very early if you're using any of the 
> now-common mondo sample sets---no matter how much RAM you have 
> installed. Sample streaming from hard disk is now the norm, and works 
> well as long as you have reasonably fast hard drives.
>

I just did a test where I created a new 64 voice instrument w/ a looped single cycle 
waveform. I created a sequence in the matrix editor that played 61 simultaneous notes (5 
octaves) for 8 bars. The cpu took quite a hit. I then took a single note (C6) played for the 8 
bars and bounced that down to disk. I loaded that (unlooped) into a new 64 voice 
instrument and played back the same 61 note sequence. The cpu hit was a lot lower. I 
purposely bounced the higher note (C6) so I would be able to play back the whole 
sequence over the 8 bars. As I suspected, the computer seems to work harder looping a 
file vs streaming it from disk. So, all things being equal (fast computer, plenty of RAM, fast 
hard drive), it's probably better not to loop.

-Matt