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Old 08-14-2018, 08:05 AM   #1
EttiK
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Default Enable/Disable VST Scan at startup

Why does almost every DAW has this option except Reaper?
I have a lot of VST's in different disks (some of them not very fast HDD)
Why is this not optional? It takes me minutes to startup Reaper with the automatic check every time.
This is a real problem when someone just wants to make a quick play around session.
I don´t want to be rude but this should be an easy fix, a check option to disable it and the option to manually scan VST folders. Isn´t reaper strong point personalization? Flexibility?
Come on please ;(.
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Old 08-14-2018, 12:35 PM   #2
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I'd say there is something fishy with your system. Here Reaper only scans new VSTs, or when I tell it to re-scan. Starting Reaper is lightning fast, though it may take some time loading some of the heavier projects. But Reaper sure doesn't scan all VSTs on every startup on my system.
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Old 08-14-2018, 01:48 PM   #3
Edgemeal
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I'm pretty sure Reaper scans the drives on start to make sure all the VST/DLL files you've added previously are still on the drives. So if you have many plugin files on really slow drives it could possibly take a bit of time just to check if the files exist I suppose.
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Old 08-14-2018, 03:09 PM   #4
EttiK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Edgemeal View Post
I'm pretty sure Reaper scans the drives on start to make sure all the VST/DLL files you've added previously are still on the drives. So if you have many plugin files on really slow drives it could possibly take a bit of time just to check if the files exist I suppose.
Yes, but this could be avoidable. Like in all the other DAWS
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Old 08-14-2018, 05:13 PM   #5
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Shouldn't be any need for that, the DAW doesn't actually scan the dll/vst unless it finds a new/updated one, other then that I think its just checking that the files are there and that shouldn't take long at all.

I have nearly a 10 year old notebook, 8GB ram, 2GHz dual core cpu, single 5400rpm HDD with about 100 plugins, and it only takes 3-4 seconds to start REAPER on freshly booted Win7, nothing is even cached in memory yet, REAPER starts extremely quick.

Have no clue what could be wrong on your end, but it shouldn't take minutes to start, unless maybe you deleted the 'reaper-vstplugins64.ini' file or maybe the vstpath was set to the root of your drive(s).
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Old 08-14-2018, 06:12 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Edgemeal View Post
I'm pretty sure Reaper scans the drives on start to make sure all the VST/DLL files you've added previously are still on the drives
Just an FYI that doesn't scan the files as VST, reaper simply asks the OS for the list of filenames that live in the VST folders, so it can check that list against what it already knows about. This is rarely a problem unless the user installs much of or all of their non-VST data (often thousands of files that aren't VSTs) in the same folder structure as the VSTs which should only contain the VST DLLs themselves.

This is the exact reason most commercial VST installers either specifically ask you for where you want non-VST data to go, or automatically places it somewhere other than the VST folder.

Quote:
there and that shouldn't take long at all.
Exactly so if it does take long it's because...

1. Too many files that aren't VSTs that it has to wade through.
2. AV or something else being over protective and slowing things down.

#2 shouldn't even be an issue since Reaper is only asking for the list, not loading the files themselves. However, drop 50000 1 byte files into a folder, open it and select all, how long does it take compared to 500? It's the one time in history size really doesn't matter it's the quantity of individual files and their enumeration.
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Last edited by karbomusic; 08-14-2018 at 06:25 PM.
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:32 PM   #7
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You say things and you may have a point. But MY point is that this doesn´t happen to me in Bitwig, Ableton or FL. Why? Because there is a manual option. The problem is there in Reaper for whatever may be, but could be fixed with just this option added.
That's all
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:59 PM   #8
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I remember having all the u-he data folders within the VST plugin folder. Looooots of graphics and patch files (the folder itself had over 50000 files!), it made loading Reaper slower.

I've since moved out those data folders to My Documents and linked to them, and Reaper loads blazingly fast ever since.

Protip: only have DLL files in plugin folders, unless not otherwise possible (certain plugin developers just don't want their plugin data in any other place). It really helps, plus it's a good practice.
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Old 08-15-2018, 06:23 AM   #9
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Someone mentioned in another thread:

Just hold "shift" key when launching Reaper to prevent loading of VSTs

I'm at work, so I can't test this.
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Old 08-15-2018, 06:27 AM   #10
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I'm thinking ^that is to avoid "loading" VSTs into the project FWIW.

There was a suggestion in the other "vst scan thread" to allow holding a key down during reaper launch, to temporarily prevent the enumeration I described. I agree with that idea because any type of checkbox/setting that disables it, is just going to generate "support calls" and "WTF" threads that outnumber threads like this one by a large margin. A key you have to press when you launch fixes that.

That being said, there is still good reason to not keep non-VSTs in the same location, even with that option... except when one does this as suggested, the need for the option pretty much disappears.
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Last edited by karbomusic; 08-15-2018 at 09:11 AM.
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