Reaper RAM usage doubled when move playhead

[panomax]

I have been bothered by a problem recently. I have a relative old PC with only 16G RAM, running Windows 11 (before was Windows 10, but the same problem). Running latest Reaper development version.

When I load a project, the starting RAM usage of Reaper is around 6G. If the playhead is at the beginning of the project, playing the project throughout will not cause RAM usage change. However, whenever I move the playhead to another random position, the RAM usage quickly increases near doubled, to around 12G. Sometimes, if I move the playhead again to another position, the RAM usage may drop to say 7G, but then it increases again back to around 12G.

Trying to figure out what caused the problem, I have tried to remove almost all vst plugins. But the problem is still there.

To make things worse, I increased the size of Windows paging file several times, from 16G to 20G to 40G to 80G. And each time, Reaper just keeps using more RAM. For example, if I add the new smartlimit vst, the RAM usage can quickly jump to more than 24G. And eventually my PC just hung and died. I have to reboot it.

I know there is a warning we can set when Reaper is using how much RAM. I set it to be 15000M. But the warning did not pop up. The RAM usage just jumped to say 24G.

Any idea and guidance is appreciated. For example, is there a way to restrict Reaper to use certain amount of RAM? As the paging file is just virtual memory, Reaper should not treat it as real RAM.

[panomax]

Nobody else encountered similar issues?

[hexSPA]

I've experienced semi-freezes and lag when locating/seeking around a running reaper project but didn't note that it was RAM-related. If it's a busy project, I'll try to stop playback before jumping around.

Many visual applications (photo editors, NLEs) let you limit RAM use; maybe that's what you're referring to. Being a non-programmer, I couldn't tell you if that kind of option makes sense for a DAW. I don't recall any DAW having this option.

[nofish]

I'd probably try troubleshooting in small steps:
Start with totally empty Reaper project, check how it behaves (increasing RAM usage shouldn't happen there I'd assume).
Then adding back the plugins you're using in one of the trouble projects one by one, closely monitoring RAM usage, maybe you find a culprit.

It could be that a plugin has a memory leak, meaning it uses more and more RAM over time, though generally I think it's a rare case, but it could happen.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by hexSPA

If it's a busy project, I'll try to stop playback before jumping around.

I should indicate that moving playhead was done while not playing, which caused the jump of RAM usage. If the RAM usage has been doubled, then even moving playhead while playing is fine.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by nofish

I'd probably try troubleshooting in small steps:
Start with totally empty Reaper project, check how it behaves (increasing RAM usage shouldn't happen there I'd assume).
Then adding back the plugins you're using in one of the trouble projects one by one, closely monitoring RAM usage, maybe you find a culprit.

It could be that a plugin has a memory leak, meaning it uses more and more RAM over time, though generally I think it's a rare case, but it could happen.

I've been troubleshooting from the other end, by removing plugins one by one. I almost strip off all plugins. But will double check today to see if I missed something.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by panomax

Any idea and guidance is appreciated. For example, is there a way to restrict Reaper to use certain amount of RAM? As the paging file is just virtual memory, Reaper should not treat it as real RAM.

Reaper or any other application for that matter does not know the difference between disk or RAM. That's what virtual memory does, abstracts those into something the app sees as "real RAM". As far as the app knows or can know, it's just memory. Whether it goes into the page file or not is an OS' not Reaper decision.

What matters is why does Reaper need to allocate the memory in the first place. I would already assume this isn't a "small" project if is using 6GB out of the gate. What does the project consist of? What is on all the tracks? Audio tracks, MIDI tracks whatehaveyou.

I do know that when you move the cursor to a new position, Reaper will cache/buffer ~n amount of each track's audio from disk (at that position + some amount of time forward). And that will increase memory to the effect of "number of tracks with audio * amount of time buffered * size" however... I thought it doesn't pre-buffer this info until you hit play. It will however keep it cached as long as it can, so that if you have tons of audio tracks, and we often tend to start playback from similar positions a lot when mixing, it keeps the inevitable "press to playback" latency down once the number of audio tracks is enough that it becomes noticeable.

What you may need to do is make a copy of the project and delete tracks one at a time, not just VSTs. Only caveat is you might not immediately see the memory reclaimed, you may but restarting reaper would be better. Or, possibly open a new project tab and copy/paste tracks one at a time from the existing project over to the new project tab and see if any one or few cause the jump in memory.

Lastly, I'm assuming you are seeing issues because the RAM usage is high? IOW, all RAM virtual memory isn't necessarily committed/working set RAM sitting on a memory stick.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Reaper or any other application for that matter does not know the difference between disk or RAM. That's what virtual memory does, abstracts those into something the app sees as "real RAM". As far as the app knows or can know, it's just memory. Whether it goes into the page file or not is an OS' not Reaper decision.

What matters is why does Reaper need to allocate the memory in the first place. I would already assume this isn't a "small" project if is using 6GB out of the gate. What does the project consist of? What is on all the tracks? Audio tracks, MIDI tracks whatehaveyou.

I do know that when you move the cursor to a new position, Reaper will cache/buffer ~n amount of each track's audio from disk (at that position + some amount of time forward). And that will increase memory to the effect of "number of tracks with audio * amount of time buffered * size" however... I thought it doesn't pre-buffer this info until you hit play. It will however keep it cached as long as it can, so that if you have tons of audio tracks, and we often tend to start playback from similar positions a lot when mixing, it keeps the inevitable "press to playback" latency down once the number of audio tracks is enough that it becomes noticeable.

What you may need to do is make a copy of the project and delete tracks one at a time, not just VSTs. Only caveat is you might not immediately see the memory reclaimed, you may but restarting reaper would be better. Or, possibly open a new project tab and copy/paste tracks one at a time from the existing project over to the new project tab and see if any one or few cause the jump in memory.

Lastly, I'm assuming you are seeing issues because the RAM usage is high? IOW, all RAM virtual memory isn't necessarily committed/working set RAM sitting on a memory stick.

My project is not huge. Just an arrangement of my own song. No audio tracks, just vsti and vst. Kontakt with 9 instruments (already purged to minimum). Superior Drummer 3, 2 Pianoteq instances. I also can't understand why it takes so much RAM. 6G seems to be the minimum. Many times 9G+ or more.

For vst, I do not use a lot. The most vst-loaded track would be the drums, but still just below 10 vst on it. Many tracks only have 2 or 3 vst.

One plugin that can trigger the doubling of RAM is SmartLimit. As soon as I add it and start play, the RAM jump from 12G to over 24G. Then I had to reboot. But this problem already bothered me for quite some time before I ever added SmartLimit.

I already tried to copy all tracks into a new project tab. And I did restart Reaper while removing plugins one by one. The same problem. Next time I will try what you suggested, to copy track one by one.

Would Reaper's undo behavior have impact on this problem? How can we explain the doubling of RAM usage with SmartLimit? It is not memory leak, cause it happended immediatly and jumped right to 24G.

[panomax]

Did some more investigation.

Removed all vsti, the project now has an initial RAM usage of 805.48M. Not playing, first time move the playhead to a different location, now becomes 857.57M. A second move, 857.00M.

Keeping moving, each time the RAM usage increased a bit. After about 10 clicks (moving the playhead), 876.19M. I did nothing, just move around the playhead. There is not even an undo item being recorded.

If keep clicking, now about every 3 click will cause the RAM increase a bit.

Will dig more. No with this kind of RAM usage, I can afford to try without the worry of system hung or deadlock.

[EpicSounds]

speaking of undo, do you have 'keep multiple versions' enabled?

In Preferences, Audio, Buffering There is a setting for 'media buffer size' and prebuffer.

I would experiment with those numbers


and the last thing that comes to mind, do you have fx on many items or just on tracks?

[panomax]

Originally Posted by EpicSounds

speaking of undo, do you have 'keep multiple versions' enabled?

In Preferences, Audio, Buffering There is a setting for 'media buffer size' and prebuffer.

I would experiment with those numbers


and the last thing that comes to mind, do you have fx on many items or just on tracks?

I don't have many custom settings. Mostly just Reaper's default values. 'media buffer size' is 1200ms, prebuffer 100%, both are default. And mentioned above, no audio track in my project, just vsti and vst.

I don't use item fx, just on tracks.

Undo settings are default too. maximum 256M, no "Store multiple redo paths when possible". And when I move the playhead around, there is no undo item recorded.

[ramses]

IS the samplerate of the audio the same as your soundcards samplerate?

[panomax]

Originally Posted by ramses

IS the samplerate of the audio the same as your soundcards samplerate?

I don't have audio track in my project. Soundcard and project are both in 48k

[panomax]

After trying so many times, I still cannot determine what plugins may cause the problem. And I'm now more thinking that Reaper itself may play a role.

Look at this example. I removed the track of Superior Drum 3. Now when my project is loaded, the RAM usage is just 2.83G, much less than 6G (the normal start up size before removing).

However, after first click to move the playhead, it increase gradually to 7.32G. A second click, the size not changed. However, a third click, Reaper's cursor showed the sand timer. A while later, it dropped to 4.73G.

A 4th click, it fluctuated a while, up and down, then up steadily to 5.56G.

A 5th click, it went down to near 3G, then went up to 5.36G.

A 6th click, it went down to near 3G, then went up to 4.00G.

I just switch to another program, then back to Reaper. It already up at 5.32G

A 7th click, it repeated the same kind of behaviour: first went down towards 3G, then went up, at 5.14G

I virtually did nothing useful at all, just moved the playhead. And the RAM usage fluctuated without right reason. There is not even an undo item recorded.

Is this kind of behaviour by design? Hope Reaper developers can take a look. Thanks.

[karbomusic]

1. What size is the .RPP file? Some plugins and how they save states, can be pretty ridiculous in some scenarios IIRC.

2. You may also consider starting with a blank project and working towards hitting the issue vs. having it and working backwards. Because it's highly likely impossible to hit this with a blank project (capt obvious speaking).

[panomax]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

1. What size is the .RPP file? Some plugins and how they save states, can be pretty ridiculous in some scenarios IIRC.

2. You may also consider starting with a blank project and working towards hitting the issue vs. having it and working backwards. Because it's highly likely impossible to hit this with a blank project (capt obvious speaking).

The rpp size is 12M+. Kontakt stuff occupied a lot. Yes, some plugins put ridiculous info inside rpp. Actually I discard one Piano vsti (may I indicate, Arturia) due to this very reason.

I will pay attention to the RAM issue when start the next project. The current project already has too many stuff to discard.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by panomax

The rpp size is 12M+. Kontakt stuff occupied a lot. Yes, some plugins put ridiculous info inside rpp. Actually I discard one Piano vsti (may I indicate, Arturia) due to this very reason.

I will pay attention to the RAM issue when start the next project. The current project already has too many stuff to discard.

I haven't read all the tracks panomax, but have tried to select all the tracks and move them to a new fresh project?

This has happened to me on more then a few occasions where I have a rather large project and after working on it for some time, things start to slow down and get sluggish and even after saving and reloading, the project is still acting sluggish.

So what I've been doing is selecting every track in the project and copy/pasting it to a new fresh project. I do set the BPM to the BPM of the project first. After copy/pasting it starts to work as expected, the sluggishness is gone and I sigh with relief and move on.

Oh, and if there were any markers or regions in the project I copy and paste them too.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by Tod

I haven't read all the tracks panomax, but have tried to select all the tracks and move them to a new fresh project?

This has happened to me on more then a few occasions where I have a rather large project and after working on it for some time, things start to slow down and get sluggish and even after saving and reloading, the project is still acting sluggish.

So what I've been doing is selecting every track in the project and copy/pasting it to a new fresh project. I do set the BPM to the BPM of the project first. After copy/pasting it starts to work as expected, the sluggishness is gone and I sigh with relief and move on.

Oh, and if there were any markers or regions in the project I copy and paste them too.

Yes. I have tried exactly like you described. First, set up tempo map, then copy markers, then copy all tracks to a new project. Unfortunately, the problem still occurs in the new project.

When you had those sluggishness times, did you notice the RAM usage numbers?

[panomax]

Just noticed that Reaper 6.46 released. So installed it and load my troublesome project, and a brand new project in tab. After copy all tracks over to the new project, the RAM just increased to over 16G. And as I had other programs like Firefox running, my PC just hang. I had to reboot.

With a fresh restart, started Reaper with the 2 project tabs. The new project has no track. Obviously, the previous copy-and-paste did not survive the RAM explosion. The initial RAM usage of Reaper is around 6G, like I normally had with the troublesome project.

I did copy-and-paste tracks again. When the hourglass disappear, the RAM reached 16G+ again. Fortunately, since no other program running, I was able to save the new project.

After closing the old project tab, the RAM dropped to 12.75G. Still doubled the size of 6G for a project. Click around to move the playhead, the RAM fluctuated between 8G to 14G.

Restart Reaper with the new project only, RAM started at 6.01G.
First move of playhead, 8.81G.
2nd, 9.60G.
3rd, 9.60G
4th, 11.57G
5th, sand timer appeared, then dropped to 9.89G

Could my fellow Reaper users, please try and check the same scenario? Open your project, without doing anything meaningful, without playing, just move the playhead around, notice the RAM usage by Reaper. Thanks.

[panomax]

I tried with some of my other projects. The similar behavior did occur: moving playhead cause RAM usage increase. But in a much less scale. For example, a project with initial RAM usage of 3.66G. After 12 clicks, increased to 3.96G.

So sounds like mixed causes. Reaper may have some related behavior. And something in my troublesome project exacerbated it.

[Tod]

Okay, I currently have a project I've been working on most of the day, it's got 170 tracks and my performance meter shows 9.2GB. When I hit play it stays at 9.2GB. Task Manager is saying the same thing. I have 32GB RAM.

Incidentally, I have 6 instances of Kontakt 5 in the project.

You might think about what karbomusic suggests.

Have you tried disabling things one at a time to try find the problem, I assume so?

Sorry, wish I could help more.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by Tod

Okay, I currently have a project I've been working on most of the day, it's got 170 tracks and my performance meter shows 9.2GB. When I hit play it stays at 9.2GB. Task Manager is saying the same thing. I have 32GB RAM.

Incidentally, I have 6 instances of Kontakt 5 in the project.

You might think about what karbomusic suggests.

Have you tried disabling things one at a time to try find the problem, I assume so?

Sorry, wish I could help more.

Thanks for checking. Though please don't play, just click around on the time line to move the playhead. I had the same thing, when play, the RAM consumption keeps the same. But when move the playhead around without playing, the consumption jumps.

I have tried removing (not only disabling) plugins one by one. Sometimes I thought I found the culprit. But if I reload the full project, and just remove the culprit, the problem is still there.

BTW, Reaper Performance Meter only shows "System free" for RAM, not how much RAM it actually consumed. Am I missing something with it?

[Tod]

Originally Posted by panomax

Thanks for checking. Though please don't play, just click around on the time line to move the playhead. I had the same thing, when play, the RAM consumption keeps the same. But when move the playhead around without playing, the consumption jumps.

Okay, I tried that panomax and there was no increase. Actually what I got was a little different reading each time I moved the cursor by clicking in different places on the time line, but it would be a little less, a little more, nothing significant.

One thing I did notice is that by closing the project I've been working on all day that was at about 9.2GB, was about 8,2GB when I reloaded it.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by Tod

Okay, I tried that panomax and there was no increase. Actually what I got was a little different reading each time I moved the cursor by clicking in different places on the time line, but it would be a little less, a little more, nothing significant.

One thing I did notice is that by closing the project I've been working on all day that was at about 9.2GB, was about 8,2GB when I reloaded it.

Thanks for double check. So RAM usage fluctuates a bit would be the norm. Mine was an outliner.

By any chance, could you check my other 'bug' report? That is related to RAM consumption after closing all projects.
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=262098

[karbomusic]

I really suggest you install a portable version of reaper to some folder, start a new blank project and add tracks/vsts one at time. Do not import any settings from the other install until you absolutely have to. I'm willing to bet you cannot reproduce this issue without heavy type VSTs etc. where some combination causes this - Or we are looking for a zebra when it's just a horse, meaning that watching the memory jump may be irrelevant and the combo of resources you actually need are that high - I'm not betting on it but it is possible - IOW reaper isn't allocating memory for no reason at all.

Also, please share a minimal version of your project.rpp, aka no audio files so we can take a look but my suspicion is still VSTs, settings and or some threshold you are hitting - which is why you remove vsts/resources until it gets better but it's not the last thing you removed per se, but rather that was the point where got you under the bar.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I really suggest you install a portable version of reaper to some folder, start a new blank project and add tracks/vsts one at time. Do not import any settings from the other install until you absolutely have to. I'm willing to bet you cannot reproduce this issue without heavy type VSTs etc. where some combination causes this - Or we are looking for a zebra when it's just a horse, meaning that watching the memory jump may be irrelevant and the combo of resources you actually need are that high - I'm not betting on it but it is possible - IOW reaper isn't allocating memory for no reason at all.

Also, please share a minimal version of your project.rpp, aka no audio files so we can take a look but my suspicion is still VSTs, settings and or some threshold you are hitting - which is why you remove vsts/resources until it gets better but it's not the last thing you removed per se, but rather that was the point where got you under the bar.

I sort of already did what you suggested. I have always been using portable version. And after upgrade to Windows 11 recently, I started a new portable folder. Though still encountered the same problem with my troublesome project.

I will start a new project soon for my new song. I will take that chance to work from scratch and watch the RAM issue.

I agree with you that it may be a combination of vst/resouce/threshold issue.

The troublesome project has no audio track, just midi, vsti, vst tracks. But its size is not small, 12M+ It contains some Chinese character in track names. As Chinese characters have fixed width. Not like English words have vastly different length. As names, they can fit the limited space more easily.

But after uploading the rpp, I got an error message:
Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by panomax

I sort of already did what you suggested. I have always been using portable version.

As a long-time enterprise debug/troubleshooting engineer, "sort of" drives my OCD nuts. Once you are this far in, removing possibilities from the table with 100% certainty is the only way to go, 99% isn't good enough. Otherwise it runs the risk of biting you later. Kind of have to be painfully methodical.

By portable, I mean new secondary portable install that is blank, fresh and clean as new fallen snow, so that A) it is a test bed parallel to your existing install for comparison, and B) guaranteed to be starting as a clean slate with no assumptions or settings build up from the existing install.

Rootin' for ya.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

As a long-time enterprise debug/troubleshooting engineer, "sort of" drives my OCD nuts. Once you are this far in, removing possibilities from the table with 100% certainty is the only way to go, 99% isn't good enough. Otherwise it runs the risk of biting you later. Kind of have to be painfully methodical.

By portable, I mean new secondary portable install that is blank, fresh and clean as new fallen snow, so that A) it is a test bed parallel to your existing install for comparison, and B) guaranteed to be starting as a clean slate with no assumptions or settings build up from the existing install.

Rootin' for ya.

Yes, you are right, 99% isn't good enough. My current portable folder is like you suggested, built from scratch. I only copied over my FX chain and template. Those are not being used yet as I already had the project. So the trouble seems to be caused by something inside the project.

Will investigate from the other end with my next project.

[panomax]

Today I created a simple new project from scratch. With just 2 audio tracks and 2 vst (smartLimit and Gullfoss). The RAM consumption was about 230M. No bizarre behaviour. Especially smartLimit, which caused RAM doubled from 12G to 24G in the troublesome project, run smoothly. So looks like there actually are some thresholds of resource involved. Though we don't know what they are.

[thevisi0nary]

May be completely off base and not helpful, but

1. I know you mentioned testing in various blank projects, but try testing again in a loaded project and see if the ram usage while scrubbing or moving the play head is similar to those same areas during playback

2. (Very unlikely) Are you using an iGPU? Open the task manager and see if there are any gpu spikes that correlate to moving the play head / increased ram usage.

3. Reaper update may have a memory leak that is only noticeable on older systems.

[panomax]

Originally Posted by thevisi0nary

May be completely off base and not helpful, but

1. I know you mentioned testing in various blank projects, but try testing again in a loaded project and see if the ram usage while scrubbing or moving the play head is similar to those same areas during playback

2. (Very unlikely) Are you using an iGPU? Open the task manager and see if there are any gpu spikes that correlate to moving the play head / increased ram usage.

3. Reaper update may have a memory leak that is only noticeable on older systems.

As reported above and @karbomusic also confirmed that moving the playhead without playing did cause the RAM fluctuates. Though only in my troublesome project, the fluctuation is so dramatic.

I'm using Nvidia Geforce GT620. The RAM spikes were observed in Task Manager Deluxe which is an enhanced task manager.

Yes, I also think Reaper may have memory leak with regard to moving playhead.

[panomax]

Working with a new project from scratch, I finally triggered again this problem! I've been careful to watch RAM usage and .rpp size.

First countered a case where the size of .rpp jumped from 2M to 13M with no reason. I just open the save 2M project and save it again. Suddenly, the .rpp size jumped to 13M! I used diff tool to see what had been changed. It seemed that some plugins like EZBass added lots of contents. But I had no change to trigger it.

I then decide to use sub-project to divide and conquer. This worked quite well. The .rpp size went down to 688118! RAM usage was around 8G.

However, after loading Native Instruments Symphony Series String Ensemble with 5 instruments in Kontakt, the .rpp size jumped to 8,699,803! OK, I just tolerated this jump.

However, a while later, when the .rpp size increased to 9,084,830, I add smartLimit to the project. Voila! This triggered RAM usage from 9G to over 50G! But this time it was not as serious as before where the PC just hung and I had to reboot. I closed the project when the RAM was over 50G. Fortunately, Reaper very very slowly released RAM and finally closed the project. But still holding 1.4G, as I reported in another thread.

[panomax]

I restored to a state before adding smartLimit. However this problem still occurred. I then removed Native Instruments Symphony Series String Ensemble. The .rpp size dropped 8M. However, this problem still occurred. I had to close the project. Reaper again very slowly release 20G+ RAM.

After reload Reaper and the now 1M project, the RAM start around 1G. The problem caused the RAM steadily increasing. I had to kill Reaper this time. So something else was there.

[panomax]

I triggered the problem again when I have a output bus with 3 vst. Though it seems that the cause is more complex. As discussed in this thread earlier, probably a combination of resource threshold.

I just use sub-project more. This seems to mitigate the problem for now.