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Old 02-24-2021, 12:44 PM   #1
Markrs
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Default Large CPU increases beyound 340 tracks with offline plugins

I seem to have hit a bug, which seems to be in all recent versions of reaper (tested quite a few of them). I was building in template with offline plugins (primarilly BBCSO Pro), if the number of tracks was around 300 or so I didn't have anything other than minimal CPU usage (<1%). However I was adding more articulations and I noticed a massive spike.

I then did some testing with just tracks and just the BBCSO Pro plugin (offline). I seems as you go beyond 340 tracks the CPU starts to really increase until when you are at 400+ tracks you get into 20-30% CPU.

Tracks with no plugins don't cause this problem. I can't figure out why the big increase after 340 tracks and if the plugin is offline why it is not the same as empty tracks regarding CPU usage.

Any help appreciated.
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Old 02-25-2021, 02:23 AM   #2
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I kept testing and I also got a reduction when I also bypassed the plugin as well as have it offline.

I then tested with changing the ASIO settings and this also reduced CPU even though all the plugins are offline and bypassed. It is also strange to me that there is no CPU hit at all until 340 tracks but after that it starts going up. It clearly relates to the number of plugins (CPU doesn't go up with 100s of tracks but no plugins) loaded even if offline and bypassed.

I haven't tested with other DAWs and this could be a totally normall issue, but I though that if the plugins were offline and bypass there wouldn't be an impact on CPU.
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Old 02-28-2021, 07:50 AM   #3
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Post the version of Reaper you're using, 32 bit or 64 bit, and anything else that may factor into this. Note the threads in this bug report forum that are stickied, at the top. For instance, did you disable any scripts that you may be running.

Last edited by JamesPeters; 02-28-2021 at 07:57 AM.
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Old 02-28-2021, 08:05 AM   #4
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Quote:
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Post the version of Reaper you're using, 32 bit or 64 bit, and anything else that may factor into this. Note the threads in this bug report forum that are stickied, at the top. For instance, did you disable any scripts that you may be running.
Thank you for replying James. I am using Reaper 6.23 64Bit on fully upto date Windows 10 Pro 64Bit.

I disabled everything, including all scripts, plugins and removed routing. In fact I have detailed all that I did to test this out in a thread on the General Forum

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=250106


Here is the tests I did:

I recently tried to create a BBCSO Pro template with one articulation per track using the template structure designed by Spitfire. However I noticed that even with all the plugins offline that the template of about 420 tracks including sends, busses etc was using about 30-40% CPU. If I bypassed the plugins this went down by about a 1/3rd which called into question if the plugins are truly offline. I then decided to freeze every track which removes the plugin by adding a blank midi item (this works very well and is a good alternative to offline/bypass of a track) this had similar CPU usage to the offline/bypass approach, possibly a bit less but not that noticable.

One interesting thing is that if the number of tracks and/or FX are 340 or less then the CPU usage is minimal (1-2%)

This meant I still had CPU usage of 20-30% with no plugins loaded (as all the tracks were frozen). I then decided to create a project with no plugins at all. I created over a 1000 track with every track at the same heirachy level. Pretty much no CPU usage as you might expect. The result is the same if you have every track frozen. If you have offline/bypassed plugins then the CPU was about 15-20%

The last experiment was creating a folder structure that you would have for a orchestral template library with 1 articulation per track which mean a few sub levels. When this was 600+ tracks the CPU usage was about 15%. This was with no plugins.

I use a Motu M2 audio interface and Motu Asio. I also tested with Asio4All and got the same level of CPU usage. If the audio output was disabled then CPU usage was <1%.

I wondered if this was normal for all DAWs as this might be a ASIO issue. However I then opened 400+ sized templates in Cubase and got only 1-2% CPU load. No issues at all. So this seems to be a Reaper issue.

In the end this means that for me Reaper is not something that can support large templates (which is a shame as with its scripts it is very easy to create toolbars with custom buttons to show/hide tracks). I hoped one option would be using track templates however routing is lost if the destination is not in the track template which makes that solution a bit unworkable if you build a template where long/short/fx articulations (these are nested within the sections and instruments) go to their own buss.

Last edited by Markrs; 02-28-2021 at 08:24 AM. Reason: added info about audio interface
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Old 02-28-2021, 09:34 AM   #5
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I posted this issue on the VI-C forum and got some help with the settings.

I disabled "Run FX when stopped" and changed the Thread Behaviour to 0(Relaxed)and the CPU levels have gone down to <1% which is great! Not sure what the negatives are to these settings.

Not sure if what I experienced in the original post and the detail tests is a bug or just what would be expected with the default reaper settings.
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Old 02-28-2021, 01:13 PM   #6
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I have my thread behavior on 2 for some reason. I changed it a long time ago. Anyway I don't use projects that large, so I wouldn't have noticed this.

How is your RAM usage in this project? You can look at your Reaper performance meter (and right-click on it for options). I wonder if you're hitting a limit for your amount of RAM and there's some disk swapping.
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Old 02-28-2021, 01:18 PM   #7
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I have my thread behavior on 2 for some reason. I changed it a long time ago. Anyway I don't use projects that large, so I wouldn't have noticed this.

How is your RAM usage in this project? You can look at your Reaper performance meter (and right-click on it for options). I wonder if you're hitting a limit for your amount of RAM and there's some disk swapping.
I 64gb of RAM and as most instruments were offline they had no impact on the RAM. As an extra update I put the Thread Behaviour back to 4 and it was still below 1% CPU usage. The big difference that corrected the issue was unselecting "Run FX when stopped". If I select that again the CPU goes back up to 30-40%, so in my case this is definetly best left unselected.
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Old 02-28-2021, 03:13 PM   #8
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Default I think there is a bug with "Run FX when stopped"

Even though the problem goes with "Run FX when stopped" unselected what is confusing is that this setting causes this issue when there is either no plugins but folders are used in a high number. If the number of FX and tracks are less than 340 it does not seem an issue. This makes me think there is some type of bug with this setting. If there are no FX this setting shouldn't have any impact yet it does. Why does it not cause a problem when the FX and track numbers are under 340.
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Old 02-28-2021, 06:05 PM   #9
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Well I don't have the plugin you're using, but I tried it with ReaPitch since it has significant CPU usage. It seems when the ReaPitch instances are set to offline, Reaper reports CPU usage which scales accordingly as I add more (offline) ReaPitch instances. So offline doesn't remove all CPU usage, but it seems to scale based on the number of tracks and effects (one instance per track). I tested it up to 400 tracks/instances. I'm using Reaper for Linux though.

There could be something about the plugin you're using which shares resources up to a point, and past that point requires "another whole new instance".
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Old 02-28-2021, 11:09 PM   #10
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Well I don't have the plugin you're using, but I tried it with ReaPitch since it has significant CPU usage. It seems when the ReaPitch instances are set to offline, Reaper reports CPU usage which scales accordingly as I add more (offline) ReaPitch instances. So offline doesn't remove all CPU usage, but it seems to scale based on the number of tracks and effects (one instance per track). I tested it up to 400 tracks/instances. I'm using Reaper for Linux though.

There could be something about the plugin you're using which shares resources up to a point, and past that point requires "another whole new instance".
Thanks for testing James. I tried it with others as well and had the same issue, though the level of CPU usage varied. Often in orchestral composition you can have templates with 1000s of tracks so this CPU usage quickly becomes an issue. If you test with no plugins but just with lots nested folders you also get CPU usage. However once you switch "Run FX when stopped" off those issues disappear. Plus there seems to be no CPU issues up until 340 FX/tracks so it doesn't linear increase but starts to increase only around that point.

Given these factors it does look like a bug with the "Run FX when stopped" option.
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Old 02-28-2021, 11:45 PM   #11
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I remember some time ago when I made an action to 'offline' tracks that, beside setting all FX offline, CPU usage was further reduced by additionally muting the track.

I'm still below 300 tracks, so I can't know if this would help your specific problem.

One question though, @Markrs:
When you write about templates with with 1000+ tracks, do you have different articulations of the same instrument on separate tracks? Otherwise it is hard to imagine how this would happen
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Old 03-01-2021, 12:32 AM   #12
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I remember some time ago when I made an action to 'offline' tracks that, beside setting all FX offline, CPU usage was further reduced by additionally muting the track.

I'm still below 300 tracks, so I can't know if this would help your specific problem.

One question though, @Markrs:
When you write about templates with with 1000+ tracks, do you have different articulations of the same instrument on separate tracks? Otherwise it is hard to imagine how this would happen
Yep 1 track per articulation, with the plugins offline. I also hide the tracks and only make them visible when I need them. With orchestral libraries like BBCSO Pro or EastWest Hollywood Orchestra this can make for very large templates.

I would consider using track templates but the routing into the master template gets removed when you save them, so it doesn't work that well.
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Old 03-01-2021, 12:38 AM   #13
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If others would like to test this problem with "Run FX when stopped" selected . Use office a plugin and duplicate the track until you have 500+ tracks and you will see that you have a higher than normal CPU usage. If you delete the plugins or recreate it without them it goes to the normal <1% CPU usage. This effect is greater on my production Reaper than a clean version, though it appears on both, so I will need to look at what is going on with my Reaper install and scripts.

Next create some empty tracks (no plugins or scripts), use folders to nest some of them then duplicate these nested folders until you have 1000+ You will see your CPU usage has gone up. This increase is not huge only 2-3% on my PC with a clean version of Reaper. On my production version of Reaper the CPU actually goes to 30-40% when doing this test, but that could be do to some scripts causing a problem, which is why I did the tests with a clean version. If you turn "Run FX when stopped" off it goes back to <1% CPU usage. This shows even without plugins just empty tracks "Run FX when stopped" is impacting the CPU, when you have large number of tracks within folders.

Last edited by Markrs; 03-01-2021 at 01:30 AM.
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Old 03-01-2021, 01:10 AM   #14
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working with 1000 tracks is not the best way because it will consume cpu even if they are offline and hidden as you can see.
using track templates is good, you only load the required tracks. rpp file size is smaller. faster savings and no cpu problem. can you describe exactly what is the problem with routing using track templates?
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Old 03-01-2021, 01:19 AM   #15
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Quote:
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working with 1000 tracks is not the best way because it will consume cpu even if they are offline and hidden as you can see.
using track templates is good, you only load the required tracks. rpp file size is smaller. faster savings and no cpu problem. can you describe exactly what is the problem with routing using track templates?
I use the template designed by Spitfire for BBCSO. In it you have instruments and within those the articulations these have are sent to FX buses based on the type; so longs, shorts and FX articulations. The winds long articulations point to the winds long buss for example, but these busses are not in the track template but the project template. This means this routing is then removed when you save the instrument or section I.e winds) to a track template as the busses are only on the project template. If Reaper could remember the routing in track templates and where the project template has the appropriate buss reconnect that routing that would be amazing.

I hope that makes sense.
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Old 03-01-2021, 03:19 AM   #16
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yes it makes sense because the sends are stored in the bus track so when saving the templates they lose the sends.

You could try to use my script for inserting track templates which can save sends for each track template.
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Old 03-01-2021, 03:20 AM   #17
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Quote:
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yes it makes sense because the sends are stored in the bus track so when saving the templates they lose the sends.

You could try to use my script for inserting track templates which can save sends for each track template.
Thanks Heda I will have a look at it 😊
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Old 03-01-2021, 03:22 AM   #18
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Thanks Heda I will have a look at it 😊
reminds me that I need to make a demo small video or something. it would be easier to explain
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Old 03-01-2021, 03:23 AM   #19
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reminds me that I need to make a demo small video or something. it would be easier to explain
That would be useful as I am looking at your documentation and I am not how it works and if it could work for me.
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