Should I avoid running too many scripts in background?

[Phazma]

I noticed that over time I add more and more scripts to my custom Reaper startup action, which run in the background and do some nice things for me.

Currently I am at 8 running scripts which my projects usually load with (but this number is likely to keep increasing):



I am not noticing any change in performance or hickups yet, but I am wondering, can this become a problem if too many such scripts are running in the background simultaneously? Should I limit myself to a certain number or are these processes usually lightweight and unlikely to cause problems even if they add up (unless poorly coded obviously)?

[WarrenG]

I didn't notice anything odd, but the CPU load did go up.

W

[Phazma]

How many scripts are you running? And by how much did the CPU load change?

Turning off my 8 scripts I don't see an apparent change in the Reaper CPU meter.

I am curious, how such scripts compare to plugins in terms of resources. Is it typically like loading an EQ, which you can load a hundred on most modern machines and it still runs?

I am aware that this depends on the script in question but usually script devs try to make them as light as possible or otherwise mention that they are resource heavy.

[nofish]

Having defer (background) scripts running itself is very leightweight according to Justin (more info from the devs in that thread), so it (obviously) boils down to how heavy the work is the scripts are actually doing.

[Phazma]

Ok thanks for the information nofish.

To my layman's understanding most of these scripts don't constantly do things but only check at defer rate if a situation arises that calls for a certain action and if so perform this action once and then keep checking.

So if that constant checking for specific conditions doesn't take a lot of processing power and it boils down to the actual action that happens when the condition is met, I guess it is almost indifferent to to running such an action manually once.

So to sum it up, if I got this right, I can run even a hundred background scripts simultaneously without too big of an impact, if they don't do intensive tasks all at the same time.

[WarrenG]

To clear the load did go up but only by a few percent. It may have been added metering graphics, not sure. But not anything I worried about. I guess I could just run a lua from the toolbar that has all the scripts required at the time. I had only about six running total with no issues at all and it only increased load by approximately 3 percent.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Depending on the workload of each script individually, you can run up to thousands on slower systems.
I once checked.

[Phazma]

Originally Posted by WarrenG

To clear the load did go up but only by a few percent. It may have been added metering graphics, not sure. But not anything I worried about. I guess I could just run a lua from the toolbar that has all the scripts required at the time. I had only about six running total with no issues at all and it only increased load by approximately 3 percent.

Yeah moving graphics are in fact a bit taxing. I have a bunch embedded analyzer jsfx on my default project master track and they indeed make a difference of 2-4% CPU on my system according to Reaper’s performance meter.

[Phazma]

Originally Posted by Meo-Ada Mespotine

Depending on the workload of each script individually, you can run up to thousands on slower systems.
I once checked.

That’s great to know, thanks for the info.

I guess if I need to add more scripts I will just do so without overthinking it unless I notice them impacting the performance.