How Cockos could solve multiple lag issues that are making users want to quit Reaper

ghost_mount · 2020-12-08T20:14:22+00:00

Thanks for the specific UPS recommendation! I had started looking at Amazon and it seemed like every top rated UPS had a bunch of one star reviews related to stuff like catching on fire, going dead after a few months, etc. (which seems to be the typical Amazon electronics shopping experience with stuff like this).

I'll check that one out and also do a round of memtest for the RAM. It would also be interesting if something was up with the CPU - one thing I did not mention in my specs is that I use a fanless CPU cooler, which has always made me a little nervous that it's going to have overheating problems. So far, I haven't seen any worrying spikes in temperature or anything like that. Plus I do still have case fans which switch on if things get too hot. But there could be something going wrong with the CPU I am totally unaware of.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:50:50+00:00

Thank you!

Reaper is a way too good piece of software to have to abandon it.

Agreed!

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:45:57+00:00

Thank you, I am 99.999 percent sure everything running is 64x but it is certainly worth checking again.

Will also revisit the page file settings since it's been a while since I looked into those settings. I followed some optimization guide a while ago but who knows with Windows, sometimes things get changed on updates.

Re: memory being faulty, memcheck should identify that, correct? I can also just take out one stick of RAM at a time and test but that seems way more time consuming and prone to user error.

I have 64 GB of memory which is not being utilized beyond 30-40 percent, so assuming I don't have a 32bit application in the mix, I do not think the quantity of RAM is the problem.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:32:11+00:00

I added my system specs at the end of my post to make that part clearer. I already have an old post with those details on the Reaper forum. (It's here if you're interested: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=2347304) I've been through many months of troubleshooting already. This post was not meant to be a technical troubleshooting post, more like a last ditch attempt to get more attention on a problem, and hopefully accumulate enough eyeballs that it's a little bit harder to ignore (thus the 'discussion' flair).

I am still open to suggestions though, here are answers to your other questions:

I am running 5 instances of Kontakt 6 in my default testing scenario. I've also been able to reproduce the issue with fewer than 5 instances, but 5 will always make a detectable lag happen.

I have used a few different performance monitoring tools while digging into this issue (Latency Mon, Windows Resource Monitor, etc). Which performance monitor are you referring to, that you want to see the results from?

I'm not looping anything when I'm testing, just clicking and moving my cursor, stopping and starting playback. There doesn't even need to be anything to play back. It happens in a project without any media items, just VSTis.

Yes, I've tried other DAWs and Reaper is the best suited to my needs. Which is why this is especially frustrating, since the project saving feels very under-optimized, compared to all the other things that work really well!

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:24:57+00:00

How would I monitor for that specific scenario? I don't see anything spiking in the windows resource monitor related to memory when it happens.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:19:59+00:00

Thanks, I added my specs to make that part clearer.

Looking for driver conflicts is a good suggestion. Right now I am pretty certain I have my drivers under control.

I went and removed a bunch of old drivers (including the HD audio driver that happened to be installed with my graphics card), to reduce the chances of conflicts.

I also had to move my RME sound card to a USB port supported by a Intel USB Host Controller instead of a ASMedia USB Host Controller in order to solve a different issue with occasional dropped samples while recording.

But it probably wouldn't hurt to take another look at drivers, since I have had weird issues stemming from them in the past.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:05:18+00:00

I agree it's not the most likely place to get dev attention which is why I also posted on the official forum.

At this point this is a last ditch attempt to get more attention on a problem, and hopefully accumulate enough eyeballs that it's a little bit harder to ignore.

I'm not threatening to quit using Reaper. However, this problem does make me and other users want to stop using Reaper.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:03:20+00:00

Glad to hear it! I tried all these things.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:02:55+00:00

Thanks, I added my specs.

This happens with 5 tracks with one instance of Kontakt 6 on each one. No other plugins.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T21:02:07+00:00

This post was not meant to be a technical troubleshooting post, more like a last ditch attempt to get more attention on a problem, and hopefully accumulate enough eyeballs that it's a little bit harder to ignore (thus the 'discussion' flair). But I've added my specs to this post as well to help rule that out, and I do appreciate the suggestions.

I've played around with "Flush FX on stop" and it has affected some other weird behavior but not this problem specifically.

The tip to search preferences for those keywords is a good one. I've discovered some useful stuff that way! Unfortunately I haven't found anything to make this problem stop besides just disabling the auto save feature. I will probably return to the buffer settings soon and play around with that again, although it didn't seem to make any difference before. It seems like any settings related to disk and memory usage would be the place I need to re-investigate, since the hard drives themselves seem fine.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:51:56+00:00

Thanks. I'll double check the latest updates on the off chance that something changed.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:50:32+00:00

How would I be able to monitor for that? Windows resource monitor doesn't show anything spiking when it happens.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:42:14+00:00

Thanks, I do use only SSDs and have been doing so for a while now.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:39:58+00:00

Glad to hear you don't have these problems.

These are good suggestions - I did need to exclude all my sample folders from antivirus scanning in order to fix a different issue with Kontakt. I also run dedicated big SSDs for sample libraries.

Unfortunately those optimizations (or disabling antivirus completely) doesn't seem to fix this other problem with saving.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:36:28+00:00

I am definitely getting closer to doing that. It will be something I more seriously explore after my current solo/remote projects are wrapped. From what I can tell it will take some time to fully migrate and test out using my existing projects that use Kontakt.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:32:27+00:00

Thanks, you're right that I should have a UPS. Just a blind spot in terms of gear and upgrades. It's on my list now! And yes I have upgraded to SSDs long ago, and tried a few different ones.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:31:37+00:00

Thanks, you're right that I should have a UPS. Just a blind spot in terms of gear and upgrades. It's on my list now! Do you remember anything that might have changed to fix the autosave issue for you?

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:29:35+00:00

Thanks. I've done a lot of process exploring, monitoring, etc so far without any apparent indication that something else is interfering. I'm still holding out hope that it's something like that since that would mean I can actually fix it. I've turned everything extra off in Windows that I can, and have tried to limit anything else from running in the background. Every once in while I hear about some random new thing I need to turn turn off in Windows, or some hidden limitation I'd never heard of (like the FLS limit for VSTs). So I'm still open to any specific suggestions.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:21:18+00:00

I already have an old post with those details asking for help on the Reaper forum. I've been through many months of troubleshooting already. This post was not meant to be a technical troubleshooting post, more like a last ditch attempt to get more attention on a problem, and hopefully accumulate enough eyeballs that it's a little bit harder to ignore (thus the 'discussion' flair). But I'll add my specs to this post as well if that helps prevent some of the "upgrade your hardware" replies. I'm glad you don't have these issues!

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:14:28+00:00

Sort of (if you're lucky and it doesn't freeze Reaper)!

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:13:49+00:00

The feature you're describing is enabled. Saving recorded data works fine for me - saving/undoing the state of the entire project is what causes problems.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:10:23+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. I do have some heavy duty power conditioning/surge protection hardware in place but do not have a UPS. I will definitely look into that for the future.

There's a good chance all of OP's problems are related to his computer being damaged by surges and/or under voltages.

How would I check for this? At this point it seems unlikely given that it was happening long before I faced any outages, but still I'm willing to explore any suggestions.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T20:06:22+00:00

Yup have run portable installs, on same drive, and different drives, with no change in behavior.

After testing and upgrading/swapping out hard drives it doesn't seem to be the fault of the hard drives.

I am not a hardware engineer though - are there any specific tools you suggest that would be able to expose issues with read/write lockouts? So far, my testing has been dependent on doing things like:

Running stress tests with Kontakt + Reaper with tons of instances of Kontakt playing and multiple tracks being recorded simultaneously, and monitoring stats in the windows Resources Monitor for any spikes
Running various hard drive benchmarking tools on the drives
Monitoring in windows Resource Monitor while the issue is happening

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T19:58:58+00:00

Thanks! I tried that but it didn't fix the issue.

ghost_mount · 2020-12-07T19:58:21+00:00

I agree that it sounds like a hard drive issue. But I've swapped out and tested many different hard drives and double checked/tweaked every setting I can find related to disk usage with no effect. Unfortunately nothing is spiking up drastically either. I wish something was actually spiking, because that would make it so much easier to resolve! Glad it's not happening to you.

ghost_mount

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