It may be, but i rather have some more users test this and report if it happens on their system as well.
GPU and chipset often relate in various concepts. I can mention one good example:ASUS mainboards with Sli technology, SLI is a technology controled by the Nvidia chipset on the mainboard and optimise performance on the video card bus (pci express mostly) and in some cases take care that dual graphics interfaces can communicate flawlessly with eachother. If these transport optimisations fail or have an error in their firmware, this can lead to flaws on your GPU or can even cause it to show broken graphics (as well in high definition as during 40*80 resolutions of post and boot-time).
Okay but the thing is, I don’t have any problems with my system and all apps run very smoothly. Also, the problem is very specific, i.e. it only occurs with the Pattern Editor up, which is the main reason why I think it’s a problem with Renoise which could be fixed. Having this tested by other users is a good idea indeed.
One difference between 1.5.2 and NE is SSE support, (it will optimise cpu performance for approx. 10%) so if the beta comes out for registered users (and it won’t take too long now) i’m also wondering if this edition will work as expected on your system.
Hope I don’t bug you guys too much (gg), but I just figured out that the problem is absolutely the same if I render the song to WAV instead of replaying it. So that should exclude my crappy soundchip from being the problem I guess…
Jups, i’m not going to say anything about your cpu.
it remains a strange problem. Taktik is the only one who can add debug possibilities but chances are very likely he shall propose to wait for and try the NE beta first (because NE beta has a few more logging options in various other matters as well)
When running Renoise with a very high BPM or low Speed values (the pattern scrolls fast as hell), the pattern scrolling takes indeed a quite much CPU or GPU. Which speed and BPM values have you used while testing this?
This is in most cases not really a problem though, because the GUI just takes as much CPU it needs to display the pattern without dropping frames. Audio wont suffer form this. Other programs which you run beside Renoise will, if they have not a high priority. In such a case, lower the Frame rate to a value that is acceptable for you.
Updating to the latest DirectX version and the latest drivers might help to free up CPU time and use GPU time instead (make sure that Hardware acceleration is enabled).
The next version will nevertheless perform better, especially when patternfollow is off…
Various BPMs, and the result differs indeed, but also at low speeds the CPU load is much higher than should be (I think I wrote it somewhere before).
I tried lowering the frame rate, but that has an effect only if I drop it really low, like 10 or so. Anything above 20 or 25 has no effect at all (so it doesnt matter if the framerate is 25 or 60, same cpu usage).
Hmmm…It seems to be a weird problem. The fact is that I have a similar trouble. No new device of software addes since weeks, but Renoise is running extremely slow now on my system. Because I love renoise, I decided to format hard drive and install Windows XP from scratch. It is incredible but the problem persists. Even initial loading of renoise is quite slow (I can read all initialization messages clearly). But discovered that turning off the Windows audio services, then renoise runs absolutely nice, and loading time is really short. My soundcard is a SB Audigy Platinum, and always worked fine.
The strange thing is that this began to happen some days ago without logic explanation, and now I cannot fix the problem. It seems to be some kind of DirectX bug. But why? My system has benn working fine since years. And why I cannot fix this with a new OS installation?
I’m using last Renoise version 1.5.2 over Windows XP SP2. My PC is: Athlon XP 1500+ CPU, Gigabyte GA-7ZX motherboard, SB Audigy soundcard and ATI Radeon 9250 videocard, DirectX 9.0c
What happens if you revert to a restore point before you applied the latest updates… i get a feeling one of these Microsoft Updates is involved.
Installing from scratch usually does not deliver Sp2 but Sp1 so i have a feeling you have installed from scratch and performed updates (if not personally then through automatic updates)…
It does not nessesarily mean this is a DirectX issue… i believe it has been 9.0c for quite some time now…
And the other audiocard is an AC97 audio… so it seems definately…
Could you test if you have A3d mode turned on? I’m wondering what happens if you can turn this off (in audio driver or directsound and if applicable ofcourse) A3d seems to perform slowdowns in games as well if i scan down google for these kinds of troubles.
I’ve tried to revert to a restore point and cannot fix it. Microsoft Updates is not active in my system. My Windows XP CD includes SP2, so it is installed from scratch. The other soundcard (inlcuded on motherboard) is disabled by BIOS so it is not detected by Windows and it is not working.
I’m starting to think that it could be a problem in my SB Audigy card. But as I said before, everything goes fine if I disabled “Windows audio” service. That means that ASIO drivers are working fine if audio service is stopped.
Regards,
Juan.
I’ve tried to remove all cards and drives from my motherboard. Then I insert only the soundcard and it is detected correctly, then I install the drivers. I’ve tried both the original drivers included in the soundcard pack and the new version available in Creative web. The problem is the same in both cases.
The next move is to install a different OS (WIndows 2000, for example) to check if it is a hardware or software problem.
I’m still wondering why my soundcard was working fine with Renoise until last July and do not work since August without any recent system change. It is a mistery for me.
Well, I’ve discovered the way to fix that abnormal situation on my PC. When I open Renoise, it shows a CPU usage around 4% and everything runs slow (it seems like Windows is trying to find new hardware or so). Then if I open a VST device from instruments menu, then CPU usage drops down to 0%-1% and Renoise runs at full power. It seems that opening a VST device activates “something” that Renoise is waiting for during and after initial Renoise loading. After that, Renoise opens and closes quickly and runs smoothly, until next PC reboot, when it gets slow again.
So I guess it is a hardware problem, maybe related to ASIO or VST, but cannot know the real origin of the problem. I’ve tried all driver version for my soundcard, changing it from one PCI slot to another, changin all BIOS parameters, etc., and the problem is still there. At least, I know the way to fix it.
I checked here [for now athlon64 2800 [~1.8ghz], 1gb ram, geforce6200 & emu0404] and playing empty pattern uses ~50% cpu, this is shown in task manager, but the same time it shows 3,6% cpu in renoise]. but I also see that scrolling large html page in Opera eats ~60% cpu!]… I guess it`s up to gfx card…
Ha!! I know what the real problem is. It is something related to the MIDI port! Yes, if I turn on my MIDI master keyboard, then Renoise opens and runs perfectly. But if I have my MIDI keyboard switched off, then Renoise takes a lot of time to load and the runs very slow. It is very strange.
Did you enabled master/slave configurations for that MIDI port?
It might be that the bus on your MIDI keyboard may still be open or “detected” but because it does not respond, Renoise attempts to wait for the message with a certain time-out.
And this time-delay can cause the slow-down.
So i wonder what would happen if you unbuckle your MIDI cable if you turned off your MIDI keyboard…
