11 Nov
2005
11 Nov
'05
11:23 a.m.
On 11/11/05, Nigel Henry <cave.dnb(a)tiscali.fr> wrote:
On Friday 11 November 2005 01:57, Mark Knecht wrote:
Nigel,
I understand that you are using Alsa, but are you are using the
Wine's Alsa driver or wine's OSS driver? The Alsa driver is not the
default audio driver in Wine-0.9. You would have changed this
intentionally before starting to work with Savihost.
Please let me know when you get a chance.
- Mark
On 11/9/05, Nigel Henry
<cave.dnb(a)tiscali.fr> wrote:
Hi Mark. I have been using Alsa from the beginning of these tests, and the
most recent results are above. One VSTi, virsyns Microtera, still uses 100%
CPU, but you can't expect everything to work OOTB. Nigel.
On Wednesday 09 November 2005 02:03, Mark Knecht
wrote:
Hi Nigel,
Maybe you can check this out on your end. Run 'winecfg' and change
the audio driver from the default OSS driver to the Alsa driver. Exit
winecfg and now run Crystal using Savihost. On my end it no longer
uses 100% CPU.
I'm off for dinner now. I'll check back in later to see if anyone
else gets the same results.
I have no idea what the everyday usage implications would be of
using Alsa directly vs. using the OSS driver. I guess we can talk
about that.
Cheers,
Mark On 11/8/05, Nigel Henry
<cave.dnb(a)tiscali.fr> wrote:
> Hi Mark. Right. Here goes. This is on FC2, not Gentoo. I'll have a
> go on Gentoo when I get the time. Wine is version 0.9-1fc2winehq,
> savihost is version 1.23. I borrowed mfc42.dll from my XP install and
> put it in .wine/drive_c/windows/system32. Savihost.exe I put in the
> program files, and also put Lin-Plugs FreeAlpha synth's .dll in
> there. Renamed savihosts .exe to FreeAlpha, and it worked first go.
> Now FreeAlpha synth has a separate file for it's patches. it will
> only use the default patch that is on the synth But it works. I've
> been trying a lot of freebie synths, and notice that they use a lot
> of cpu. Ksim is showing, when idle, between 70 & 80% cpu useage, and
> yet the synth itself only shows less than 5% cpu useage. VirSyn's
> MicroTERA. a free synth uses 100% cpu. Not enough to freeze the
> mouse, and even though I did get some sounds out of it, it would not
> load the sound bank. Native Instruments Reactor Session One 4.0,
> another freebie fully operational synth. When installed, this has a
> .exe and a .dll. Running the .exe brings up the GUI, but the only
> menu item that works is the one for sample rate, so cannot connect
> usb midi keyboard or audio output. The .dll through savihost works
> fine, but again at idle, is showing 50% cpu on Ksim, and the synth is
> showing about 18.8%. The complete patch bank is available on this
> synth. Single notes play ok, but push the cpu on Ksim to about 95%.
> Chords push the cpu useage to 100%+ and become quite broken up. All
> in all, I'm very happy with the way this is going. Hardly anything
> worked on
> wine-20041019-1fc2winehq, but 0.9-1fc2winehq has certainly made more
> things work. One observation. I tried crystal.dll on numerous
> occasions, and it would not open. At that time only mfc42.dll was in
> the system32 directory. After installing Reactor Session One synth,
> and perhaps something else, more .dll's turned up in system32. I
> thought I'd try crystal synth again, and this time it worked. The
> extra .dll's are listed below.
> msvcirt.dll
> MSVCP60.DLL
> Msvcrt.dll
>
> Here are a few of the freebie synths I tried, and which worked ok
> with savihost.
> Triangle I & Triangle II from http://www.rgcaudio.com
> Interruptor Dub Siren from http://www.interruptor.ch
> JXPlugins JX220 from http://www.jxplugins.co.uk
> LFObia Mocheese from http://www.electronicscene.com/elektracidz
> LRsynths Trionimox from http://www.alphastrike.de
> Psychic Modulation Pandemonium from http://www.psychicmodulation.com
> Tobybear Screamer from http://www.tobybear.de
> LinPlug Free Alpha from http://www.linplug.com
>
> I'd be really interested in knowing why these synths use so much cpu
> when just lying idle. Nigel.
>
> Machine: Aiii-friend 1.3Ghz, 1GB Ram, Audigy2 soundblaster, Built-in
> Cyberblade i1 graphics.
Hi Nigel,
Hey - you've been busy!
I had a couple of minutes so I fired up Savihost using Triangle 1
and Crystal to see if I could duplicate your results. For those synths
I see (using top)
Triangle 1 - 6% usr, 6%sys
Crystal - 20% usr, 80% sys
This is on an AMD64 3000+ machine.
Since Savihost is the main app in both cases (just renamed to the
dll name) then the difference has to be something in the way the dll
is written. (duh...) How we find that I'm not so sure. What I need is
an app that shows CPU usage by thread or process I suppose.
I'll ask about that on the Wine lists and see what I find out.
Assuming that we do find out something then possibly one day the
Wine developers (or kernel developers) can do something about it.
Note that in both cases above I ended up using the OSS seting in
winecfg. The Jack interface doesn't work at all and the Alsa interface
seemed to have an awful lot of noise. The kernel is 2.6.14-rt6, Ingo's
latest and the machine is Gentoo based.
I have the Alpha demo downloaded but I haven't installed it yet.
I think we need to work on a way to report this info, and maybe a
place to store it online. I can see a Wiki where we all can enter
numbers as being of value, assuming it starys clean.
Cheers,
Mark
Hi Mark. A Wiki is the best option for keeping this info. As you say it
needs to be kept clean, and I'd suggest registration to add or make
alterations to pages in it. I wish I could help to set it up, but have no
idea how to go about setting up a Wiki or a webserver. My Apache
webserver I've tried out once with my son, but on dialup it's a bit of a
no-go anyway.
The kernel I am using is from planetccrma. 2.6.10-0.4.rdt.rhfc2.ccrma
(32bit). Having finished playing with vst apps a while back, I went to
start qjackctl. It doesn't want to know, throwing back "the capture
device "hw0" is already in use. A bit confused I run ps auxw, and this
shows 5 active pid's for wine. I have, pid 4288 for
/usr/bin/wine-preloader /usr/bin/wine-pthread C:\Program Files\Native.
Also, pid 4291 for /usr/bin/wineserver, and the rest are using
/usr/bin/wine-preloader /usr/bin/wine-pthread /home/djmons/.wine/driv.
Kiliing these and running ps auxw again shows the same pid's still there,
but with the comment "defunkt" . Normally you kill a pid, run ps auxw
again and the pid ids gone. Qjackctl still won't start jack. I had to do
a windoze style reboot to clear this stuff. Thank you by the way for
"top". I havn't used this before. Right. I've rebooted, and go to
wines
program files. Start up Crystal through savihost with top running. Ksim
at idle shows an average of 26% cpu. With top, wineserver is showing an
average of 10.5%, and wine-preloader an average of 7.6%. Playing Crystal
pushes the cpu up to about 50%. I mean. This ain't too bad.
Wine-preloader has gone up to about 13.3% cpu and is staying there after
a few minutes. Wineserver has stayed at the same cpu level. Closed
Crystal and now lost wineserver and wine-preloader from the top output
(which is as it should be). Cpu now running at an average of 3%. Start
Triangle I . Wineserver's cpu about the same as Crystal. Wine-preloader
up a bit, 8.6%. Playing Triangle I pushes the cpu to about 53% max.
Closed Triangle I, and lost wine pid's from top. Tried qjackctl and
starting jack, and no problems. Right. Last try, as I don't want to use
synths that you don't have. Start FreeAlpha. No big difference here. cpu
useage about the same as the others. FreeAlpha being polyphonic
surprisingly only max'd at about 41% cpu when played. None of this seems
too bad. I still can't understand why I had 5 pid's still running for
wine in ps auxw. the only other bits I'd run from the wine program files
were, a pdf manual, and a MS word .doc through open office for another
synth manual. Now I recorded a bit on one synth and saved it as .wav. But
the next question is. How do I port the output from a VSTi running under
savihost and wine, to an app like Ardour? Thats a whole new ball game.
Nigel.