On Wednesday 09 November 2005 02:03, Mark Knecht
wrote:
> 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.
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