I have Kontakt 6 Portable (v6.7.1) on a Win10 PC. In the past I used batch-resave to dramatically speed up instrument load times, and it worked great. But a few years ago – I think it was around when I switched to Kontakt Portable, though I can’t be sure – the loading speed improvement from batch-resaving started going away beyond the first few minutes/sessions after resaving. Even now, when I batch-resave a library, instruments load faster for maybe an hour or so, but after that they return to their default slow speed. I use a lot of large libraries, and it takes *forever* to load these sessions.

Does this happen to anyone else who uses Kontakt Portable? Is there a way to get the loading speed improvement to actually stick around?

 

Sounds like an issue with something else (OS/hardware/drives), not with Kontakt. Like your OS evicting samples from RAM after a while. Batch-resave can only 'fix' a patch the first time it's done. Subsequent resaves only temporarily force the samples into RAM, but won't fix the underlying issue.

I save my patches in DFD mode instead of Sampler mode, in a fully purged state, with Kontakt 6 or 7, using relative paths and compressed samples, on an SSD formatted with NTFS and haven't noticed any performance issues with K-Portable.

'Override preload size' to 6 KiB in Kontakt options -> Memory might help a bit too (will break some old libraries, ~1 out of 100). Probably already enabled, but check if 'Load samples in background' and 'Multicore support' are enabled.

 

To be clear, I’m talking about loading patches across sessions. As in, after batch-resaving, I load up a quick session, the library loads fast. I close Kontakt (removing all samples from RAM), then reopen it for another session, and the library still loads quickly. But after a while – whether after closing Kontakt or not – the speed increase goes away, as if I had never batch-resaved it.

Most of my patches are also set to DFD, though I had previously disabled “Load samples in background” over some technical issue a long time ago and then forgotten all about it; turning it back on does speed things up nicely, so thanks for the reminder. I had set my preload size override to 36 KB, but that was a holdover from an older, slower system; I’ve now halved it to 18 KB (any smaller than that and I start hearing crackling and popping during playback), which also speeds things up.

Thanks for the tips! Still wish the speed increase from batch-resaving would stick around, but nor now, the aforementioned tweaks will do nicely.

 

I would like to know what batch-resaving does exactly to increase the speed of loading

 

According to various resources, batch-resaving “optimizes the library for your current version of Kontakt” by resaving Kontakt patches “with sample path information specific for your system”, which I take to mean it converts relative sample paths to absolute paths in the NKI files. In other words, it lets instruments find their samples a bit faster, which can produce a significant boost in load times, especially with larger libraries and/or slower drives.

It’s common practice to batch-resave all your libraries the first time you get them, as this load-time speed boost should stick around afterwards. Bizarrely, it doesn’t for me, as if the batch-resaving were “undone” somehow.

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2024

Ok, problem is you can't undo the batch resave. Have you tried install a new library, and batch-resave, and see if this happen again? And control what is modifying the NKI files.

If not, RE-install a new version of kontakt. Or try a not portable version?

 

Yes, in the time I’ve noticed this I’ve installed several new libraries, batch-resaved them, and then noticed how their loading speed boosts only lasted a little while before slowing down. I don’t have anything on my system that could affect NKI files (antivirus, etc.).

I’m a bit wary of installing a non-portable Kontakt; I’ve gotten to used to its portability and other advantages. I’ll save that for if the problem somehow gets much worse.