Hello everyone,

I'm having a bit of an issue with Kontakt.

I recently upgraded to an SSD drive so I set the "preload buffer" size to 6kb for all the instruments that are on that drive. So now, the memory use displayed by Kontakt dropped significantly (90% in some cases).

However, when I go into the task manager and I look at how much RAM my DAW is using, I'm getting the same memory use as I was getting before my SSD ( so nearly all my RAM is being eaten by my DAW).

Does anyone else have this issue ? the only reason I got the SSD was for Kontakt and it seems to not do anything so I hope I can find a solution to this.

Thanks

 

SSD drive will speed up loading times hugely & sample streaming no trouble at all which important in the case of DFD and means you can set your pre-buffer size really low and read time will be really quick.

However not sure but you possibly loading samples into RAM and therefore seeing little benefit. To see improvement in this area
make sure you are set to DFD mode and make sure you have batch compressed to NCW and then re-saved the library.

This will then be decompressed on the fly and the much quicker read times should show a large benefit.

Subsequently you should be able to load many more samples into same amount of RAM.

Could be lots of other things but that possibly a good place to start if u not already done so.

Good luck

 

hi zero-frag, I have a big question to ask you. I need your answer. Does an SSD make POSSIBLE to load everything at 6kb DFD? I mean: the speed of an SSD really makes possible to play various libraries at the same time, EVERYONE setted to 6kb of DFD? or does the 6kb setting be excessive even for an SSD? does the SSD stand this setting?

I make this question in various forms because I'm not english, so I don't know what form of question could be exact I'm sorry!

 

6Kb is pushing it imo. Of course it depends on your ssd and also your system. Most users report a setting of 18kb to be optimal with 12 Kb at a push.

The thing with SSD is that it speeds up data going into the sampler to such an extent that need less of it.
You can reduce the preload buffers and in some cases even run purged.

So less RAM needed means shorter loading times, on top of the faster data transfer rates.

Another thing that might help the original OP is that WITHIN YOUR DAW you need to have multicore processing enabled and NOT enabled in Kontakt

The other way is to have single processing in the DAW and multicore within Kontakt but to avoid RAM issues it is better to set it up the other way around

It is also preferable to have multiple instances of Kontakt rather that one instance with many instruments as this can cause problems with regards to RAM issues. i'e SSD mega fast streaming to multiple instances with purge function enabled should significantly lower RAM usage within the DAW. Multicore CPU usage is often to blame with regards to such problems and there are cases say of kontakt using more RAM with SSD and higher prebuffer settings.

Messing around and optimizing your system is the key whilst understanding the difference betweeen disk transfer rate and available RAM and using DFD & purge functions

 

Exactly. You can unload most DFD-based patches completely. Assuming you have SSDs in RAID-0 you can unload most if not all instruments from your project. It all breaks down to how much throughput and latency you have.

4 SSDs in RAID-0 should be able to push 6kB stable, 2 SSDs 12kB

 

Last edited: Aug 6, 2015

Great points Clandestine, and the NI manuals are not very good, or at the least, a little nebulous at explaining this. I have been using Kontakt since v1, and STILL am not sure the optimal way to set it up on a mac... I have a multicore machine and lots of ram and usually use Ableton to write... I find best performance with multiple instances, and have always been unsure as to use the multicore preference turned "on" in the Kontakt options along with Abletons multicore support turned on as well... I have also stopped using the memory server since I have been working mostly 64 bit, and have plenty of ram...

 

Totally agree sisyphus & u are 100% right imo.

They should imo include a manual dedicated to how to set up Kontakt in a practical sense and this is really important as many peoples setup's are different.

Of course the KSP reference is great but it is very involved & in the whole focused mainly around the scripting potential of Kontakt.

Of course not everybody want's to learn that. Though i reckon they must sit thru at least a few weeks of it haha!

Again the Kontakt 5 Factory Scripts is really useful but only again in a KSP sense.

The Kontakt 5 Application Reference is again based around scripting and focused towards potential DEV's wrt Kontakt Player libraries.

Don't get me wrong I am a huge NI fan but it is a sad fact that I think it's got to the position where they don't feel they need to compete any longer and for a beginner it must be a nightmare to set up and get running well.

It remains head & shoulders above the competition for good reasons but like Andrew has hinted at in the past unless I am mistaken I feel they have got to the point where they monopolise the market to such a degree that there is simply no competition in a real sense which means they don't have to push themselves and sometimes they ignore what users are asking for them to implement.

Like other people mention they have let their loyal users down many times in the past. Kontakt is still buggy but it's simply miles ahead of anything else. Motu 3 is great but compared to kontakt it's way behind.

It's sad that it has got to this situation but it will take a huge amount of time, investment to even come near challenging them. In short they could do things a lot better but will they? I doubt it.

However I still believe that they offer exceptional value for money.

With regards to the performance issues again you are correct.

I have read several times about users being disappointed when they go and spend a fortune on a really good SSD and notice little benefit in areas they expect to.

As you mentioned it is much better to use multiple instances rather than running several instruments in one instance.

Again when using in a DAW preferable to fiddle with the multicore options as these details are important.

These things are not clearly explained in the manuals really and that puts a lot of people off.

As for memory server I have never tried it as I don't use OSX but it is meant to make a big difference when using negligible amounts of RAM but like you say if you have loads of RAM then it not an issue really.

I'm PC & always will be as that's just what I'm used to and still in the process of building my dream machine. Will probably blow up like when I flick the switch

All that said it remains an awesome bit of kit but their definitely room for huge improvement but it remains to be seen how quickly NI will move on such issues

 

Why don't we do it? Why not to write a complete guide, or integration to the official manual, to learn to exactly configure Kontakt? if any admin would like to do it, I'll be glad to participate actively.

 

Is a nice idea Judo but would be difficult i reckon and there so many variables and unknowns.

You could of course write like a general guide and i'm sure that would be very helpful for many.

However there isn't going to be an exact way to configure as everybody has a different setup with huge variation.

Thinking way outside u could even factor in to the equation things that occur that aren't supposed to but do such as CPU slowing down with age, transistor ageing, latency issues with huge unknown variables etc so would be incredibly complex in some cases as there never will be an exact answer.

Of course what is optimal for my system may be terrible for someone else.

However you are right in a general sense and you could do a basic guide for setting things up and I'm positive that it would be a great help to many users.

Is a good idea in general