Random RAM increase, even with offline FX

[timzibrat]

So I noticed this problem, that's been really buggining me for a few weeks now. When I open a project, it loads fine, plays fine all good. After some time, the project becomes very sluggish, not anymore after a restart of course. But always restarting Reaper doesn't seem like the best solution. So I checked the performance meter and it shows 28gb of RAM usage, even though there are no VSTi in this project. I found that weird. So I started experimenting with offline/online fx, newly opened projects etc.

The problem seems to start happening, when I go to another program in windows and come back to reaper. Almost instantly the RAM usage jumps from 4-8gb. Of course this doesn't happen with an empty project or newly created project. I've checked one of the troublesome projects on a portable install and it still happens there. And the RAM usage increases each time I move the playhead/edit cursor. After a number of times of this, it jumps to 28gb, where it eventually stays. Even if I set all fx offline, the RAM is still at 28gb.

There are a few fx, where I thought I might find the culprit. For example Altiverb, Accentize Chameleon, but with those offline, still nothing happens. I have a lot of routing going on and also a lot of bypass fx envelopes. Not sure if something could be related to this.

Let me know if there's any info, project file, any other file I could provide. I'm not even sure if the RAM usage is related to the sluggishness, but both are concern worthy.

Running:
Reaper v7.18
SWS and Reapack installed
Windows 11
AMD Ryzen 9 3900x
128gb RAM
Geforce GTX 1080

[timzibrat]

I also tested the same project and deleted all envelopes and it still happens. I also tested again and deleted all fx and it still happens to a degree. Seems to me like the previously loaded RAM isn't recognized by Reaper and another duplicate is tossed over it as soon as I click away and back to the Reaper instance.

[Justin]

If you use a portable install of REAPER without anything additional installed, does it still occur?

If so, can you post the .rpp file?


If not -- maybe try using a portable install with your existing reaper.ini (but nothing additional installed), see if that has an issue. If it does, then send us the .rpp file and your reaper.ini?



If not that -- try removing various additional things (you might have other things installed via ReaPack?)

[timzibrat]

Thanks for the response. Just tried with a clean portable install and it still happens.

Here's the .rpp file:
https://www.dropbox.com/t/MnwDtB1Uh7Dcr0zz

[Justin]

Thanks - if you set all of the FX offline, does this issue still occur? Perhaps it can be narrowed down to one particular plug-in or a set of plug-ins?

[timzibrat]

Yes. I set all of the plugins offline and save a version of the project and it still occurs.

I can totally see that it's potentially a script problem, maybe something that gets saved in the .rpp. I use HEDAs Track inspector extensively and also nvk scripts. The only new thing I can think of is the autobypass extension of Hedas TI, or maybe something with nkv folder items. If you potentially see a quick way to delete that info (I saw some autobypass code at the end of the .rpp).

I'd be glad to troubleshoot a lot with these thing. If I remember correctly, this also occured if I copied all tracks to a new project. Don't remember 100% though. Will try this as well tomorrow.

[Justin]

If you set all FX offline, and remove the video files, will it happen then?


I tried the project you sent, with the FX offline, but I wasn't able to reproduce -- but I don't have the videos.


What video decoder mode is it using?

[timzibrat]

Ok so looks like a plugin and the video are both the problem. When I have all fx offline and also remove the video, then the RAM doesn't jump anymore. But a very quick and not thorough test showed, that the video added approx 8gbs of RAM, while one of the plugins or a few of them added about 16gb of RAM. So together plus the beginning usage of RAM at around 4gb, adds to 28+gb of RAM for this project. I will try to troubleshoot which plugin creates this mess, but at least I now know to try without video, cause the random increase occurred with all fx offline, not as significantly though.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do to test or check. Here's what I have from the video side of things:

[timzibrat]

Ok so I did some tests. Ffmpeg seems to be better on video side of RAM usage. No increase there.

But funny enough, I tried two instances of Reaper, to try to recreate the project and see where things get funky (cause I tried a friends project, and there was no increase there). All went well.. copied all of the tracks with fx and items in tack. So I thought this all might have been a glitch in the project. But then I rebuilt my sends. Instant 12gb RAM increase. And this was not from the stems to the reverbs, but from the stems to the master track (in my case 5.1mix track). What would be the cause of that? What else can I test to find out what the problem is? Can't track the problem down to one of the plugins cause the RAM increase issue starts happening with any set of plugins online/offline.

[timzibrat]

Another test. I usually have all stacks (dialogue, music, ambiences, effects, reverbs) as separate buses that send to the mix bus and then that mix bus sends to the master track. In between I have a send to a downmix bus cause all of those sends are 6 multichannel sends, but curiously enough, if I go from the stacks directly to the master track, so send to parent/master, then the huge RAM spike doesn't happen. So funny enough, routing seems to be the issue here. And even sending to parent/master increases the RAM useage a bit, but not nearly as high as through a custom track.

[timzibrat]

Ok I think I found the true issue as well as fix. It's depth of routing if I can call it that. If I have many levels of subfolders, this random RAM increase happens. I'm not sure exactly what the problematic depth is, but somewhere above 7. So if my routing would be child/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/send|send|send. You can probably see that in the example project I've sent to you, how deep the routing goes and that's where to problem occurs.

Is this something that you could potentially fix? The reason I like so many subfolders is that I work on big movie projects and I categorize everything by type, scene, channel number etc.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by timzibrat

Ok I think I found the true issue as well as fix. It's depth of routing if I can call it that. If I have many levels of subfolders, this random RAM increase happens. I'm not sure exactly what the problematic depth is, but somewhere above 7. So if my routing would be child/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/send|send|send. You can probably see that in the example project I've sent to you, how deep the routing goes and that's where to problem occurs.

Is this something that you could potentially fix? The reason I like so many subfolders is that I work on big movie projects and I categorize everything by type, scene, channel number etc.

Try turning off (or reducing the size of) anticipative FX and see if that affects things?

[timzibrat]

Ok, did some tests again and thank you very much for the help.

Turning off anticipate FX fixes the problem of increased RAM, but in most scenarios it's impossible to work with all the processing going on.

No lower amount of anticipative fx fixes things (talking lower ms). I tried down to 50 and while it might have reduced the RAM increase, it still increased it quite a bit.

Other settings like live fx multiprocessing, disabling media buffering etc. don't make a difference. The subsetting of allowing antiFXproc on track without FX, tracks with open MIDI and with automation modes, also doesn't change a thing. Anticipative FX processing has to be turned off so that there's no memory dump (or however that would be called).

Another curious thing, if I close the project (closing tab), it take quite a while to unload the ram. An empty reaper session then keeps about 1.2gbs of ram, which seems odd.

What do you suggest?

[Justin]

I'll have some diagnostic tools for you to try in the next few days, thank you!

[Justin]

OK, if you go to the pre-release forum and get 7.19+dev0725 (or later), there's some new internal APIs added. Once running that, install this as a .lua reascript -- actions window, new reascript, "buffering info.lua", then paste this into the editor:

reaper.ShowConsoleMsg("")
local _, bsize = reaper.GetAudioDeviceInfo("BSIZE")
local _, srate = reaper.GetAudioDeviceInfo("SRATE")
reaper.ShowConsoleMsg(string.format("dumping bufstats for %d tracks, srate=%.0f bsize=%d:\n", reaper.GetNumTracks(),srate,bsize))
for i=0,reaper.GetNumTracks()-1 do
  local tr = reaper.GetTrack(0,i)
  local _, inf = reaper.GetSetMediaTrackInfo_String(tr,"P_BUFSTATS","",false)
  local nch = reaper.GetMediaTrackInfo_Value(tr,"I_NCHAN")
  local _, name = reaper.GetTrackName(tr)
  reaper.ShowConsoleMsg(string.format("  track %d: %s (%d ch)- %s\n",i+1, name, nch,inf))
end

Load the project, run that script, save the output of it. Then when the memory use gets excessive, run it again, and save the output. Then post both of those outputs, so we can get the extra info.

Thanks!

[timzibrat]

Thank you Justin and forgive the delay. I was not in the studio last week. Here are the two files

[Justin]

Originally Posted by timzibrat

Thank you Justin and forgive the delay. I was not in the studio last week. Here are the two files

Thank you, this is very helpful! Can you email a copy of the .rpp file to support at cockos dot com?

[timzibrat]

Done.