FXpansion BFD Supplemental - Manual (Page 25)


• How can I reduce the amount of CPU BFD uses?
Generally, the less data throughput, the less CPU BFD will use - so if you follow the
memory reduction tips, you will find this reduces BFD’s CPU load as well, as most of the
CPU load comes from operations related to the disk streaming, or from the operating
system being forced to use virtual memory (which requires swapping large chunks of
RAM to disk). Additionally, the following guidelines can reduce CPU usage:
• Set ambient microphone Width to normal, and distance to 0 - these DSP operations
take extra processing.
• In the Options Panel, disable any graphics animations you can live without.
• BFD’s samples are 44.1kHz – running BFD at any other sample rate will require
realtime resampling of the audio. When you consider that BFD streams 11 channels
of audio for every voice, you’ll appreciate that this can cause massive CPU strain. If
you can run your host at 44.1kHz, then no realtime resampling is required.
• Likewise, using the tuning controls for each Kit-Piece eats more CPU.
• Close the editor window if you don’t need it.
• Make your host precessing buffer size as big as your requirements can allow. If you
don’t need super-small latency because you are composing in a looping or offline
manner, BFD will appreciate the extra time to process the hundreds of audio channels
it is synthesizing.
• (Mac) Make sure your hard drive with the BFD Data does not have File Journalling
turned on.
• I have a pre-G5 Mac. Do you have any tips for optimizing OSX on my machine for
use with BFD?
• Have a simple picture as the desktop background, or none at all (saves RAM).
• Make sure Energy Saver is on maximum (turn furthest away from Automatic).
• Turn off hard drive Hibernation.
• Turn off File Vault.
• Turn off Fast User Switching.
• Use the scale effect instead of Genie on the dock - it’s less CPU-intensive.
• Remove iCal if you dont need it as it runs as a background process.
• Turn off Automatic Updates for OSX and things like QuickTime. These all take CPU
cycles.
• Use Norton Speedisk. Macs are like all computers and need defragmenting for best
disk performance.
• Make sure you’re not running any journalled disks..... Although journalling
performance has gotten better it still slows things down in audio applications where
lots of writes take place. In Panther, this is on by default – select each hard drive in
the Disk Utility and press Apple-J to turn off journalling.
• Use something like Shadow Killer to turn of some of OSX’s graphical effects. This
helps free up those valuable CPU cycles.
BFD supplemental manual Chapter 5: Troubleshooting