Load-balancing (or lack of thereof)

[Basken]

Hi everyone - and especially the UA techies!

A few weeks after the UAD Space Echo was released (and only a few hours after having reached for my visa to purchase the bastard) i was hit with an issue which has become even bigger with the release of the Neve. The load balancing between multiple UAD cards are .. less than stellar.

My example: A Cubase session with around 16 tracks containing various UAD plugs + a few busses with the last one featuring the Neve comp. Cubase loads up and initializes the respective tracks + plugins in the order they appear in the arrangement. Before the Neve, the load is distributed equally among the cards - resulting in a 50%-ish load on both UADs.. Now - the Neve tries to load, and since this plugin requires roughly 70% of a card, it fails, and you get the frustration \"1 or more plugins has been disabled\". The only way to remedy this, is to manually disable plugins, until one of the cards drops below 30% usage - then re-enable the Neve, and then the rest of the plugins.

This way of \"shoehorning\" plugins onto the cards is fairly annoying, and even more unprofessional. I wrote tech support back then; they confirmed that this way was the only way to go about it. It was less of an issue before the \"big\" plugins appeared, but now .. its just not cool.

Am i the only one? And if not, would you help make some noise so UA will wake up and remedy this issue? A ghetto solution would could be a way to fix plugins to specific cards, or an option to switch the UAD Utility to \"boot\" mode - making whatever host you have request the needed plugins, and when its done the UAD Utility could calculate the most efficient usage of the cards you have at hand? Or maybe they could just make it work! :twisted:

I guess i could rearragnge my tracks in the order i want the plugs loaded, but c'mon ..

Anyone?

-- Rune Borup, Fishcorp Copenhagen.

 

[secretworld]

I fully agree!

 

[Cabbage]

I agree this problem is getting worse and worse. It seems that doing something automatic would be difficult, since it all depends on what the next plug-in you add is going to be, and of course the algorithm wouldn't know that.

I guess one possible algorithm would be to first load the 1st card full and only use the 2nd if the next plug-in doesn't fit. Then fully load the 2nd card until its full. I guess this approach would have some negative effect, and since it depends on the order in which you add the plug-ins, it is not going to be optimal.

Otherwise the load would have to be balanced each time a plug-in is added, or when there is a problem with dsp power.

Petter

 

[secretworld]

maybe a button too reballance the load would be possible

 

[gazbo]

I don't think that the software needs to predict what the next plugin will be - I don't see why there's any technical reason that the entire set of plugins can't be rebalanced whenever a new plug is added. As an outline, the driver can naively distribute plugins as it does at the moment, up until you try to add a plug and there's not enough power left.

At this point, search to find the optimal distribution (it may be NP hard but bin packing with a maximum of 4 bins and well under 100 items isn't going to stress a CPU) and then continue as normal until the next time you run out of DSP.

Voila - guaranteed optimum usage of your cards until you actually try to do something impossible (5 Neve comps on 4 cards won't fit no matter how hard you try!)

 

[secretworld]

Maybe the host doesn´t like it when it suddenly looses contact with the plugs? It could be very dificult or dead easy, hopefully UA will coment here.

 

[Sid Chigger]

This would be an excellent fix, UA!!!

 

[RWIL]

Yes, more and more I'm using the last 2 Neve using 2 cards; the load balancing could be improve, it's near the headache in some situations.

 

[Mark Edmonds]

Strictly my conjecture here:

Whilst it certainly isn't impossible to fix, it isn't easy either.

What is impossible is for a predictive loading process to leave sufficient juice on one card for any eventuality and that includes both cpu and ram.

Also, distribution isn't just a question of leaving space for new plugin instances. How do you handle plugins with big variable loads (PEQ, RE-201 for example) that are already loaded?

If you’ve already got a RE-201 loaded with reverb switched off and then you enable the reverb, what if there isn’t capacity on the card for the extra load? What do you do?

The only way it can be done that maximises use of the cards is to do it retrospectively but if that is to be automated, it requires cooperation from the host so the UAD drivers can unload and reload plugins and make this invisible to the host.

Also, this wouldn’t solve the overload problem when loading a project unless there was some way of buffering all plugin loads until the full project loading is known so that they can then be distributed in the most efficient manner. There is probably no way the host says “I am starting to load a project” and “now I’ve finished loading a project” so how will the UAD drivers know this?

I would expect that the Poco and Creamware cards have exactly the same problem but for them, it is probably even worse because their architecture is more fragmented than the single chip UAD-1.

However, I can see a way in which it might be possible. This would involve adding an interface or redirection layer to each plugin (this layer may or may not already exist) that enables the DSP side of the plugin to be disconnected from the host without the host knowing about it. Then a function would exist in the UAD applet that did plugin redistribution based on the method of allocating the heaviest plugins first and filling the gaps with the lightest plugins. The host wouldn’t know anything about it because the interface/redirection layer would maintain host to plugin connection even if the DSP code is now running on a different card.

Mark

 

[RWIL]

Whilst it certainly isn't impossible to fix, it isn't easy either.

Yes it's a complex task. But I can't believe that it may not improve.
Yesterday I have a project like that using 2 cards:
1) loaded at 32%
2) loaded at 33%
-Try to switch on the 33609; impossible!?
-Disable a plug to get an extra -+4% and I was able to switch on the 33609 and once loaded, around 70% still available!
I can't believe that it's impossible to reoganize the few LA-2A, CE-1 and Plate 140.


RW

 

[MarkE]

If it can be done, it would be good. I also suspect it could be tricky.

Mark

 

[bedhoe]

In any case it would be great to have a solution. Even if i can \"shoehorn\" in the plugins my own experience is that workflow is everything. Having to sit and turn plugins on and off is not my idea of a creative enviroment. I wish i could get some info on when we can get some new more powerful cards...

 

[Doublehelix]

Gets my vote too... this is very frustrating problem that I also first experienced with the Space Echo. Hopefully, UA can look into this... somehow!!!

 

[Basken]

Glad to see i'm not the only one suffering. I wonder if the UA TechTeam read this forum daily, or i should point them towards this thread ..

Also - a few hardluck stories would help our case (eg. \"I lost a client because he though my studio was too unprofessional with errors popping up everytime a session was loaded\") ..

/Rune/

 

[Guest]

Me too! i have had this problem with a project but didnt know exactly what was going on.

thanks for the work around though.

 

[NuSkoolTone]

I agree it sucks, but what are you going to do? I've been doing my own shoehorning for awhile by automating plugs being active only in their respective parts where they are needed. I find that usually helps just enough to get the DSP I need. I did that when I had 2 Cards.

Of course I still ended up with scenarios of one card at 67% and the other at 106% so more dynamic load balancing would certainly help here. I cried about this quite a while ago and it fell on deaf ears.


Now that I have 3 I haven't needed to do that on the last project I worked on. However I don't have the new Neve stuff, so I'm sure that will change.

Also don't forget about freeze tracks once you're done tweaking a track and are ready to commit!

 

[lowrenzo]

i vote for that toooo

 

[Basken]

.. just for the record i wrote UA's support-email about a week ago and pointed them towards this thread - but i've yet to recieve a reply ..

.. not cool! At .. all ..

/Rune/

 

[Awesom-o]

Yes I agree some load balancing is required. Sort it out UA please!!!!!! We know you can do it!!

And once you've done it, please re-enable all our 33609 demo periods so we can try it out properly

 

[jamesdeer]

yeah

how funny, i didn't realize this was happening, i just noticed having some plugins ON actually caused less of a problem than switching them off when they stack up--like switching off the fairchild would actually cause stuttering... i have 3 cards. now i'll pay attention to how i'm stacking them.

do people have 4 cards? i want to go one more...