ACE, Diva, Hive, Podolski, Repro, Zebra, ZebraHZ - release candidates, round 2

[tasmaniandevil]

Hi everyone,

we got some fresh release candidates for the next round of updates.
In addition to the last round, we also have a mini update for Zebra2, and a new release candidate for the NKS update of Podolski.

With the release of the Zebra 2.9.1 update, we will also bring ZebraHZ to version 2.9.1 at the same time. The beta is available the usual way, by requesting your serials and soundset download links on the website via the Request My Licenses form. Download contains betas for Mac and Win.

Diva and ZebraHZ CPU improvements: A few tweaks under the hood and new compilers improve performance greatly. This is particularly noticable on machines with many cores.

We are hoping to finally release all the updates by next week.

Here are the most current revisions, fresh from the oven:

ACE 1.4.1 RC2 9709 Mac
ACE 1.4.1 RC2 9709 Win

Diva 1.4.4 RC2 9709 Mac
Diva 1.4.4 RC2 9709 Win

Hive 2.0.1 RC2 9709 Mac
Hive 2.0.1 RC2 9709 Win

Podolski 1.2.2 RC2 9709 Mac
Podolski 1.2.2 RC2 9709 Win

Repro 1.1.1 RC2 9669 Mac
Repro 1.1.1 RC2 9669 Win

Zebra 2.9.1 RC2 9709 Mac
Zebra 2.9.1 RC2 9709 Win

For a more in depth changelog and some more infos, please hop over to the post of the first release candidates: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=536566

Most important changes between rev. 9603 and 9669/9709:

* All plugins: Fixed an issue with dialogs appearing transparent in Cubase 10.5 and Logic
* Repro: "Set current as default view" is broken (will be fixed later, promised)
* Repro: Fixed the LFO host sync crash
* Diva: improved performance on multicore systems
* Zebra: Fixed an issue with "convert to h2p" only working for a single preset

Cheers,
Tas

[monophonK]

We are hoping to finally release all the updates by next week.

Great - Thank you

[Urs]

(So quiet here... I guess everyone is stunned at how many instances of Diva they can run now)

[EvilDragon]

It's still a hungry Diva, but every bit of improvement counts.


(On my 4.5 GHz i7-6700K in Reaper, I can get 4-5 instances of Diva at "great", with patch HS Angel Hair (from Performer bank), set to 16 voice polyphony - this is with tracks not armed but just playing back recorded MIDI, so multithreading works properly. It does begin to crackle as all instances reach 16 voices. I suppose decent for a 4.5 year old CPU?

[Dewdman42]

on my 5,1 cheesegrater I get one additional track of Diva compared to the previous version with multiple voices per track. CPU utilization is only showing around 50%, but still it starts to drop audio after that.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

(So quiet here... I guess everyone is stunned at how many instances of Diva they can run now)

Had already installed it on my desktop, but just did a quick compare on my laptop (i7 6500U) and BS Beauty Pad holding a five note chord went from showing 10% max CPU usage in Reaper to 7-7.5%. This laptop is no high-performer so a 25%-30% reduction seems terrific. Is that in line with expectations?

[yellowmix]

Definite improvements in Diva CPU usage, thanks very much! Would there be differing improvements depending on which AVX level the CPU supports, or number of cores? I've got a relatively ancient 4-core i7-4700k and am considering an upgrade.

Regarding Winstaller, it enforces that the data/preset folder must have a .data suffix, where it previously did not care. So I've converted all my folders to comply, no big deal. However, the VST3 location cannot be changed. I know this is due to Steinberg standardizing the location to Commons Files/VST3 but like my VST2 folder, I move relevant files to folders named after the developer/manufacturer. So you're all in Commons Files/VST3/U-He.

Is there a way to tell the installer to put files in a subfolder of Common Files/VST3, considering it complies with the Steinberg standard, and you can enforce such things like the .data suffix for the data folder?

[Urs]

I would expect something like a 20% less CPU usage on many presets. That's for common usage, regardless of multicore settings. This is mostly due to some optimisations we could do with the new compilers. Mind you, Divine mode, FilterFM and high resonance settings (particularly in the MMF 24dB modes -> 2 filters in series) can still yield crazy drains.

But you probably also remember that we always warned about multicore support and its overhead. Turns out, some of that can also happen when you just have multiple instances rendering at the same time, i.e. when the host handles the multithreading. There was always a bit of extra loss, paradoxically In code designed to save CPU, but it wasn't apparent on, say, 2-6 cores. With the improvements we made, I would expect something like 5% less overall CPU on 4 cores, maybe 10% less on 6 - when using as many instances of Diva. That should give everyone a few voices more.

But it really also depends on how the host schedules things and the effect accumulates with the number of cores used. We could really only pinpoint it on our new 16 core machine. In a worst case scenario (host scheduling all instances at the same time) there could be pretty annoying CPU spikes - which are kind of damning when using Diva to benchmark a 24 core machine. In such a scenario one might get intermittent drop outs even with less than 24 instances. Those should be gone now.

That said, in a normal project which uses many different plug-ins next to Diva the multicore effect was barely ever notable, but every now and then people did report occasional CPU spikes which we couldn't explain until last week. We hope most of those are fixed now as well.

[tasmaniandevil]

Is there a way to tell the installer to put files in a subfolder of Common Files/VST3, considering it complies with the Steinberg standard, and you can enforce such things like the .data suffix for the data folder?

Forcing the data to be put in a .data folder is important to ensure proper functioning of the plugin.

There is no way yet to select a subfolder for the VST3 path, don't know if it's possible to add this. Unfortunately, William, who is doing all the Winstaller improvements, isn't available for a couple of months. So this has to wait.

[kapsap]

Are Linux versions on their way, too?

[Urs]

Are Linux versions on their way, too?

Yes, absolutely. The current focus was very much on Catalina, which was the pressing issue. Had we had more time, we'd have tested Linux as well and put it out simultaneously. Overall we think Linux is in a healthy state, there's just a few open issues with Uhbik - as far as we know.

[zvenx]

I would expect something like a 20% less CPU usage on many presets. That's for common usage, regardless of multicore settings. This is mostly due to some optimisations we could do with the new compilers. Mind you, Divine mode, FilterFM and high resonance settings (particularly in the MMF 24dB modes -> 2 filters in series) can still yield crazy drains.

But you probably also remember that we always warned about multicore support and its overhead. Turns out, some of that can also happen when you just have multiple instances rendering at the same time, i.e. when the host handles the multithreading. There was always a bit of extra loss, paradoxically In code designed to save CPU, but it wasn't apparent on, say, 2-6 cores. With the improvements we made, I would expect something like 5% less overall CPU on 4 cores, maybe 10% less on 6 - when using as many instances of Diva. That should give everyone a few voices more.

But it really also depends on how the host schedules things and the effect accumulates with the number of cores used. We could really only pinpoint it on our new 16 core machine. In a worst case scenario (host scheduling all instances at the same time) there could be pretty annoying CPU spikes - which are kind of damning when using Diva to benchmark a 24 core machine. In such a scenario one might get intermittent drop outs even with less than 24 instances. Those should be gone now.

That said, in a normal project which uses many different plug-ins next to Diva the multicore effect was barely ever notable, but every now and then people did report occasional CPU spikes which we couldn't explain until last week. We hope most of those are fixed now as well.

Thanks for the is explanation.
rsp

[kapsap]

Are Linux versions on their way, too?

Yes, absolutely. The current focus was very much on Catalina, which was the pressing issue. Had we had more time, we'd have tested Linux as well and put it out simultaneously. Overall we think Linux is in a healthy state, there's just a few open issues with Uhbik - as far as we know.

Great, thank you!

[yellowmix]

There is no way yet to select a subfolder for the VST3 path, don't know if it's possible to add this. Unfortunately, William, who is doing all the Winstaller improvements, isn't available for a couple of months. So this has to wait.

Thanks, I didn't have any expectation of this making it in a RC so I can manage in the meantime.

Also thanks to Urs for the thorough explanation!

[QLNE]

Zebra HZ is beautiful! Definitely worth the wait.