Re: FX Buffer Size Changing

Originally Posted by
mr_es335
Hello,
Not too sure if this is
an issue or not...
Checked out the SAW HelpFile, but to be honest, it really does not make a whole lot of sense to me.
I do NOT like the idea that this issue is referred to as a "warning message".
I have an important gig coming up in Mid-August and would prefer this error to go away - if at all possible.
As present, I am using SAW as a glorified wave-file player, using the Control Track to send Scene Changes to SAC and MIDI Program Change commands to DMXIS - with DMXIS as a plugin in SAW to send out the lighting commands.
I am not "seeing or hearing" any issues - just want to be sure that what I am seeing is indeed, OK!
Any assistance would be appreciated.
"FX Buff Chng" simply means that the session has at least one plugin that is altering the buffer size while the engine is active. I believe any latency-inducing plugin does this. This is a warning you don't want to see if you're running SAW in live mode, since it can mean slipped buffers and ever-increasing latency over the life of a live episode. At the very least, it means you're getting latency you probably don't want. However, in the case of your DMXIS plugin, maybe 64 samples is not a problem? I'd be interested to see if you get slipped buffers in that case. If there are additional latency-inducing plugins in the session, of course, your chances of trouble increase.
As for the info in the red box, all it means is that the plugin is showing a latency of 64 samples, and so the SAW engine is at the very least delaying playback that many samples automatically in order to maintain sync. If you'd prefer not to have that slight delay of the audio, you're supposed to be able to enter a value of zero for the "Override Auto Latency Compensation Value," which will disable the compensation (according to the Help file). In that case, while your audio would have no delay on playback, it will be 64 samples out of sync with your lighting commands. I imagine it's fine not to override it. The concern would be whether you're getting slipped buffers. The only way to know is to experiment, I reckon. Try it and see if the the sync doesn't start getting worse and worse over time before you next stop the engine.
What I think is really confusing, though, is that, apparently, if you don't enter a value for the override setting, by default it still displays a value of zero even though it's not implementing that value to redefine the amount of compensation. So, while it looks like the "New Value" is set to override the latency compensation, it's really not. Until you enter a value. And then it looks exactly the same if you enter a zero. Seems like a glaring ergonomic problem to me.
But maybe I don't understand this correctly.
Last edited by Dave Labrecque; 07-13-2017 at 07:38 PM.
Dave "it aint the heat, it's the humidity" Labrecque
Becket, Massachusetts
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