Remind me what do do when editing becomes sluggish

[Dave Labrecque]

I'm too old to remember stuff anymore.

I'm currently working on a VO project for which I'm generating many, many output files. Because my mouth no longer works as it should, I'm doing lots of takes for each phrase within each of these files. That means I'm generating lots and lots of regions in SAWStudio. At some point into the editing of a particular e-learning module/SAWStudio session, I notice that edits don't happen immediately, anymore. I drag a region boundary in the MT, and it takes a half-second to appear correctly on the screen, for example. I know it sounds whiney to complain about waiting a half-second, but the real drag is that it breaks my flow, my rhythm. Suddenly, things aren't going as they usually do. It's kind of nerve-wracking on high-volume jobs. I can spend a whole day editing voice-over for these projects, so I like to keep moving--as quickly as possible.

Both region caching options are enabled. I have 16GB of RAM, so I don't reckon that's a bottleneck.

Does anyone recall an options tweak or something else that would return me to normal, lighting-fast SAW performance during an intensive editing workflow?

Thanks.

[UpTilDawn]

A couple things come to mind....

1- Don't forget to use U instead of K/K/Delete whenever possible, since U shortens a region without creating a new one (which you end up deleting). Also, D and Alt/D to trim region boundaries, while simultaneously pulling forward the region (and attached regions) to the region in front of it.

2- Clear unused regions, update session and reopen can really help, if you don't mind losing those deleted chunks. I'm not sure you need to reopen the session, but it couldn't hurt.

3- Maybe up your output buffers and get used to a generally longer rhythmic pulse?.... maybe lowering realtime samplerate conversion quality in the multitrack menu, if you're dealing with that at the same time.

I'm not sure what to add - I know I've had to deal with this in the past, but not for at least a few years (there's always plenty of non-SAW issues to deal with to keep me busy - ugh).

[jmh]

I know it sounds whiney to complain about waiting a half-second, but the real drag is that it breaks my flow, my rhythm.

I had an issue with waves plugins dogging down everything. It was remedied by juggling around usb devices (one of which was the license on a usb stick - I assume it had to search). What else? Temporarily disable anti-virus... Background tasks and services.

I know you've been down these roads before - but throwing out the reminders...

[MMP]

I would turn off Region Memory Caching and remove unused regions.

[Dave Labrecque]

A couple things come to mind....

1- Don't forget to use U instead of K/K/Delete whenever possible, since U shortens a region without creating a new one (which you end up deleting). Also, D and Alt/D to trim region boundaries, while simultaneously pulling forward the region (and attached regions) to the region in front of it.

2- Clear unused regions, update session and reopen can really help, if you don't mind losing those deleted chunks. I'm not sure you need to reopen the session, but it couldn't hurt.

3- Maybe up your output buffers and get used to a generally longer rhythmic pulse?.... maybe lowering realtime samplerate conversion quality in the multitrack menu, if you're dealing with that at the same time.

I'm not sure what to add - I know I've had to deal with this in the past, but not for at least a few years (there's always plenty of non-SAW issues to deal with to keep me busy - ugh).

I do/have done 1 and 2. I'll consider the items in 3. Except the bit about changing my ways.

Thanks.

[Dave Labrecque]

I had an issue with waves plugins dogging down everything. It was remedied by juggling around usb devices (one of which was the license on a usb stick - I assume it had to search). What else? Temporarily disable anti-virus... Background tasks and services.

I know you've been down these roads before - but throwing out the reminders...

No USB-involved plugs. Geeze, what a lousy design that is. You'd think it'd check once when you open the program, then be hands-off.

Thanks. I'll look at the other stuff.

[Dave Labrecque]

I would turn off Region Memory Caching and remove unused regions.

I've done the latter. I'll try the former, as counterintuitive as it may be. Am I wrong in thinking that option was intended to mitigate (not cause) problems like this?

Thanks.

[MMP]

Well it can use up enough ram that you end up with virtual ram being used, which is a fantastic way to slow down a computer. But, you probably can check in Task Manager if this is the case. I have never had much stability success with either caching option, but everyone’s system is different.

[jmh]

Well it can use up enough ram that you end up with virtual ram being used, which is a fantastic way to slow down a computer. But, you probably can check in Task Manager

You should see what percent cpu saw - or anything else is using.

Also make sure you're running saw as administrator.

Just out of curiosity what percent of ram is saw with this project loaded consuming?

[Dave Labrecque]

You should see what percent cpu saw - or anything else is using.

Also make sure you're running saw as administrator.

Just out of curiosity what percent of ram is saw with this project loaded consuming?

Thanks. Today, while experiencing the sluggishness, CPU is around 1%. I am running as admin. RAM is at 31% (about 4.6 GB out of 15.8 GB).

Interesting: the Task Manager/ Perforformance/Memory page also says Paged pool 367 MB and Non-paged pool 287 MB. SAW is said to be using 185 MB, which would be in the neighborhood of the total region data size for this session. But WTH does "Paged pool" mean? I have my page file size for all drives set to zero, FWIW.

Current number of regions: 662. Now I've cleared unused regions, and I'm down to 656.

UPDATE: cleared unused regions and turned off region memory caching. No change. I'm done for today, but maybe tomorrow I'll try turning off region peak data memory caching, too.

Thanks for everyone's input.

Hey, not sure if this matters, but the delay only appears to happen when changing the length of a region in the MT using alt-drag. Is that a useful clue?