Vital - FL Studio "smart disable" feature not working

Bugs
#1

It seems that the smart disable feature in FL Studio is not working with Vital for some reason. The feature appears to work with other plugins normally.

It’s important that this feature works, since I love Vital and want to use it, but it’s important that CPU is not wasted when Vital isn’t being used (which is what the smart disable feature is for) and the GUI isn’t even open.

I’ve already checked the obvious things ->

  • Smart disable is enabled both globally and in the plugin wrapper for Vital.
  • Vital is idle. In fact, I don’t even have any Vital patterns in the playlist and FL Studio isn’t even playing anything. This is pure idle usage. I get ~10% with it doing absolutely nothing at all.
  • Vital GUI is completely closed.
  • I had the Abbysun preset loaded, which is CPU intensive, but this should have no effect on idle usage since smart disable should’ve disabled it

Using FL Studio 20.8.3
Vital 1.0.8

#2

I get the same result here but if you initialize a patch the meter goes way down. It’s obvious there is a lot of processing going on with that patch even when it’s idle and the gui is closed. You might want to bring this up at the FL Studio forums as well for clarification:

“NOTE: Smart Disable is active only during live playback, it is temporarily disabled when rendering.”

I’m not sure Smart Disable is active when the project is idle.

Oh and I assume you mean FL Studio version 20.8.3

1 Like
#3

Actually, I reported this to FL Studio tech support before I came here, they told me

About smart disable function, that depends on the plugin manufacturer in the first place.

So I assume that this means the plugin must do something here to be compatible or work properly (or something like that)

And about Smart Disable being active during playback or not: I’m not sure whether it is or not, but Vital eating this CPU when doing nothing affects it both during playback and when there’s nothing playing alike (even when there’s nothing utilizing vital on the playlist, it still eats CPU just because it “exists”). If you increase the oversampling, it’ll eat even more CPU even though it isn’t generating any sound whatsoever (whether the GUI is open or not is immaterial since it’ll eat the same CPU amount regardless). It does that for as long as you have the plugin added to the channel rack and a preset selected (even init preset will eat a tiny bit of CPU)

I guess the main point here is, it shouldn’t be using so much CPU when nothing is happening at all. From my testing it’s clear that how much CPU it’s using when doing nothing is dependent on the patch, + oversampling level, which I guess I find strange, since it doesn’t need to use CPU for that which it isn’t generating.

At this point, this problem probably affects every DAW (I can’t be certain of that, but it seems like it would). It makes it so you have less CPU you can use for live playback, which can make projects reach 100% that much quicker. So I consider this issue to be pretty critical

Oh and I assume you mean FL Studio version 20.8.3

Looks like I had a typo. Just fixed it

#4

It happens in all the DAWS I’ve tried it in to some degree. Cakewalk,Reaper, FL and Orion. The question is does Vital cause more CPU when the project is playing just because it’s using some when the project is stopped? In other words is the patch using for example 30% plus the 10% that shows when idle? I would think not as the processing that’s going on when stopped is the same as when it’s playing.

It’s obvious that modulation and the free running Oscs are using some CPU when idle as you can see that by turning off the Oscs.

All the other plugins I’ve tested use some CPU when idle even with Smart Disable active. Pigments and ANA2 use nearly as much as Vital when idle. Bx_Oberhausen uses almost as much with its INIT patch as Vital does with Abbysun and so on

So they’re all doing some processing when idle like with free running Oscs but again the question would be is that extra CPU when the plugin is in use or is the processing the same?

1 Like
#5

In other words is the patch using for example 30% plus the 10% that shows when idle? I would think not as the processing that’s going on when stopped is the same as when it’s playing.

So they’re all doing some processing when idle like with free running Oscs but again the question would be is that extra CPU when the plugin is in use or is the processing the same?

Probably not. However that is actually a good question. Afaik it can’t be easily answered however, since it’s 10% idle on the patch, and like 60% when generating (for me at least), and there’s no way to know if that should’ve been 50% or if that 10% was already factored into 60%. In all likelihood though, it was already factored in - then again, who knows!

The question is does Vital cause more CPU when the project is playing just because it’s using some when the project is stopped?

However, for example, when you’re playing (although it’s the same when you’re idle too), it will use that 10% (or whatever it is) plus whatever the other plugins are doing. So a theoretical 40% playing project becomes 50% when it’s doing nothing.

All the other plugins I’ve tested use some CPU when idle even with Smart Disable active. Pigments and ANA2 use nearly as much as Vital when idle.

I see. So perhaps this may not be as strange behavior as it was thought before. Sadly though, even if it is normal behavior, it means that while consolidating a track obviously will save CPU, on the other hand, there’s some idle CPU that you can’t get rid of which will take a chunk even though it’s doing nothing. Deleting the instrument wouldn’t really be an option since it’s tied to the pattern, and deleting it would delete all the configs. Would be nice if there was a way to “freeze” an instrument then (clearly that’d have to happen on the DAW side then)

Of course, ignoring the obvious program CPU optimization and required patch optimizations to make it not so CPU hungry, this is all kinda an academic thought. I also don’t know anything about synth internals, I just thought that when something is idle it shouldn’t use so much CPU since it’s doing nothing. Am I wrong? Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know. Just my thoughts here. I’m sure Matt can clear that up later

#6

Here’s a good video on Freezing in FL Studio:

#7

That certainly is a unique workaround haha!