Halion3 and RAM?

[NYC Composer]

I'm sure this issue has been covered in other threads, but since I'm a relative Halion3 newbie...can someone please explain the relationship between Pre load and RAM usage to me? here's my situation...

Uisng Halion3.1, with SX3, I loaded the Vintaudio piano, a big patch (around 4 gig). I have 2.5 gig of RAM in my G5 dual. The preload is set to 1.5meg.

Upon loading the piano, Halion tells me that I am using 450meg of RAM, and I have 36 meg remaining. Errrr...? The only other program I have open is SX3....what gives?

Thanks for the help.
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Regards, Larry

Mac Pro dual quad core 2.8 Harpertown, C5.5,10.64, 18 gig RAM, MOTU UltraliteMk3 hybrid; Dual 2 gig G5, SX 3.0.2, 10.46, 4.5 gig RAM, Presonus Firebox; Mac Book 2.4 dual, 10.58, 2 Gig RAM, too many drives to count, 1 billion plug-ins served, UAD-1 (highly recommended, especially Plate 140 and LA-2A)

[NYC Composer]

Bump-a bump
_________________
Regards, Larry

Mac Pro dual quad core 2.8 Harpertown, C5.5,10.64, 18 gig RAM, MOTU UltraliteMk3 hybrid; Dual 2 gig G5, SX 3.0.2, 10.46, 4.5 gig RAM, Presonus Firebox; Mac Book 2.4 dual, 10.58, 2 Gig RAM, too many drives to count, 1 billion plug-ins served, UAD-1 (highly recommended, especially Plate 140 and LA-2A)

[Kitchen Sink]

I thought the pre-load is in seconds and not megabytes.

[NYC Composer]

Right you are( I think)...sorry. 1.5 seconds.
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Regards, Larry

Mac Pro dual quad core 2.8 Harpertown, C5.5,10.64, 18 gig RAM, MOTU UltraliteMk3 hybrid; Dual 2 gig G5, SX 3.0.2, 10.46, 4.5 gig RAM, Presonus Firebox; Mac Book 2.4 dual, 10.58, 2 Gig RAM, too many drives to count, 1 billion plug-ins served, UAD-1 (highly recommended, especially Plate 140 and LA-2A)

[paynterr]

The relationship between RAM and pre-load is this.
Halion3 allows you to pre-load just the first n seconds of each sample into memory, where n is a minimum of 0.2 seconds. Essentially this means that the smaller the pre-load, the more samples you can logically load at once. I have my pre-load of VSL down to 0.2 seconds using H3. This means I can nearly load most of VSL into a single PC. Nearly...
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[NYC Composer]

thanks for your reply, Paynter...do you know trhe relationship of Pre-load to CPU performance?> thanks...
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Regards, Larry

Mac Pro dual quad core 2.8 Harpertown, C5.5,10.64, 18 gig RAM, MOTU UltraliteMk3 hybrid; Dual 2 gig G5, SX 3.0.2, 10.46, 4.5 gig RAM, Presonus Firebox; Mac Book 2.4 dual, 10.58, 2 Gig RAM, too many drives to count, 1 billion plug-ins served, UAD-1 (highly recommended, especially Plate 140 and LA-2A)

[paynterr]

The relationship is this:
The higher the pre-load, the more RAM you take up since you are loading a greater % of your sample libraries into memory. This means less sample libraries available at once, hence perhaps the need for multiple machines since 32 bit windows machines only allow a 4gig limit on RAM.
The higher the preload size, the more samples are available in memory when you play them. Hence, a short percussive sample such as a marimba could be totally contained in memory.
The lower the pre-load, I am told that the machine thrashes the PC more.
However, I don't quite figure this. SURELY, if all your samples are longer than - say - a second, you are always going to be pulling the sample from disk? The only difference is that you missed out the first second (or 0.2 seconds in my case).
I don't see why a lower pre-load should hit the CPU harder?
I do see why you get drop-outs with lower pre-loads since the whole point of the pre-load is to provide a buffer of sample to use between the note starting and the data being pulled in from disk. The preload length needs to be long enough to cover the speed at which the DAW registers the midi note and is able to pull back the sample being played.
Hence, the more tuned your system, the faster your drives, the lower the pre-load can be.
Halion places a hard limit floor of 0.2. seconds. They keep dropping this with new releases, but seem to keep it high enough so as not to completely screw up your system. Chances are you may have a system that could drop it below 0.2. Probably not.
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pot joint

[NYC Composer]

Paynterr...I see you are from the PC side, I am from the Mac side.....so, some CPU usage differences, although I have a dual 2 gig G5, which is pretty snappy. I'm using a serial ATA drive @ 7200 RPM...seems to be pretty fast. I'm ttrying.2 for now...guess we'll see. It's really the huge piano samples that eat the RAM...I may get more, to be safe ( who knew 2.5 gig of RAM might not be enough?)
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Regards, Larry

Mac Pro dual quad core 2.8 Harpertown, C5.5,10.64, 18 gig RAM, MOTU UltraliteMk3 hybrid; Dual 2 gig G5, SX 3.0.2, 10.46, 4.5 gig RAM, Presonus Firebox; Mac Book 2.4 dual, 10.58, 2 Gig RAM, too many drives to count, 1 billion plug-ins served, UAD-1 (highly recommended, especially Plate 140 and LA-2A)

[paynterr]

I have 4 sata drives, each running in a pair of RAIDs. A single drive may not be satisfactory in order to get the pre-load down. Incidentally, what have you got the pre-load down to on the MAC (since I'm wondering whether to move to a MAC or not)
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[paynterr]

basically, set it as low as you can and wait for any clicks and pops
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[NYC Composer]

well, I'm at .2 without any problems so far, but I haven't really stressed the system with a big orch setup or some such. Time will tell, I guess
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Regards, Larry

Mac Pro dual quad core 2.8 Harpertown, C5.5,10.64, 18 gig RAM, MOTU UltraliteMk3 hybrid; Dual 2 gig G5, SX 3.0.2, 10.46, 4.5 gig RAM, Presonus Firebox; Mac Book 2.4 dual, 10.58, 2 Gig RAM, too many drives to count, 1 billion plug-ins served, UAD-1 (highly recommended, especially Plate 140 and LA-2A)

[paynterr]

well, you can always just adjust the pre-load as the project goes on... not a biggy really... just suck it and see is all I can recommend.
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