Stutter when previewing...

[Yuckfou157]

Hi guys, since a while I have some trouble when using Arena live....
I use Arena with a lot of clips and a lot of decks, say 14 decks with aprox 5 (layers) times 40 to 80 loops in them, when I start my show everything runs smooth but during the night after some time, say one or two hours Arena starts to stutter and hang when I click a clip for preview or to run, not only the preview clips hangs for a sec, also the output running to the screens hangs that moment...
My guess is that it has something to do with my HDD's in my laptop, I run Arena and most of the clips from the same HDD (C: and D:) but some, because my discs are getting full, are run from E: which is a physical different disc.
How much I would like to buy a new rig with a better graphics card and SSD's in it, the only upgrade I could afford myself now is a BIG SSD (Samsung 840 EVO 1Tb) which would replace all the other discs containing content so Arena would run from a HDD (C:) and the content would be loaded from the SSD (E: or something).
Would this solve the problem or do I overlooked something else that would help?
Specs from the laptop:
i7 proc.
12Gb RAM
2x 750Gb sata HDD
GTM 560M 3Gb DDR5 graphics
Win 7

A different thing is that I got a "low memory" warning some time ago running big video's, but the taskmanager said my RAM was almost unused ( just 4Gb or so) so it had to be the RAM on the graphics card and I have no idea how to empty that cache/memory when running Arena...
Thanks ahead for any help

[ReggieUnderground]

A few things could be going on, probably a combination of all of them...

First is that Resolume can't use more than 4GB system RAM since it's not 64-bit. Once you hit that 4GB limit (which you are), Res has to swap virtual memory and with a platter-based HDD that can be slow. Playing content from an SSD but still running the OS on a HDD won't eliminate this specific problem.

You say your drives are pretty full. If you have less than 20% free space on your drive things will slow down. Even on a 1TB SSD you should maintain 20% free for best performance.

Are your clips DXV? If they aren't, try converting everything as you do have an ok graphics card and that will force clips to play from that 3GB VRAM instead of using CPU.

Lastly, try breaking things into smaller decks. 40 clips should be ok, but 80 @ 1080p on a platter-based HDD could be pushing it.

Going SSD is always good if you can afford it.

[Yuckfou157]

Thanks for your reply, I'll keep track tonight on the RAM use of Resolume, at the moment, it's around 1Gb so that wouldn't be a problem...
Every clip I use is DXV, as far as I have time to convert everything and my discs aren't that full, most of hem are around 70% full, that's also why I have spread content on different discs...
I don't use HD content, most of it is between 640x480 and 1280x720 scaled towards the output for that night with Resolume, but the most decks are 5 times 25/30 clips, only to prevent m from swapping decks I have some with much more oops so I can use them for a longer time...
The biggest question for me is if Resolume will be faster using a separate SSD for the content and running just Arena from the original HDD....

[ReggieUnderground]

yes

[Yuckfou157]

Kept an eye out on the RAM use, only peaked with a giant 10minute loop counting down for daylight saving, loop was 1,8Gb, Arena never peaked above 2 Gb so that can't be it...
Still I like some other opinions about what causes the brief stutter of playing clips when clicked...it starts after an hour or so when Arena is running....

[cosmowe]

hi ReggieUnderground,
it's just a guess...could it be that you setup any way of powersaving function on your computer?
In some cases a system automatically power-off HDD's if there is no access to it to safe power...and automatically re-power it if necessary...in your case when you hit a clip which is stored on the second HDD.

As I said before, its just a guess.... I never head trouble with it.


Greetings
cosmowe

[Yuckfou157]

Hi, uhm no all power savings are out, no disc hold, no power off everything always at maximum, as we like it
But I'm still doubting what to do so there is a big chance the problems is going to be solved by buying a new laptop