How To Optimize OS X for Resolume

[emiliog]

I'm new to both Resolume and the world of VJing/visuals—I'm just a musician adding another layer to what I do.

In the Resolume documentation I found this:

For maximum stability and performance, the best thing to do is to have more than one installation of Windows or OSX on your computer, with one set up with the bare minimum of software running. You can then boot into your stripped down, high performance OS when you want to perform with Resolume.

Can anyone recommend any resources on how to do this? The manual doesn't really specify much more except for rendering all my video to DXV, which I've already done. Once I make a new partition and install a clean copy of OS X...then what?

I'm running a fairly simple setup on an older laptop so any advice or recommended reading would be welcome.

My setup is Ableton Live 10 and Resolume 6 on a 2012 MacBook running El Capitan 10.11.6 with 16GB RAM, 2.3 GHz i7, and an 1 TB SSD that I feed to the house PA and projector.

[Daniel]

hey emiliog - welcome to the vj community!

Your first steps are already done. Usually what I do with a brand new system is directly connect it to an external output; LED, Beamer or Regulair screen and setup my whole system in such way that I'm going to start VJ'ing. This gives me directly a feedback if everything is working correctly. I try to replicate the set before I go anywhere anytime, this is a good practice. This will indicate if you are missing something or not.

I often check the following:
- Make sure your OS has updating disabled (if possible) - or else make sure that it interrupts you during specific hours when you don't have a gig.
- If my battery/screen doesn't go dark if I go away from the laptop. Disable any sleep mode. The show must go on even if I have to go to the toilet.
- Create a black desktop background. If you ever manage to crash Resolume, that it then crashes to a black background. This makes sure that the stage stays black as well, it is rather annoying to have your desktop on the stage. (Note that most VJ's have video mixer and they fade to black if this happens, however - not everybody always has this option)
- Usually with the new clean install; you will have to check if all your related drivers are up to date. Check if the graphics card is up to date but also the drivers for your other sources such as midi controllers (if they have a driver). In your case, you have to take a look at the audio drivers as well.
- Make sure that all my visuals are all in one directory and on the SSD.
- Create quick access shortcuts. Personally, I like dragging from explorer/finder my visuals into Resolume. So I create shortcuts to folders that I use if I need something from somewhere else. Having shortcuts to your software is also nice - put them in order of starting up sequence if that is relevant to you.

Less technical but still important to my own workflow;
- Have a notebook/notepad ready to write on. You will always learn something new on each gig or improve your workflow. Having & creating your own personal checklist that will help you with preparing each gig. No matter how smart you are, sometimes you forget the little details that make the difference.

[francoe]

Note aside, I use to work on windows machines with the 'striped down' installation, wich means a clean os install and tweaks to improve speed and stability (disabling unused services that provoke interruptions or eats memory, disabling v-sync on your graphics card config, etc).
On osx side I can't remember anything more than Daniel recommendations, is pretty straight foward. I was working for a couple of years on Capitan just as is.