Post your Computer Specs & Bias Amp 2 / Bias FX load times
-
I'd thought I'd start this thread so that we can compare how long it takes the latest Bias Amp 2 and Bias FX software to load on different user computers. I'm not yet willing to accept that it's my computer specs at fault for the very long load times, so I want to see how other's computers handle Bias launch/load times. I'm hoping @Joe-Kuo and @Felix can maybe relay this info to the PG Dev team as it's posted.
Ok, here are my system specs and operation/launch times using a (Digital Stopwatch)
Late 2012 (27-inch) iMac
2.9GHz Intel Core i5 (4 threads)
Memory - 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660m 512mb
Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD (drive for apps and OS)
macOS High Sierra 10.13.3
Latest BA2 and BFX standalones & plugins (as of 3/6/18)Ok, here are the launch times in seconds:
Bias Amp 2 Standalone - (19.02)....second try (18.15)
Bias FX Standalone - (12.08)....second try (11.20)
Bias Amp 2 plugin - (18.25)...second instance (18.66)
Bias FX plugin - (12.05)...second instance (12.01)
Amp replacement menu (right click ) BiasFX - (2.84)
Selecting BA2 amp menu to see amps in BiasFX - (1.12)
Selecting amp (time before it changes) Bias FX - (0.79)
-
Also, scrolling through the BA2 amp selection in BiasFX is frequently choppy and so are some of the control knob graphics in BA2. Also the amp menu tabs in Bias FX become highlighted sporadically before my mouse pointer even gets close to them just after the menu appears when choosing to replace an amp. The BA2 amp order in BiasFX does not feel/look organized (at least nothing stands out as a helpful organization to speed things up if you know what type or name you want?)
All the plugins from other companies on my computer take an average of just a few seconds to load in standalone or as a AU plugin. My computer BOOT time from OFF takes only 23 seconds on average! So yes, BIAS startup times are Very long...especially when you have lots of instances of bias plugins in your project and want to get to work tweaking tones after first opening a project.
These recent Bias programs are the only programs that make me feel like I need to buy a new computer...but I know that's not the issue. Every other software company I use on my computer is snappy and fast like the day I bought my machine. My Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 plugin loads in 2.13 seconds (initial opening after opening daw project) and that includes loading a 106mb sound sample to memory at the same time. My EZDRUMMER plugin takes 3.1 (from initial opening) and that too includes the loading of the drum samples from the ssd. I have over a dozen more popular third party brands of software instruments and Effects and they open as fast as the two I mentioned above or even faster.
-
@Anthony-Newcomb Thanks for posting this. I haven't had time to do this and probably won't soon due to time constraints at home but I did cut and paste what I wrote in the other thread as ticket. Definitely do the same so they know this is real.
If I get some time I want to make a screen recording of it.
@Felix and @Joe-Kuo : Mike is handling the ticket, I have interacted with him before and appreciated the support, he is courteous, etc, but he is sort of trying to claim this isn't a real issue since he can do a replace of an amp on his installation without too much lag. So I was hoping one of you could check in...
I think the issue here is I have very large Amp 1 and Amp2 libraries including all of the 100 AM presets and my original presets and amp matches. I suspect as the library grows the UI lag increases and this is why long time users like Anthony and myself are hitting it.
As noted I have two machines both of which are insanely high spec machines for DAW use. The FX front end running all by itself should be way snappy.
The ticket is: 67681
-
@elric My BA2 library only consists of the stock amps, pre-order artists presets, the 100 amp match presets, and 3 custom presets I made.
I did a fresh macOS install days before the official release of BA2 and I did 'not' reinstall the older Bias Amp v1 or the older non compatible Bias FX. I just recently installed the latest Bias FX after it was confirmed to work with BA2 and I have decided 'not' to copy over any of the old libraries that I originally had for those versions. I'm only utilizing the new BA2 amps from here on out so my libraries are kinda small...and I can't see them being the wait time issue either as BA2 was slow to load before I ever downloaded the 100 amp match presets. I wish I had timed the startup times before I installed the presets but I do remember it still being slow. I also installed Bias FX 'after' I had downloaded the 100 amp match presets so I can't say as to whether the increased library size has affected the selection wait times in FX
-
I have a feeling that Bias Amp 2 became much slower starting up when I imported most of the famous 100. Also I have moved my Documents folder (on windows 10) to a custom place (OneDrive, which is synchronised).
Maybe those things affect speed? I haven't experimented though since this is no problem for me at the moment.
just sharing my thoughts in case it might help someone. -
This post is deleted! -
In Reaper BA2 takes app. 15 seconds for the first instance and about 10 sec. for the second one, on a older iMac (21.5", mid 2011).
On a older WIN10 Laptop it should be similar (without any measurements yet). -
To make it easy when timing, I just used my iphone's digital stopwatch in my left hand (found in the alarm clock app), and mouse clicked with my right.
I think accuracy is best with this topic ;)
-
Twenty-three again.
@anthony-newcomb said in Post your Computer Specs & Bias Amp 2 / Bias FX load times:
My computer BOOT time from OFF takes only 23 seconds on
-
Tested before and after downloading around half of the 100 presets. Took several samples before and after.
Razer Blade Stealth (Late 2016 Kaby Lake)
Core i7-7500U @ 2.7 (2.9) GHz
16 GB DDR3 RAM
Samsung 960 PRO 2TB NVMe SSD
Razer Core w/ EVGA GTX 1070 FTW
Windows 10 Insider 17618 ("Skip Ahead" branch, released last night)Bias Amp 2 Standalone
Stock amps, plus two from tonecloud: 14~15 seconds
Stock amps, plus all the crunch/higain/metal/insane amps from the 100 presets: 27~35 secondsI already considered ~15 seconds too long. I may have to delete some of these presets, because daaaaaaamn.
Also, worth noting that once you download a bunch of presets, the preset navigation screen gets REALLY sluggish.Bias FX (Demo): 20~21 seconds
Bias Pedal (Distortion): 9~14 seconds -
@ash-wolford Wow those are some hefty wait times. Thanks for posting the detailed info! Your timings before and after the expansion of your library is looking like @Elric was on to something when he thought that was the cause...or part of it. This is interesting for sure. I'm convinced that these load times are NOT reflective of computer hardware limitations. I hope to see Elric post his specs and timings...and hopefully @Felix or others from PG are watching this thread ;)
Thanks for posting
-
@tannhauser said in Post your Computer Specs & Bias Amp 2 / Bias FX load times:
Twenty-three again.
@anthony-newcomb said in Post your Computer Specs & Bias Amp 2 / Bias FX load times:
My computer BOOT time from OFF takes only 23 seconds on
Huh?
-
Well my computer isn't the fastest, but it's not the slowest either, Windows 10 64bit - Intel i7 4790 @3.6Ghz - 32GB Ram - normal 7200rpm hard drives (No SSD's). I haven't actually timed it, but enough to say I wish I had some of the load times mentioned above, mine are significantly longer and always have been. I did find that BIAS Amp 2 was way faster than BIAS Amp Pro and BIAS FX Pro, more inline with some of the above reports.
Another thing I have noticed ever since I started using BIAS products is that the install procedure takes a very long time, it always has, after double clicking the install file it can take around 2 minutes before anything starts to happen, it just says something like 'Checking available disk space' or something, then away it goes, its always been that way with BIAS Amp Pro, BIAS FX and BIAS Pedal, again BIAS Amp2 is much faster during install/update.
As annoying as it is, and it is, I have never really bothered about it because the sound I can get from BIAS makes it still worth it, if the sound wasn't as good as it is I would have ditched all my Positive Grid products long ago and never looked back.
I find the same install and load issues with the EQ's and Comp's, but to a lesser degree, I have no such issues with the many many hundreds of other plug ins and apps I have , it's only with Positive Grid products, and they all display the same symptoms, long, slow installs/updates, and long load times. As mentioned BIAS Amp 2 was a noticeable improvement in these areas compared to the rest.
I use 64bit versions of plugs and standalone. I also have a huge library of Amps, I have everything available from Choptones, must be 1000+, but things were always the same from the start with regards to install/update times and load times, it only affected the speed of the amp menu seemingly, and it isn't that bad.