Dorico 2 - Export to Audio consuming CPU

Dorico
#1

Using Mac High Sierra 10.13.4. When I do Export to audio - either mp3 or wav - the CPU on VST Audio Engine goes above 100% and my system becomes non-responsive until the export finishes. Also, export are taking way longer now.

This is chamber music 2-4 pieces - and I repro this behavior on 2 machines - a Mac Mini and the latest model Macbook Pro.

I’m pretty sure this is related to the VST module and not Dorico 2, since I’m seeing the same thing when I switch back to Dorico 1.2.

Is anyone else seeing this?

#2

This is something that we fixed just after the 2.0 release and will be in the next update. Audio export is about twice the speed now.

#3

This is great to know. I had raised concerns in the past, here in the forums, regarding the export speed, though I couldn’t systematically rule out whether it was from a specific VST on the chain and left it on my laundry list for the summer.

Thank you also for the implementation of the progress bar!

#4

It is, by the way, OK and indeed desirable for Dorico to use 100% CPU when trying to export audio as quickly as possible…

#5

With the fix, will there be a status window at all? The first several times I did an export, I didn’t think anything was happening until I saw it had already happened!

By the way, great 2.0 update! I happily paid the upgrade fee. Keep up the good work.

#6

Daniel -

The desirability of Dorico using 100% CPU when exporting audio depends on how long it takes. If export takes up to, say, 30 seconds then no problem. But when export locks down your computer for over a minute? Then it starts to affect your work flow.

The way things have been working up to 2.0, export took a few minutes, but during those few minutes I was able to check my email or even go out the forum here to check the latest posts! :slight_smile:

If this cannot be fixed shortly, is it possible to revert back to the previous release of the rendering engine? Halion 2 (not sure about the nomenclature)? Thanks!

#7

It will be fixed in the next release, whenever that may be (it won’t be months away, but we don’t have a date), but no, you can’t go back to using the old VST audio engine with Dorico 2.

#8

For what it’s worth, I can’t reproduce this behavior, though I’m using Sierra and not High Sierra.

But I am getting a new, very odd, behavior. Exporting a single flow seems to bounce out an audio file that’s the size of the whole project. If the project is 10 minutes long, bouncing the last flow — which lasts, say, one minute — will yield an audio file with the minute of music at the start and 9 minutes of silence. Despite the fact that it is pushing what should be empty samples, this dramatically increases the bounce time for flows a few seconds long, which, even with the slower bounce times of the previous version, usually took just a bit more than real time.

#9

Your computer shouldn’t lock down if a background application uses 100% CPU because the OS schedules what should be responded to first. I can be compiling with 100% CPU usage and internet browsing still works fine because it gets the priority. (Win 10 w/ 6 cores)

#10

djw -
You’re running PC, likely Mac is different in this respect. Also - and maybe this is just a semantic distinction - Export is not a background process running in batch mode - it is a foreground program which can be stopped from the GUI.

For the time being, I am fortunate enough to have two machines - so I can offload the export to my other machine and continue working

#11

Luis, that is the expected behaviour for the time being. We intend to further develop audio export in future such that you can export each flow as an individual audio file of the appropriate length.