PHARLIGHT Asio/CPU discussion

RAM isnt the problem. Pharlight needs so much CPU and you "only" have a 4 core processor with base frequency of 3,6Ghz. To be honest i think even if you would have a 8 core processor with 4,6GHz base frequency you would have problems with high CPU load in your DAW. Especially if you would use 3 or more different patches from pharlight in one project. As i wrote before , till now i didnt have any problems with any plugin (like omnisphere, Keyscape, Output plugins, Heavyocity plugins and other NI plugins from the ultimate bundle etc. ) .............. now because of this one plugin (but i also heard that with straylight is the same) i need to buy a new processor and also a new motherboard for it ............ so if i want to use pharlight and straylight frequently in my projects i need to spend 500+ eur for it ............ and as i said , even a better processor will have problems with the CPU when using multiply pharlight patches in one project. At the end i will need a 1000e procesor for it

 

It actually wouldn't make a huge difference in case of Straylight. You just need very fast CPU cores.

 

Hi EvilDragon. It would be very helpful if NI would put out a list of processors that can handle their plugins the best. I own the Ultimate 13 bundle and so far i didnt have problems with any plugin. You wrote that it would be the best to have a processor with 4+GHz clockspeed, but these processors cost so much money. There are queit some processors out there with turbo speed over 4GHz (some over 5GHz) but very few with clockspeed over 4GHz, and these processors are very expensive for regular people. So i would like to know a affordable processors that can easily handle this plugin . Dont wont to buy something and then realize that the processor isnt good enough for pharlight

 

There is a table with AMD processors. Number of cores, closck speed, size of cache, ..., and price.
https://diit.cz/clanek/ryzen-7-5700g-i-ryzen-5-5600g-otestovany-v-cpu-z

Newest are models starting 5. 4 GHz is not rock solid rule, just guideline. Also IPC and other things play role. Also AMDs may be easily overclosked a bit... And they ussualy run faster than base clockspeed.

 

Hi Kubrak. Thanks for the info. I also can check these infos here: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
As i wrote before i own amd ryzen 7 1700 (8 core - 3,7GHz boost) , but obviously thats not enough for lot of pharlight patches . I will wait for ZEN 4 and hope there will be something interesting around 400 EUR that will handle pharlight without problems. But would be much happier if NI had a list of processors that are most suitable for it

 

I concur. My system set up is going to be pretty much the norm and this should have been taken into account when they introduced it. My samples are run from an ssd drive and I have tried to purge the Pharlight but it just laughed at me. I think they should go back and give us an 8 bit version lol. Seriously though it's poor form to create a monster that is going to eat up your cpu and spit you out without batting an eyelid.

 

Well, it works on my very, very old i7 running at 2.1 GB. But only one voice.

 

i7 7800x 6/12 core locked(no turbo, speedstep, or CPU p states) @ 4.00ghz, 32GB RAM, m.2 SSDs, nvidia 3080, focusrite red 8i6 gen3.

Pharlight and Straylight are the only 2 instruments in my library that cause major audio dropouts due to(apparently) lack of CPU raw clock speed. I watch the voice counter on kontakt when this happens and Im usually totally fine until I hit around 150-170 voices, however many keys that takes, and then the audio rips up.

Ive been able to 100% remove any other audio pops/glitches as well as ASIO internal overloads in cubase 10 and 11 while running a 1080ti GPU, however it is noteworthy that I recently swapped the GPU out for a nvidia 3080, and occasional pops/clicks came back across all instruments and plugins.

 

In Live 11 I just loaded an instrument rack with 2x Pigments, 2x Biotek, and an Albion 3x multirack, all with external automation mappings for ~25% load. 1 Pharlight hits 55%.
The aforementioned Biotek patches have 11 and 9 grain sources respectively.
This isn't an issue of CPU load inherent to granular synthesis. It's a Pharlight/Straylight render efficiency issue and a pretty debilitating one.
I love them both but I do wish I didn't have to freeze any track they're on, every time.

EDIT:
I am running everything from an internal SSD array. 16 cores at 2.8ghz. It's not the hardware. Maybe something wrong with how the engine handles multithreading? I see the same performance issues when I scale running cores down to 4. It performs exactly the same.

 

Runs like a dream on my M1 Mac Mini… in Ableton Live 11 using Rosetta.

Some patches (I tested some of the heavy ones mentioned in the thread, feeding in some 11th jazz chords from Scaler 2) do push the cpu high, but it would be quite simple to freeze a track if necessary and isolate it when making any automation or adjustments before freezing again.

The comments around NI needing to make instruments only for people with ‘typical’ cpu specs is a nonsense to me though. They had a vision for what they wanted the instrument to do and delivered it. If they limited themselves they would have created a poorer instrument and they need not be apologetic. Look at u-he’s stance on DIVA or Softube’s stance on Modular. Some things just need more cpu…

 

As far as I tested Pharlight and Straylight (both are beautiful libraries), but both needs more powerful computer to run smoothly. Why? Because the presets of both can be filled with super complicated inner plugins such as delay, reverb etc. If you switch them off and use the same or similar plugins in your DAW, then Pharlight and Straylight consumes only some 20% of CPU.

Of course the original sound is good, but they cannot be used if the preset consumes 80-100% of CPU power. When it hits 100%, we hear crackles.

Solution
I compress original NKI files and overwrite them with modified where I switch off delay.

Deeper research
If we load Pharlight, it has default Alchemist preset loaded. Both layers has delay effect. Grain layer has Diffusion Dense preset for Delay loaded, but Sample layer has Diffusion Cloud Pan preset for Delay loaded. With them active I have 80-100% CPU load while playing and 0% while not playing. If I switch off (or unload) both delays, I have 30-33% CPU load.

If I add Replika and Reverb in output bus, when playing a single note, CPU load hits 40% and this is much better than crackling 100% with inner delay.

Both plugins added in Kontakt bus don't make such beautiful sound as it is if using Pharlight internal Delay (w/o Reverb!). So the best solution would be to buy better computer or not buying newest products. (haha! that second half of solution is really stupid!)

I tested the same Delay presets in Straylight (default preset Nightmarez, where is no Delay added) and the result is the same - without Delay at all it consumes 30-36% of CPU, but when I added two Delays (presets Diffusion Dense and Diffusion Cloud Pan), CPU load hits 100%.

 

Interesting. Thanks.

 

Slightly off-topic: It was really funny to read the desperate and confused cries for help which were all met with a stoic "That's just the way it is." by EvilDragon in this thread. Everyone was like "This can't be riiiight" and he's sitting in his rocking chair on his porch tipping the cowboy hat going "Yep. It is." hahaha

I love the Pharlight/Straylight and have come to accept that I will eventually have to upgrade to a better CPU. Until then, I try to gradually test out how Phar I can take it.
I guess with modelling VSTs coming into fruition more and more, RAM might become a negligible factor in the near future as opposed to CPU, anway.

 

I'm not much of a hat person.

 

In case we are talking about Sample Libraries, it is normal to talk about huge amount of RAM because good sample library will fill good amount of RAM. What we are talking about here is not Sample library anymore. Pharlight and Straylight isn't simple sample libraries. They are plugins because of inner complexity of features combined. Such complexity are in hardware synths Therefore setup which is good for sample libraries will not be enough for supercomplex scripted libraries despite of low quality samples.

As a programmer I know - developers always ask for best computer from their tech dep. and this is more serious hardware than simple users has. BTW EvilDragon could explain us his tech setup so we can understand why he don't understand little problems on user side

As I wrote above - if you mute delay in both layers, you will get super smoothly performing library consuming not more than 30% of CPU.

System requirements from NI homepage - PHARLIGHT needs a fast CPU to run and requires an Intel i5 processor or higher.
Wrong! I have AMD Ryzen 5 and it gets 100% CPU usage from Pharlight/Strylight. So NI should review oldish requirements copy/pasted from Komplete-12.

 

Care to elaborate what is this CPU with very fast cores ? NI says Intel i5 or higher. Many people seem to have problems with Pharlight and that being the only sound crackling/asio peaking cpu 100%. The ONLY person (that I noticed) saying it runs fine is Apple M1 owner.

 

Hi.
No, I was referring to physical modelling VSTs. Pianoteq, e.g. or Modo (IIRC). That is, libraries where no samples are used or only for static parts like attack

 

i7-6700K overclocked to 4.5 GHz over all cores
64 GB RAM
Using integrated GPU of 6700K instead of separate GPU
bunch of SSDs
Windows 10


Straylight/Pharlight are CPU intensive for a number of reasons:

* granular synthesis done via KSP is not as efficient as it would be if it were done in C++, as a "machine" mode in Kontakt
* lots of effects can be used in patches, and in particular Replika is the most CPU expensive Kontakt effect - it sounds great so sound designers gravitate towards using it a lot
* the UI has a lot of things happening, a lot of movement, and since KSP is ran in the audio thread (because of engine parameter updates etc.) this is additional strain on the CPU. Although, IIRC in 6.4 there were some updates in Kontakt regarding what gets invalidated for redraw and when and this cut CPU usage of graphically heavy instruments up to 50%.

From my perspective, any CPU that has 4 GHz and above for all cores is a CPU with very fast cores. Of course, from generation to generation IPC gets improved more and more, but still, the more GHz the better.

 

Newer i5 might be OK. Pharlight needs fast CPU, not many cores CPU. 4 cores running over 4 GHz, is probably way better than 16 cores running 3.5 GHz. And quite often, CPUs with less cores are able to reach higher sustainable CPU clock (because of power limits) in most ordinary setups.

But you are right, NI should provide more precise techspec. Something like minimal number of cores and minimal clock speed.

 

EvilDragon , thank you! Now it's clear about your setup So NI page for those libraries should be updated. Straylight page has i7 mentioned, but Pharlight - i5, but both libraries are similar or identical in code (I suppose).

About Replika you mentioned. In some projects I have had Replika instances on some 4-5 tracks as inserts, many plugins and libraries, but CPU usage never hit 50%. And as I wrote above twice, if I mute both Delays in Pharlight presets where they are added, then Pharlight alone don't hit 30%. So not same plugin/library consumes such CPU power (nor granular synthesis programmed), but inner plugins attached.

I tried to mute Delays in Pharlight for both layers (The Alchemist preset) and in Kontakt's output added one Replika with the same delay mode used in library - Diffusion. So one Delay for both channels and I have the same rich and super tasty sound, but CPU usage hit only 50%.

With both Delays muted in Effects section I added the same Replika in Master secion. So it seems I will resave many presets this way

Conclusion - Pharlight and Straylight are good (very good) and my laptop (Ryzen 5, 4 cores, 2.5 GHz) isn't so bad for composing using Pharlight and Straylight many instances. So, Mario, your granular things scripted don't hit borders. It's a Replika we should manage in projects.

For testing - in the same Kontakt instance where I muted both Delays (Pharlight preset The Alchemist) and added one Replika in Master section (that rich Diffusion mode), I added Strylight with default preset, it don't have Replika, but also has granular movement in Layer A (Grain layer). Also adding Diffusion mode in Replika for Straylight Master section, the Kontakt don't hit 70% of CPU usage. So it's very playable.

Interesting is that Kontakt shos us CPU usage that is 5 times greater than actual CPU usage seen in Task Manager. Is there an explanation of this? How can we allow Kontakt to use more CPU power?