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PS Since posting the above, I've rechecked my system's performance in Task Manager with this batch of songs, and find my memory was playing tricks.

CPU Usage leaps up to 100% and hovers there or just under until the song starts to play. On the other hand, the usage of physical memory is modest, with available memory dipping slightly, but hovering around 1/3 of the total 1GB.



CPU ramping up to 100% is not a bad thing. (Unless it goes there and stays there...) Using 100% of the CPU is exactly what we want to see when performing such tasks. Good thing. But read on...

Bear in mind that there *must* be some of that 1gig left untouched by the application as the Operating System is going to chew up quite a bit of ram. Also, if your computer uses onboard video with ram sharing, there will typically be a chunk of your physical ram set aside for the video only, this can be as much as one forth of the 1gig total. An application such as BiaB will get a portion of ram, but if that is filled, then the OS goes into the disk swap routine in an attempt to provide more ram space by using part of the hard drive. This swap can lead to timing probs with realtracks. The real answer to this problem is to install more physical ram in the computer. Adding a nother gig is a great idea and doesn't cost all that much these days. There should be a decided difference in performance when using 2g as vs the 1g, matter of fact, 1g is considered barely enough to run the operating system these days and that goes even if running the lowly old XP. Upgrade your ramcount.

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So it looks as though I'm going to have to dig deep into my sporran and get a laptop with a much faster processor if I'm to get a quick response on a gig, but that I may not need to go over the top with memory capacity.



Rethink on the ramcount front. "You can never have enough physical ram"
On the other hand, there is no need to overload the ramcount either. But most puter deals out there do not include enough ram to begin with at purchase time for doing our kind of work. When I pick up a new one, I always allocate a little bit more for extra ramsticks of the proper size and type. This can often mean having to put two sticks of brand new ram in the parts drawer immediately upon purchaae as the proper use of Double Density (DDR) type sticks means using matched pairs and the mfrs typiocally will do things like install two sticks of 512 to yield 1g - meaning that to properly install 2g, the 512s must be reomoved and replaced with two 1g DDR sticks. Still, it is worth it, especially keeping that live performance issue in mind.

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As it happens, my clarinet-playing colleague has a new laptop which we use on gigs, so mine is used for preparing songs and individual practice, and will only be used on gigs if something bad happens to his one.



I heartily reommend that you look into raising the ramcount on your older computer before giving up on it. I personally am known for using all sorts of aging XP junk on the live gigs. The only real difference is the loading time of realtracks, which can be gotten around with the use of Freeze tracks. Myself, I have developed the habit of immediately loading the next songfile as soon as I'm done playing he last song, giving more time but making such invisible to my audience. But I don't like to use the Jukebox much on live gigs, preferring the "wait for MIDI input" command to actually start songs.

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I still think there's a problem with the underlying Fast Generation code which has been revealed, not caused, by my slower machine. If the "Next" button is pressed after a song has started but before the generation is complete (or the equivalent in JukeBox), BIAB doesn't tidy up properly before starting on the next song, and trips itself up.



FWIW, I have developed the habit of not trying to tell BB to do something while it is still doing the first thing *grin*.


--Mac

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