viewtopic.php?f=100&t=220814
created about half a year ago.
Let me start by addressing one of the messages that Scott has written in that thread:
I can only speak for my self, but personally I am 'running into limits'. Pretty much in every FL Studio project I have CPU issues. I doesn't happen when I use other DAWs. I love FL Studio for it's uniqnes but it really kills my enjoyment when I have to split projects into parts to comfortably finish them, bounce everything to audio, or that I have to be very picky when I use effects. Any time instead of a native FL plugin (they use reasonable amounts of CPU) I use a VST I'm afraid that I'll run of of CPU soon. I could go into more details how CPU issues affects my productivity, but I don't think there is a reason to. CPU issues have been raised many times in looptalk from what I can see so I'm definitely not the only person that feels this way.
Okay, that was the introduction.
I did some testing to check if I'm being paranoid, or if FL Studio really takes way more CPU for VSTs than it should.
I compared FL Studio 20.7.1 to the demo version of Reaper 6.13. Why Reaper? Because as it was shown in the thread mentioned above, Reaper is very CPU efficient. I used it as a state-of-the-art a reference point (not sure if it's true state-of-the-art though).
The test was as follows:
First, I set up both DAWs so that I could add as many effects as I needed to a test audio (in FL Studio I've routed mixer inserts like this: MASTER<1<2<3<4<Audio, in REAPER you can add unlimited amount of effects to any track - in both DAWs VST effects were added in a series (not in parallel) so more or less a single core efficiency was measured). Next, I was adding VSTs until I started hearing audio issues. My goal was to to determine how many VST effects (more or less) one can safely use.
Settings:
OS: Windows 10
My CPU: i7-4790
I don't really know Reaper so I didn't mess with any hidden settings. I've just installed the demo, and changed the ASIO to the one used in FL Studio (same buffer/same driver). That's it. In FL Studio I've used the recommended settings.
Test VST:
In both DAWs I've used the same VST with the same settings. The VST is called Acon Digital Multiply 1.1.1. It's a free chorus 64 bit VST that I like.
TEST 1/3 (other in posts bellow)
Results:
In both softwares when I started hearing audio issues windows task manager was showing about 20%-30% CPU usage (at least one core was at 100%). Bellow I've written a number of effects that one can use before glitches start to happen.
[Focustie ASIO Driver / 1024 samples]
FL Studio: 25-30 effects
REAPER: 125-135 effects (about 350% more effects)
[Focustie ASIO Driver / 64 samples]
FL Studio: 11-12
REAPER: 19-21 (about 100% more effects)
The results speak for themself. One could argue that this VST and FLS don't like each other and that's the issue, but I've been noticing similar issues with most of the VST I use. I tested free Multiply so that everyone could easily replicate my work on their systems.
I really hope that CPU issues will be fixed in FL21. I took my time to create this thread because I care about this software, and I hope this thread will make an impact. I've added the videos that showcase the tests as attachments.
Also, I've noticed two wierd things in FL Studio. First, Even though as you can hear in the video audio is going crazy when I add too many effects, the underruns counter in the audio tab isn't incremented at all. Second, I can load few more effects when I use FL Studio ASIO instead of original Focusrite ASIO (at same buffer size) - that seems very wierd.