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[sdmarquart]

I love this tool and use it for all audio files I add into MC 21. Just wondering if it's normal for the "analyze tool" to really eat away at all your cpu? I'm analyzing 2 files at a time currently and am using a new HP Pavilion Laptop with 16GB Ram installed. I'm surprised that when I "analyze audio" it pretty much renders my computer useless to do anything else.

Is this normal?

Thanks,
Spencer

[Awesome Donkey]

Yes, it's normal for increased usage when running the analyze tool - it's a resource intensive operation.

I've ran it for several days straight before on over 70,000 music files. The down side is the sustained power usage, the bright side it did help warm up the house during the middle of a cold Winter.

[mwillems]

The analyze audio function will IME fully utilize a CPU core for each file that it's analyzing to complete the task as quickly as possible.  If you are analyzing two files at a time on a dual core system (or even a system with four logical cores but only two physical cores) things may slow down or grind to halt.  Most modern intel laptops only have two physical cores, and some will have four logical cores, some won't (meaning the ones that don't only have two cores total).  In my experience, analyzing two files at a time on a system with four physical cores (a desktop i5 or i7 SKU) will use a fair amount of CPU but the system will still be responsive.  The amount of RAM is irrelevant as it's almost entirely a CPU-bound process.

So to sum up: depending on your computer, it may be normal or not normal to experience slow downs while analyzing two files at a time, but I'd be willing to bet that choosing to analyze only one at a time would produce much better results on your laptop.

[sdmarquart]

The analyze audio function will IME fully utilize a CPU core for each file that it's analyzing to complete the task as quickly as possible.  If you are analyzing two files at a time on a dual core system (or even a system with four logical cores but only two physical cores) things may slow down or grind to halt.  Most modern intel laptops only have two physical cores, and some will have four logical cores, some won't (meaning the ones that don't only have two cores total).  In my experience, analyzing two files at a time on a system with four physical cores (a desktop i5 or i7 SKU) will use a fair amount of CPU but the system will still be responsive.  The amount of RAM is irrelevant as it's almost entirely a CPU-bound process.

So to sum up: depending on your computer, it may be normal or not normal to experience slow downs while analyzing two files at a time, but I'd be willing to bet that choosing to analyze only one at a time would produce much better results on your laptop.

Thanks guys. I've been "analyzing audio" files for a few years now and have always had a major slowdown. Maybe I'll switch to only 1 file at a time for better results. Definitely wanna see improvement cause sometimes I get dropouts while "analyzing" and listening through Roon/HQPlayer. I know there are many factors there, but "analyzing" seems to be the main culprit with the dropouts. I wish there was a way to get more CPU for my PC.

FYI: I'm running Windows 10 on HP Pavilion PC. Specs are quad-core AMD A10-8700p processor with 2MB cache and clocked at 1.8 GHz with Turbo boost along with 16GB DDR3L of System Memory.

Music stored on 16TB Asustor NAS (AS-604T) hardwired via ethernet. It streams to JRiver/Roon/HQPlayer through my PC which is also ethernet hardwired. Using Curious cable out to Recovery (W4S reclocker) to Curious Regen link into NAD C510 DAC. Output to Focal Alpha 65 speakers. Also using two separate LPS from Kenneth Lau - one for my PC, one for my Recovery.

It sounds incredibly sweet. It's the cpu usage that sometimes causes dropouts which is frustrating. Anyone know if I could up the CPU on this PC?

I understand that's a lot of info, but any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Spence

[RD James]

I would also recommend only analyzing one file at a time.
You could try lowering the process priority or setting the affinity so that it doesn't have access to all CPU cores.

I use a script to launch JRiver so that it automatically runs in a lower priority and is prevented from accessing all of my CPU cores.
Save this code as a .wsf file and use it to launch JRiver. (make sure it is not currently running)

Code: [Select]

<package>
<job id="vbs">
<script language="VBScript">
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start /Low /affinity 0E mc21.exe"
</script>
</job>
</package>
That will launch it on cores 1,2,3 with a low process priority.
I have to do this or else JRiver can freeze up my PC when it's doing other tasks. SACD files seem particularly prone to doing this.
 
Remove the /Low to leave it at the default priority.
Remove /affinity 0E to let it run on all four cores, or modify it to restrict it further. 0C will run on cores 2 & 3, 08 will run on core 3 only.

[sdmarquart]

I would also recommend only analyzing one file at a time.
You could try lowering the process priority or setting the affinity so that it doesn't have access to all CPU cores.

I use a script to launch JRiver so that it automatically runs in a lower priority and is prevented from accessing all of my CPU cores.
Save this code as a .wsf file and use it to launch JRiver. (make sure it is not currently running)

Code: [Select]

<package>
<job id="vbs">
<script language="VBScript">
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start /Low /affinity 0E mc21.exe"
</script>
</job>
</package>
That will launch it on cores 1,2,3 with a low process priority.
I have to do this or else JRiver can freeze up my PC when it's doing other tasks. SACD files seem particularly prone to doing this.
 
Remove the /Low to leave it at the default priority.
Remove /affinity 0E to let it run on all four cores, or modify it to restrict it further. 0C will run on cores 2 & 3, 08 will run on core 3 only.

Thanks. I'm gonna try just analyzing 1 file at a time before using any scripts. Appreciate the heads up though..

[JimH]

We don't recommend doing that (setting a priority for MC).

[RD James]

We don't recommend doing that (setting a priority for MC).

I'd probably suggest setting the affinity before changing the priority anyway as that means JRiver can't ever use 100% of your CPU and stall other programs.
Changing the priority could affect audio playback in JRiver if other applications have high CPU usage.