How many time Audacity should take to startup?

[Gale Andrews]

First, you gotta know my rig. I have a laptop with Windows 8.1 x64, Intel quad-core i7-4700MQ 2.4GHz up to 3.4GHz, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD 5400rpm and a 24GB SSD for CACHE. "For cache" means that I can't save there a program or something like that, that's done automatically by a software. The SSD doesn't even appear in THIS PC. I don't have an hybrid HDD, I have 2 separated devices. There's a software installed that is called Expresscache, that manages the caching process.

Probably this does not work as well as either a single SSHD hybrid drive (HDD with a flash portion, which also looks like one drive to the OS) or separate HDD's and SSD's where you can manage everything yourself (this setup will outperform a hybrid drive too).

Audacity is slow fitting long projects to the window and zooming in/out. It's very noticeable on Windows using a HDD, and since you have no control I assume you are using the HDD for your project data.


Gale

[rambomhtri]

First, you gotta know my rig. I have a laptop with Windows 8.1 x64, Intel quad-core i7-4700MQ 2.4GHz up to 3.4GHz, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD 5400rpm and a 24GB SSD for CACHE. "For cache" means that I can't save there a program or something like that, that's done automatically by a software. The SSD doesn't even appear in THIS PC. I don't have an hybrid HDD, I have 2 separated devices. There's a software installed that is called Expresscache, that manages the caching process.

Probably this does not work as well as either a single SSHD hybrid drive (HDD with a flash portion, which also looks like one drive to the OS) or separate HDD's and SSD's where you can manage everything yourself (this setup will outperform a hybrid drive too).

Audacity is slow fitting long projects to the window and zooming in/out. It's very noticeable on Windows using a HDD, and since you have no control I assume you are using the HDD for your project data.


Gale

That's right Gale, thanks.

And there's really no difference between hybrid HDD (SSHD) and what I have. It's the same, but in one case you have the 2 devices in the same pack, and in my case you have 2 different devices. Indeed, with my configuration, I could stop use the SSD as cache and use it as another drive, so I could install there programs and all and it would be like having a pure SSD. The problem is that Windows and stuff wouldn't be accelerated by cache (thing that I really really notice). As I said, I need a 1TB SSD, probably Samsung 840 EVO 1TB, which is awesome. So save money it is, cause that device costs 350€.

Thanks!

[Robert2]

This is a most unusual setup. Normally, Windows and all applications should be installed directly on the SSD. If there is anything to be cached, it should be left to Windows and each particular application. Only Windows and each particular application know what should be cached, if anything. Note that Windows has a “Prefetch” function using a folder located in “C:WindowsPrefetch”. This Windows “Prefetch” function does exactly what your “Expresscache” “software” is also supposed to do. There might be an open conflict there.

I just copied my 2 GB+ FLAC file to my C: drive, i.e. to the SSD (the original copy is located on my HDD). So now I had a copy of that “huge” file on the SSD. I then used drag & drop to load this (SSD) FLAC file into Audacity. It took Audacity exactly 2 minutes 12 seconds to completely load that file. The Audacity progress bar again kept blinking idiotically until the file actually got loaded; but the file got loaded correctly. I could play that track, select portions of it, and zoom in or out: everything happened instantly. Again only the loading (understandably) took time.

So it won’t help if you place your audio files on a SSD. What matters is where the Windows system, the applications, and the temp files are located. And you cannot speed up the loading of huge audio files. But when they are loaded in Audacity, and Windows and Audacity can deal with them as appropriate, working with them should be done as expected, i.e. within seconds.

[rambomhtri]

Audacity is slow fitting long projects to the window and zooming in/out

Why this happens?. Why you actually need a SSD to do this with large projects in order to do it fast?

Thanks Gale

[Gale Andrews]

I could stop use the SSD as cache and use it as another drive, so I could install there programs and all and it would be like having a pure SSD. The problem is that Windows and stuff wouldn't be accelerated by cache (thing that I really really notice).

Hybrid drives do use caching algorithms to figure what data you use frequently - not just system and program files that Windows Prefetch caches. Your system is doing the same thing as a hybrid drive.

But as Robert2 said, your caching system won't give you any advantage over using the SSD as the only drive (if it was big enough), or over using an SSD for programs and data that need fast access and an HDD for all else (where the OS sees both drives).

HDD's are still arguably more long lasting than SSD (and definitely cheaper) for storing data you rarely access.

The Audacity temp folder should be on the SSD because that is where the audio files will be copied to and worked with. The files themselves are fine on the HDD for Audacity's purposes, since it has to copy them. Perhaps if you were frequently playing a file, it may be better on the SDD.

If you want to save Audacity projects you should also save them on the SSD, because the project _data folder then contains the data that Audacity works with. Audacity projects can be huge, so you need a large SSD if you are going to save projects.

Audacity can import WAV files fast using On-Demand Loading where it does not copy in the data. On Linux only, Audacity can import FLAC files by that faster method.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity is slow fitting long projects to the window and zooming in/out

Why this happens?. Why you actually need a SSD to do this with large projects in order to do it fast?

Audacity is probably slower than it should be because it is not very efficient redrawing the waveform when there is a lot of audio data (even if the data is being read from a WAV or AIFF file rather than being copied in). There are several small reasons that combine together.

Also Audacity has autosaving which lets you recover unsaved data if there is a crash. If you cut some audio the new state is autosaved, and if you click somewhere else or draw a region somewhere else, that new state is autosaved.

Audacity iterates through the whole data when it autosaves, which can make it slow. We have made autosave save fewer positions when you drag a selection, so that is now quite fast, but cutting and pasting can still take a long time. Not only does it have to redraw the waveform, it has to autosave too.


Gale

[Robert2]

Audacity can import WAV files fast using On-Demand Loading where it does not copy in the data. On Linux only, Audacity can import FLAC files by that faster method.Gale

Gale, if I drag my 2GB+ FLAC file into Foobar 2000, it loads and can be played instantly. If I do the same into Audacity, it seems On-Demand Loading is not available. Why is it that On-Demand Loading is possible for Foobar and not for Audacity? This is on Windows 8.1 with all updates.

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity can import WAV files fast using On-Demand Loading where it does not copy in the data. On Linux only, Audacity can import FLAC files by that faster method.Gale

Gale, if I drag my 2GB+ FLAC file into Foobar 2000, it loads and can be played instantly. If I do the same into Audacity, it seems On-Demand Loading is not available. Why is it that On-Demand Loading is possible for Foobar and not for Audacity? This is on Windows 8.1 with all updates.

By default, Audacity copies in uncompressed files, converting the entire data of the FLAC file to PCM. All Foobar 2000 is doing is opening the file.

Audacity never simply opens a file, even with On-Demand Loading. Even there, it is creating small summary files that reference the audio data, without which it could not draw the waveform.

On-Demand is only available for FLAC on Linux. It's generally available on Linux because Audacity builds made by Linux distributions are built with system versions of libsndfile that enable FLAC.

When Audacity uses the local build of libsndfile supplied in the Audacity source code (as happens in builds Audacity Team makes for Windows and Mac), FLAC import and export support using libsndfile is removed. FLAC support is then provided only by the libflac library.

I don't fully understand why the above is the case, but where it is the case, there are bugs when reopening projects that were saved without fully importing the On-Demand FLAC file. So FLAC On-Demand for Windows and Mac has not been released yet.

If it is important for you to import FLAC On-Demand in Windows, you can compile Audacity with #define EXPERIMENTAL_OD_FLAC in src/Experimental.h uncommented.


Gale

[Robert2]

Gale, thanks for explaining.
From what I read at libsndfile, it seems that libsndfile does not support 32-bit float for FLAC files. Since 32-bit float is default in Audacity, this might be one of the reasons why libsndfile is not used for FLAC files in Audacity, and why FLAC files cannot be opened On-Demand in Audacity. But I might be wrong, I am only second-guessing.

[Gale Andrews]

From what I read at libsndfile, it seems that libsndfile does not support 32-bit float for FLAC files. Since 32-bit float is default in Audacity, this might be one of the reasons why libsndfile is not used for FLAC files in Audacity, and why FLAC files cannot be opened On-Demand in Audacity. But I might be wrong, I am only second-guessing.

FLAC itself does not support floating point samples (though it does support 32-bit integer). So no that isn't anything to do with it.


Gale