DC Millennium question

[Skopje]

Hi guys,

I bought the DCMillennium last week and it seems like a very nice piece of software. Pretty fast too.
However, I'm experiencing occasional crashes with it (not the system, just the program). Unfortunately, I can't give you more specific details because I couldn't established any obvious patterns - seems like it crashes at random.
Are there any known bugs in the DC Millennium?

I'm quite familiar with digital audio and use other programs as well. My system is optimized for audio and is, generally, very stable.

System spec.(for audio only):

P4 2G,
Asus Motherboard
video (32mb) onboard,
512Mb DDR 266,
Maxtor 60G 7200 rpm.
Audiophile 24/96


Thanks for your time,

Skopje

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

Millennium is a stable program with no known crashing bugs. You should consider turning down the video acceleration one notch in your control panel. Millennium is very resource intensive both on your sound card, but also on your video card - - - much more so than most audio software programs. This is a result of its real time preveiw capability combined with some complex dynamic graphics associated with some of its routines.

[Skopje]

Re: DC Millennium question

Thanks for the reply Craig.
I turned the video accelerator one step down. Graphics were already in 16 bit mode, so I guess I shouldn't touch this.

Given the specs. of my system, what would be in your opinion the best setting for the preview buffers in DC Millennium?

Oh, and one more question. I know that reverb is usually the most resource demanding effect with other programs. Is that the case with Millennium too?
Or for instance, if I want to line several filters/effects in the Multi-Filter, which combination should I generally avoid?

Best,

S.

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

The tradeoff between preview buffer size and timing is latency for a given processor. The longer that you set your preview buffers for, the more latent will be what you hear in preview mode. If it is set for too small a setting for a given processor, you will hear more stuttering with some combinations of filters. You should minimize the buffer size based on your system so that it does not stutter. Otherwise, resource demands (math co-processor requirements, in particular) are varient. No surprise. However, most filters are audio source indendent, yet two are not. The EZ Impulse and EXpert impulse filters are both audio source and settings dependent. In other words, the resources from the math co-processor are dependent upon the requirements of the settings and the reparations required with either of the two impulse filters. The rest of the filters are dependent only upon their settings. In other words, for a given setting for, say, the CNF, as an example, it will make no matter what the audio source material contains in order to determine the degree of processing required. I hope that this information is useful.

[Skopje]

Re: DC Millennium question

Thanks for the info.
The buffer size is 10 and as I don't have any problems with stuttering, I will keep it that way. I think EZ Impulse and EXpert Impulse are in DC5, but I understand what you mean.

Earlier today I had another crash while in preview mode with the Averaging Filter (single). I had to use three times Ctrl-Alt-Delete in order to close the program. When I opened the program again and repeated the same procedure with Averaging Filter - everything worked fine.
During this time I had two other audio programs open and they were running ok. Now, this will make one think that there might be some sort of a conflict between the programs, but yesterday I only had the Millennium open when it crashed.

If you have any idea of what might be the problem, please advise.


S.

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

No other software program should be running when using Millennium as it is very resource intensive. No antivirus, no screen saver, etc, etc.

[Skopje]

Re: DC Millennium question

Craig, there is no antivirus program on that computer. No internet, games, screen savers, printers, scanners, Real Player etc. It's a DAW. On startup I have only SystemTray and ScanRegistry enabled, nothing else. I use W98 SE with a lot of the original functions disabled. Virtual memory is set to 768mb, both minimum and maximum. DMA is enabled.
It has enough power to run several DX effects simultaneously without a glitch.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Millennium also crashes when it's used alone. And I can locate the problem now. There is a bug in the Averaging Filter.

I know that perfect programs don't exist and I can live with this minor glitch. Millennium is very fast and has some unique features (not found in the other programs I use).
I guess that's why I bought it in the first place..


Skopje

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

I am sorry, but I am unable to re-create a crashing bug with the averaging filter on this system under any combination of conditions. It is WIN 2000, Pentuim 4, 1.6 GHz, Egosys sound card, etc. What is the sampling rate and bit depth of the wavefile that is causing your crash. Stereo or Mono? Also, what is the setting of the averaging filter? Anyone else able to recreate this crash?

[Skopje]

Re: DC Millennium question

[ QUOTE ]
I am sorry, but I am unable to re-create a crashing bug with the averaging filter on this system under any combination of conditions. It is WIN 2000, Pentuim 4, 1.6 GHz, Egosys sound card, etc. What is the sampling rate and bit depth of the wavefile that is causing your crash. Stereo or Mono? Also, what is the setting of the averaging filter? Anyone else able to recreate this crash?

[/ QUOTE ]


Thanks for running the tests.
The files I'm using are usually 16-bit 44.1kHz, both mono and stereo. It is in the lower Sample settings, for instance 3 or 4, when Averaging Filter crashes Millennium. As I said, when I open the program again and do exactly the same thing, everything works fine.

Maybe my .exe file got corrupted during download, it can happen sometimes. I'll download a new one and will let you know if that fixes the crashing.

S.

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

OK - please let us know what you discover. By the way, the file types that you mentioned are file types and sample sizes in the averaging filter that I tested with no problems here.

[odass]

Re: DC Millennium question

Hi,

I am also experiencing crash in Millenium, and I suspect the problem may be the same as Skopje's.

Symptoms are as follows:

When I preview a filter, the program may crash if I let the preview function run till it reaches the end of the wavefile or the selected portion of a wavefile. It may happend on any filter with any filter setting. If I press "cancel" before it reaches the end, the program will not crash. This happened consequently when I had my video accelerator set to maximum level. After I turned the video accelerator down two steps, it does not happend every time, but I am still having crashes quite often.

One way to get around the problem is to check for "Looped Preview" in the Preferences menu. Then the program will not crash. However this is not very satisfactory when previewing very short portions of a wavefile, which I do quite often.

Craig, if you want to try to generate a crash on your system you may try the following:

Select a short portion of a wavefile (1-2 seconds). Open the Impulse Noise Filter and select a proper setting. Press preview and make sure the preview function is run all the way till the end of the selected portion. Repeat this step 20, 30 or 50 times with almost no pause between and see what happends. If there is no crash, you may try to alternate between "Play" and "Preview".

My system consists of a computer that was new in November 1997. 333MHz prosessor, 64 MB RAM, WINDOWS-95. When I open Millenium I have all other programs removed from memory exept Explorer and Systray. In Millenium I have numbers of preview buffers set to 7. I am working with 16 bits 44.1 kHz mono wavefiles.

Best regards,
Terje

[Skopje]

Re: DC Millennium question

Craig, could these crashes be related to the size of the dcMillpresets.ini file, by any chance? I read somewhere that this file has a 60kb limit, while mine is currently at 62kb (reduced from 65kb).
I have the new .exe installed, but I still experience occasional crashes.

Thanks,

S.

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

Maybe. I know that Windows gets real flakey when one exceeds the limit for .ini files. That is one reason why we switched over to our own system for presets in later versions.

[Skopje]

Re: DC Millennium question

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe. I know that Windows gets real flakey when one exceeds the limit for .ini files. That is one reason why we switched over to our own system for presets in later versions.

[/ QUOTE ]


Can you elaborate more on this, as I'm not a programmer...

[Craig Maier]

Re: DC Millennium question

It has been a few years since we intentionally overloaded the .ini files, so the cobwebs are somewhat clouding the issue. As I recall, when the .ini file became overloaded, presets would randomly become corrupted. You could create a new preset and it would be fine, but others would become corrupted. Thereafter, recalling some of the other presets presented inaccurate parametric values. Also, as I recall, the system occasionally crashed depending on which filter and which corrupted presets were being used. Maybe Rick can iterate his recollection about this one in order that we can compare notes.