Terribly long Kontakt 7 vst loading time with instruments loaded

riflinka

My orchestral template with around 250 Kontakt 7 instances takes 15 minutes to load. And I'm planning to expand it…

Sometimes it's very hard and exhausting to work like that, especially if there is a crash or you have to close the session.

Here is the comparison with Kontakt 6:

• 40 Kontakt instances
  – 1 Cinematic Studio Brass patch inside each
  – All samples purged
  Results:
  Kontakt 7 = 77 seconds
  Kontakt 6 = 31 seconds

• 10 Kontakt instances
  – 4 Cinematic Studio Brass patches inside each
  – All samples purged
  Results:
  Kontakt 7 = 60 seconds
  Kontakt 6 = 29 seconds

It only becomes worse with new versions.

Why? I don't undestand it. I'm on the verge of giving up on Kontakt, the only thing that keeps me here is some unique sample libraries.

DunedinDragon

Assuming you're using Windows 10 per your profile. If so and you have Windows Defender enabled you may be running into the problems with the malware virus scanning program causing long loading times. This can be easily fixed by selecting Manage Settings from Virus and Threat Protection and disable real-time protection. Alternatively, you can just scroll down on that same page to Add or Remove Exclusions and add C:\Program Files\Native Instruments as an exclusion. Either will give you a HUGE reduction in loading times of Native Instruments patches.

riflinka

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/153389#Comment_153389

Yes, I'm also a programmer/game developer, so I keep all those things in check. The issue is in Kontakt 7.

DunedinDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/153670#Comment_153670

I would suggest then you spend some time examining the Task Manager to see what's happening with your load times. I'm using all of the current releases of Kontakt7, Komplete Kontrol and Native Access and my load times are way faster than what you're getting, and I'm not on a really beefed up PC either. Something else is getting in the way. My load times are actually slightly faster than on Kontakt 6.

riflinka

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/153751#Comment_153751

It seems unlikely, because K6 loads just fine. Are you sure you are talking about K7 with loaded instrument patches, NOT the empty instances? Because empty instances load very quickly, that is true, but once there is at least one instrument, it becomes extremely slow, unlike K6.

Also, as you can see from my test, it doesn't matter how many instruments there are in one instance - delay comes only from the FIRST loaded instrument in each instance.

riflinka

Or maybe it does, but anyway, there is definitely less delay when adding instruments to K7 instance which already has one.

DunedinDragon

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/153928#Comment_153928

There are certainly differences in load times once you measure them in a DAW with multiple VST tracks. But I can only speak to my particular DAW which is Ableton Live and in that case I have to completely disable virus and threat protection in Windows Defender to get acceptable times. Generally the first load of the day is relatively slower, but after that it's pretty much consistent with what I had in K6 if I have the virus and threat protection disabled. This same strategy appears to have the same effect if I'm working on non NI systems such as Soundpaint.

I typically work on multiple different projects in a recording session and the load times are pretty consistent once I've gotten past the first load of the first project of the day. I think the very nature of real-time virus monitoring is going to affect loading, and I can't imagine any vendor can account for all the differences in virus monitoring techniques and the effect of how different DAWs load projects.

From what I can see, the major performance differences in K7 relate to the added initial complexity of setting up the more complex new VSTs, but that appears to be a one time price in the case of load times once the shared and cached memory and buffer space gets populated in the operating system if I have disabled virus monitoring. At least within the NI eco system. Once you get outside of that it's more unpredictable given the different sizes of the sample libraries such as the monster sized ones from 8Dio.