Kontakt 7 very very long to launch

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  • ihun17
    ihun17 Member Posts: 2 Newcomer

    @Jeremy_NI Thank you for the update. I look forward to the update coming to the public. Hopefully it doesn't take too long!

  • pbthrash
    pbthrash Member Posts: 58 Member
    edited July 31
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/168013#Comment_168013

    Define "too long". For me "too long" is 2 weeks after people start to complain about a bug. For NI, who answers me that "10 seconds opening Massive X GUI is normal and acceptable time", this may be 2 years.

    If they wanted to, they would optimize it. For a skilled programmer it would probably be a few hours of testing and coding.

    Seriously, if I'm going to use a synth, Massive X is my last choice. Similarly, Kontakt 7 - I use it, but I prefer other products. I simply don't want to wait and wait. The computer (and software) should wait for the user, not the other way around. We're not calculating a complicated 3D animation or rendering an hour-long movie here!

    What is more funny - I reported few other slow GUI and in many cases improvement was huge. And it takes 2 weeks max. But it was not Native Instruments.

  • riflinka
    riflinka Member Posts: 12 Member

    AI is going to replace everyone in a few month anyway so maybe they don't see a reason to fix broken music software

  • pbthrash
    pbthrash Member Posts: 58 Member

    I just think that NI programmers are extremely slow.

    It's like in one old joke:

    The boss says to the employee: "You do everything very slowly! You do each task 5 times longer than other employees. Is there anything you do quickly?" "- Yes, I get tired quickly."

  • Grymt
    Grymt Member Posts: 16 Member

    The problem is not the programmers. The problem is their bosses, who underpay, demand they install bloatware and ads and huge intrusive copyright protection.The bosses problem is the CEO's that are not interested in music or users at all, just in monetisation for the private equity firm Francisco Partners that bought NI a few years back.

    This is standard enshittification.

  • pbthrash
    pbthrash Member Posts: 58 Member

    Today I saw Kontakt 7 update. I installed it and now it opens in one second!

    :)

    I'm kidding - opens as usual. :/

  • JBlongz
    JBlongz Member Posts: 19 Member

    Some interesting observations after testing launch time of Kontakt 7.10.5 on multiple computers:

    On Apple Silicon M1:

    • First Kontakt 7 instance loads in 4 seconds.
    • Subsequent instances in same DAW project load under 2 seconds.

    Windows 11 Machines (12-Core AMD 5900X | 8-Core AMD 5700G | 14-Core Intel i7=12700H):

    • First Kontakt 7 instance loads in 35 seconds.
    • Subsequent instances in same DAW project load under 5 seconds.
    • No speed difference noticeable between Intel/AMD chips.

    What makes MacOS so much better at this? Is it really the power of Apple Silicon? I see no difference when using AMD or Intel chips, so it leads me to question the implementation quality of Kontakt for Windows.

  • JBlongz
    JBlongz Member Posts: 19 Member
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/169756#Comment_169756

    Its August 1st, not April 1st. My heart skipped a beat.

  • Vocalpoint
    Vocalpoint Member Posts: 2,283 Expert
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/169756#Comment_169756

    Yep - 7.10.6 takes 7-8 seconds now where 7.10.2-ish was half that.

    Whatever NI is doing - they are going in the wrong direction. Windows 10 22H2 here.

    VP

  • sacer11
    sacer11 Member Posts: 58 Helper
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/169756#Comment_169756

    you can repeat this joke on April 1st 2025 - I am sure it won't be fixed between

  • riflinka
    riflinka Member Posts: 12 Member

    At this point I just hope that 90% of sample producers will switch to other players, so I can ditch Kontakt entirely (maybe leaving 1-2 instances in my template). Even the weird Spitfire player is like 100 times faster than Kontakt 7 :))))))

  • pbthrash
    pbthrash Member Posts: 58 Member

    It would all go much faster if any NI developer ever knew they had to optimize something. I bet support acts like a human firewall in this case - they only let the information through after 10,000 people report a problem.

  • DunedinDragon
    DunedinDragon Member Posts: 947 Guru
    edited August 10

    I just timed my lowly Windows 10 16mb PC loading Komplete Kontrol ver 3.3.1 - 4 seconds and a specific Alicia's Keys preset - 3 seconds….all loaded and ready to play on my S88MK3 keyboard. How is that slow?

    Oh….waitaminit!! I'm talking with all these "professionals" that know all about the intricacies of successful commercial software development!!! I must be doing something wrong!!!

    Well heck, I just installed the update of KK to 3.3.2 (took about 3 minutes) while writing this and tested again….same results. Imagine that!!!

    Maybe I should try a more complex instrument? Okay…KK - 4 seconds, Arkhis with preset - 4 seconds.

    Could that be why Native Instruments isn't taking your complaints all that seriously??

    Well…let's continue on with a "real world" scenario. Load Ableton 11 (9 seconds), load project which contains 6 Native Instruments libraries (Studio Drummer, Mallet Flux, Alicia's Keys, Prime Bass, Action Strings and Arkhis (13 seconds)…ready to work in less than 30 seconds.

  • Kubrak
    Kubrak Member Posts: 3,051 Expert
    edited August 10

    What I have noticed is that the start times depend on the interface (ASIO driver) or the number of channels of the interface. For comparison: With my main interface Steinberg UR824 (with ADAT extension) it says 46 seconds. With the ASIO driver from my Line6 HX Stomp, the loading time is only 13 seconds. With my Steinberg UR44 (with the same ASIO driver as the UR824) only 10 seconds! It seems that Kontakt 7 is scanning or initialising something during startup.

    What I have tested for sure on Kontakt 7 is, that load time heavily depends on size of audio buffer. At least on Win. Why is it so, hard to guess……

    Kontakt loading times.jpg

    Edit. - My test was made half year ago or so, I do not know which Kontak 7 it was exactly. Maybe it is not valid anymore for current Kontakt version. But anyone may test it.

    It could also explain difference bertween computers and/or OSes, if they do not have the same size of audio buffer. Also there may be difference between ASIO, and other drivers on Win.

  • riflinka
    riflinka Member Posts: 12 Member
    https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/171586#Comment_171586

    Wait, are you denying that there is a critical problem or am I missing something?

    Not sure who this is addressed to, but yes, I am a software developer who participated in a development of succesfull commercial products (in a team of 3 people, but still) and made countless non-profit projects.

    You should go to VI-Control and ask professional composers why most of them still use Kontakt 6.

    "Kontakt 7 belongs in a trash" © - Blakus

    The fact is - Kontakt 6 already was a disaster in terms of loading times, but it was bearable.

    Kontakt 7 is TWICE and sometimes THREE TIMES slower loading than K6. Multiply it by…. 1000? Because that's realistically how many instances professional composers have in their template. And so it becomes a problem, having to wait 15 minutes for your template to load (especially hurts after a crash, which by the way caused by Kontakt most of the time) on a relatively new 2019 PC with SSDs and stuff.

    I have yet to test how it performs on Ryzen 9 9950x, ddr5 6000 and 14000mb/s PCI-e 5.0 SSD. It will surely be better (i doubt it lol)

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