In the DFD window, what should the settings be if I want to use a full pit and battery set up in terms of high perfromance, normal, etc...?

jj,

DFD is "direct from disk" which you want set to "ON". It means that you are streaming your samples directly from your hard drive rather than eating up all of your memory. It still uses some RAM but not near as much. Hope this helps.

Chris

JJ - You might find that you have to play around with this setting a little to see what works best on your computer. Since you have a decent amount of memory, I'd start by setting it to "high performance" and see what happens.

I see my DFD light blink when I play the Virtual Drumline sounds on Kompakt so I assume it is working and saving some RAM. However, when I try and load in keyboards with the virtual drumline sounds the CPU percentage jumps to like 75%. When I only have the virtual drumline sounds loaded it reads 1% and playback is great. When I try and play back the battery and pit sounds together the CPU percentage jumps to 95% and it freezes up. All I hear is a strange clicking sound. I also see another display for memory usage, but is the CPU display a direct reflection of available RAM or is it something within Kompakt itself? I only have 368 mb of RAM on my Mac using OSX and Sibelius so I am sure I need more RAM but was still wondering if anyone knew what the CPU display in Kompakt was. I have read in the Native Instrument forums that many mac osx users get the pops and clicks when using all 8 channels even with G5s. Anyone had similar experiences? Thanks for any help!

Eric Hubbell

While RAM is important, CPU speed will also play an active role in your performance. You are correct in assuming that you should upgrade your RAM. These days, it almost seems that operating with less than a gig might be asking for trouble if you're trying to access several samples simultaneously.

You should also check to make sure you are using the most current version of Kompakt AS WELL AS the DFD extension since they are two separate components and downloads (from NI).

Also, check to see if there are any reverb settings on any of your instruments. Try DE-Activating it, and see if that helps. NI's reverb settings are handled PER instrument and this can really kill your CPU if you have several instruments going at once.