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Scratch Live (Video SL) Stress Test - Feedback required
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Scratch Live (Video SL) Stress Test - Feedback required

nik39 2:56 PM - 23 December, 2011
Hi guys,

I wrote a little script which simulates:

1. going through one crate
2. loading track by track to the decks
3. playing that track at high speed
4. jumping to cue points
5. reversing playback direction

This does a very simple simulation of DJing (loading tracks, jumping to cue points, scratching/cueing/playing back the audio backwards) and basically is a stress test for SL.

Instructions:

One time preparations:
1. Download the correct autoload script. I wrote one for the SL1/SL2/57 [2 decks], one for the SL3 [3 decks] and one for SL4/68 [4 decks]
2. Switch to two deck view
3. Load a track to the left deck
4. Switch that track to INT mode
5. Press play on that deck
6. Press "r" on your keyboard, this increases the pitch on that deck. Pump it up to about 1700%, that's about 17 times of the original playback speed.
7. Open the SP6
8. While the track is playing grab that track from the running virtual deck and drop it to an SP6 slot
9. If you did everything correct then the same track will play on the SP6, running at 1700% pitch, continuing where it was previously on that deck.
10. If you have hardware which supports more than two channels, switch to stacked view, make sure if you own an SL3 that you enable the 3rd deck plugin.
11. Make sure all the channels are set to Int mode, and that all channels have been assigned to a USB channel (applies to SL4,68)
12. Switch to Library View
13. Go to setup menu -> display
14. Set maximum screen updates to 10 (this is to lower the CPU taxing)
15. Go to Hardware" tab
16. Set USB Buffer to 20 and click on apply (this is to lower the CPU taxing)
17. Go to "Playback" tab
18. Disable "Enable Hot Cues" (this is to prevent cue points being created on files which do not have any cue points set)
19. Disable "Playback Keys Use Shift"
20. Go to "Library" tab
21. Enable "Autofill Overviews"
22. Almost done... now shut down SL (this is so you don't have to repeat all the steps if SL crashes) to save the settings.

Let the fun begin
1. Start SL (SL should start in Library View, all channels set correct and all in internal mode
2. Open the SP6
3. Let the track which you have loaded into a slot play continuously
4. Grab that track drop it to all other decks, they should all play the same track... at 1700% pitch
5. Switch to your "all video" crate
6. Open the autoload script by double clicking on it. (if you had opened it before, close it, and reopen it).
7. Click on the play-button in the Apple Script Editor-window
8. It should now do all the magic for you... and hopefully not crash SL .


Here is a video showing you the steps...

Video - How-to
ssl-beta.help.bootlegs.de

2 Deck Autoload Script (for SL1,SL2,57SL)
ssl-beta.help.bootlegs.de

3 Deck Autoload Script (for SL3)
ssl-beta.help.bootlegs.de

4 Deck Autoload Script (for 68, SL4)
ssl-beta.help.bootlegs.de



It would be very nice of people could report their findings here.
sixxx 3:05 PM - 23 December, 2011
Why are you lowering the cpu taxing. I thought it was a stress test. When I play in public, I don't lower it and neither does anyone else unless their computer is old.

Just asking.....
nik39 4:59 PM - 23 December, 2011
Hm yeah, good point. Misleading title.

I want to stress test the Quicktime "subsystem", which means as much power as possible should go to quicktime decoding, as little as possible to SL processing. Quicktime in combination with SL seems to be the culprit.

If you want to stress test SL only (and your whole system) then lower the USB buffer size and raise maximum screen updates.
sixxx 3:26 AM - 24 December, 2011
Thanks for the explanation. :)

I'm going to do this probably tomorrow or sometime this weekend and post my findings.
nik39 10:55 AM - 24 December, 2011
Coolio :)
nik39 12:36 AM - 28 December, 2011
*bump*
djpuma_gemini 2:15 AM - 28 December, 2011
I'd do it but I'm afraid to load 2.3.3
nik39 2:15 AM - 28 December, 2011
Use your backup drives! :)
djpuma_gemini 2:15 AM - 28 December, 2011
Tell me it will be ok Anik
djpuma_gemini 2:15 AM - 28 December, 2011
haha

I need to backup first, it's been about 2 weeks. Even longer for the video drive.
nik39 10:46 PM - 5 January, 2012
baddump.
nik39 12:02 AM - 16 February, 2012
Bizzump.
nik39 12:59 PM - 23 July, 2012
Great. Zero help from the Serato-community :(
Serato, Support
Karl Y 10:38 PM - 23 July, 2012
Hey nik39, we are actually looking into this ;)
nik39 11:23 PM - 23 July, 2012
Hey Karl, I was hoping to get some feedback from the community, esp those cry babies who complain about stability issues, but don't care to give feedback helping to isolate the issues.
phatbob 11:28 PM - 23 July, 2012
Quote:
Hey Karl, I was hoping to get some feedback from the community, esp those cry babies who complain about stability issues, but don't care to give feedback helping to isolate the issues.


To be honest, Nik, I don't think I'm alone in not having a clue what this thread is about.

I even watched the video you linked and was still none-the-wiser.

Perhaps if you could explain more clearly mate...
nik39 11:47 PM - 23 July, 2012
There seems to be some issues with random crashes in SL, they seem to happen out of the blue sky, mostly for video users, or those using files which are handled/decoded by Quicktime.

This is what the given scripts do:
Quote:
This does a very simple simulation of DJing (loading tracks, jumping to cue points, scratching/cueing/playing back the audio backwards) and basically is a stress test for SL.

It quickly goes through your library, loads files, plays them, adds cue points (if you want), etc. So it's like a very simple, very basic automated DJ. Let this auto-DJ-script run over night, and see whether SL works fine for not.

On every machine which I have uses this script on I was able to make SL crash after some (mostly random) time. On one machine I was even able to reproduce crashes with a given set of files. The assumption is that it's not the file causing the crashes, it's more like Quicktime/SL are the root of these crashes.
nik39 7:34 AM - 21 August, 2012
Okay, since the SL community doesn't seem to care about stability, I will ask the Itch community. This is disappointing.
the_black_one 10:52 AM - 21 August, 2012
Everyone uses ME
radikarl 11:27 AM - 21 August, 2012
this has nothing to do with ME vs SV.
the Quick time stress test only needs Scratch Live / Itch to be running.