@jamesmcn said:

I've been running this patch on Pd-Extended 0.42.5 on a Core2 Duo MacBook Pro with no trouble at all.

It is interesting to see that the Eee can't handle a patch like this - I've been thinking of getting a netbook for this sort of thing.

I'm going to install Ubuntu NBR on Eee to work with Pd - maybe it can handle this patch under Ubuntu. I'll post here if it can. It seems like Pd under 32bit Windows can use only 50% CPU power, maybe Linux kernel works better. I have to use WinXP just to communicate with sampler (Korg Microsampler), because its utility works only under Windows or MacOS (it requires special driver which Wine in Linux does not allow to install, and I'm not such a guru to write my own driver, unfortunately ).

Otherwise, making patches on slow computers encourages to optimize them! Being initially made on Eee it probably could work much faster. Also, small screen stimulates using subpatches, so it makes patch itself look more intelligible: compare this messy generator with that abstraction (made on Eee) http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-4261-midi-learnable-mixer-channel

Thanks for sharing this great patch

If PureData only uses 50% CPU, could it be the case, that you have a DualCore CPU?

Linux may help, but my guess is that the Atom CPU is at fault here. All of the other machines discussed here have dual core CPUs with substantial caches.

I beg your pardon if this post is slightly offtopic and deals more with hardware than the patch itself, but it should take one more message for testing results to be complete:
@az said:

If PureData only uses 50% CPU, could it be the case, that you have a DualCore CPU?

Yes, all CPUs under consideration apparently had two cores, even Atom N280 on Eee - task manager shows two 1,66GHz cores. But I'm not sure its architecture has much in common with DualCore family. It looks slower than Core2Duo 1,66GHz. Well, anyway, it turns out that 50% CPU means 100% of one core under WinXP and Pd just can't distribute calculations between both cores to use more CPU in this case.

I just installed Ubuntu 10.10 NBR as 2nd OS on this Eee, and loaded this patch with Puredata Vanilla 0.42.6. It runs with no glitches at all with 44100Hz sample rate and 50ms audio buffer size! The same result with 48000Hz. But as I turned on 96000Hz, I even started hearing through glitches: "man, its just a netbook!" No matter what audio latency was set.

Task manager (named here "system monitor") showed 50-55% average usage of both cores (when 48kHz sample rate and 50 ms latency were set). Here it didn't mean that total usage was 100% (sometimes 80%-85% peaks appeared and again, no glitches). 50% CPU usage and no buffer underruns at all.

So, it's possible to use Eee with Atom N280 or later to make complicated patches, just under Linux. As for me, main problem is small screen, not Atom CPU, that's why I use it only for small abstractions and don't care what OS is installed. Also, if you'd use touchpad instead of mouse to work with Pd on Eee, I bet you'll say at least a couple of bad words in an hour of such torture.

Hey hamster, I'm sorry i diverted the topic from your - probably - very cool patch... Thanx for giving another freezeverb, that made it slightly better, but still my good old laptop refuses. It amazes me a little, since i'm running many of my own patches simultaneously before i can get it to its knees (usually 3 or 4 heavy patches, my masterpatch + 2 vst's). Oh well, that means that if I would upgrade to a new machine I'll be able to run much more pd goodness than i can now (a question which I had been asking myself for a while now).

If someone would be so kind to record a couple of minutes of this patch and post it somewhere (e.g. here : http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-5001-pure-data-users-soundcloud-group) that would be so fantastic!

d.

After talking with hamster via email, I've made a few updates to his patch and have given it the name he originally intended: "Cave of Creation."

I'm not sure why, but it seems to eat up a lot of CPU time until you turn it on with the on_off button at the bottom of the patch. ** Update ** Changing all references to "scale" to "$0-scale" seems to have fixed this, though there is only one instance of the scale table.

I've added boolean switches for each of the individual water drop synths as well as the left and right pad synths. I have also added a number of scales as well as a scale randomizer.

Per domien's request, I've uploaded a recording to SoundCloud:

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Cave_of_Creation_1.1.zip

One of the best generative patches ever. Pure silk.
The reverb effect is great, mix of the various sources is awesome.
Thanks for sharing this gem.

Alberto

Sooo beautiful... Thanx a lot hamster for making this and thanx james for uploading it...

Succes at last!!! Thanx james for your tip, indeed when I switch audio on then suddenly cpu drops to 2-3% and it plays beautifully smooth. Still that's some pretty strange behaviour.

I like this patch. I am also working on generative sound patches this is something a bit similar I came up with. Not quite as complex though

Hope you like it!

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Meditadaze.pd

I found the bug in my patch and replaced "Cave of Creation.zip" with the fixed "Cave of Creation 1.1.zip" in my previous post. Enjoy!

@Jonastikov said:

I like this patch. I am also working on generative sound patches this is something a bit similar I came up with. Not quite as complex though

Hope you like it!

My cat liked it the most - I had to grab her away from speakers several times listening to this patch. It's not her ordinary behaviour. So, "cat test" passed!

I've started working on next generative patch. Cannot say what it will sound like yet (something like summer forest sounds, perhaps, not sure yet). I'll try to optimize it initially, use comments everythere, and make its structure more sophisticated. Undoubtly, I'll share it at this forum.

jamesmcn, what was the bug?

Edit: nevermind ;-p

lovely patch, could listen to it all night.

Wow, even before I found out the name, it made me feel like I was in an iridescent cave, watching the stalactites dripping. The revised version is even cooler.

Absolutely stunning. I'm just starting with audio synthesis and Pd. I'm going to analyse your work !

indeed, wonderful soundscape.

I made one more version recently. It has been optimized a bit, sounds also a bit different. Attached to this post.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Cave_of_Creation.zip

I'm stunned to say the least! You know that when I hear something I like then I rather tell this to the composer. This is so awesome. Nuff said! Will blog about this one with a link to your topic, will take this ensemble to work even though I dare doing such a thing hehe. Been listening for at least 30 minutes, and I'm definitely stoned of this musical experience. And frankly I'm ready to play this as my music when I fall asleep. Call me crazy if you like to, but that's how I feel about such a masterpiece like this one.

Thanks a lot, jobromedia! Hope next patches will be at least the same success. Now I use it as a "training ground", it is very useful for testing and experimenting without making complicated patches. So, this "Cave of Creation" is where new works are being created.

i'm also very new in Pure Data......
your patch has shown me, what's possible with PD. that's exactly i wanna do with it.
thanks for the motivation. nice work.