FLS Checker plugin

[SF_Green]

Cubase 9.5.20, win7 110

After removing items not used from Steinberg Components folder. That gave approx. +10 FLS

That's quite a difference from what I got! My measurement was in an empty project with just one FX track. I'm new to Cubase and haven't explored what's in the Components folder (and I'm on the train to work now); could you give an idea of some of what you were deleting, please? Effects, instruments, other? Thanks.

[M1000]

Cubase 9.0.40 -> 69
Control Room off -> +2
using Onboard Soundcard (actually turning off the hardware integration for the UR242 in the mixer I guess) -> +8

Cubase 9.5.20 -> 78
Control Room off -> +2
using Onboard Soundcard -> +8

Ableton Live 10.0.1 -> 109

[GeorgeV]

Cubase 9.5.20, win7 110

After removing items not used from Steinberg Components folder. That gave approx. +10 FLS

That's quite a difference from what I got! My measurement was in an empty project with just one FX track. I'm new to Cubase and haven't explored what's in the Components folder (and I'm on the train to work now); could you give an idea of some of what you were deleting, please? Effects, instruments, other? Thanks.

Quoting Fabio from an older post
".....For the time being, those who have the problem can lower the amount of loaded dlls by moving some of the components out of the folder C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 9\Components. Of course, this applies only to the dlls which are not needed during use (eucon if you don't use such controllers, video files if you don't need video support, hubservice, etc - make sure to not remove any core component like Baios, the exception dumper, mediaservice, SamplerTack, stepdesigner and the VST files). This will allow for more plug-ins... not much more, but could help some of you.

euconadapter (support for Euphonix / AVID controllers)
hubservice (Steinberg Hub, without this, you will only see the Project Assistant, the Hub on the left will be missing)
omffilter (you will be unable to import OMF files)
video (all files, of course all video features will be missing)
vstconnect
...."

Of course make sure you don't use any of these features

[SF_Green]

Cubase 9.5.20, win7 110

After removing items not used from Steinberg Components folder. That gave approx. +10 FLS

That's quite a difference from what I got! My measurement was in an empty project with just one FX track. I'm new to Cubase and haven't explored what's in the Components folder (and I'm on the train to work now); could you give an idea of some of what you were deleting, please? Effects, instruments, other? Thanks.

Quoting Fabio from an older post
".....For the time being, those who have the problem can lower the amount of loaded dlls by moving some of the components out of the folder C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 9\Components. Of course, this applies only to the dlls which are not needed during use (eucon if you don't use such controllers, video files if you don't need video support, hubservice, etc - make sure to not remove any core component like Baios, the exception dumper, mediaservice, SamplerTack, stepdesigner and the VST files). This will allow for more plug-ins... not much more, but could help some of you.

euconadapter (support for Euphonix / AVID controllers)
hubservice (Steinberg Hub, without this, you will only see the Project Assistant, the Hub on the left will be missing)
omffilter (you will be unable to import OMF files)
video (all files, of course all video features will be missing)
vstconnect
...."

Of course make sure you don't use any of these features

Great. Thanks for the info. I can get rid of some of those that I'll never use. I might keep the hub for now.

Cheers

[vinark]

That's quite a difference from what I got! My measurement was in an empty project with just one FX track. I'm new to Cubase and haven't explored what's in the Components folder (and I'm on the train to work now); could you give an idea of some of what you were deleting, please? Effects, instruments, other? Thanks.

Quoting Fabio from an older post
".....For the time being, those who have the problem can lower the amount of loaded dlls by moving some of the components out of the folder C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 9\Components. Of course, this applies only to the dlls which are not needed during use (eucon if you don't use such controllers, video files if you don't need video support, hubservice, etc - make sure to not remove any core component like Baios, the exception dumper, mediaservice, SamplerTack, stepdesigner and the VST files). This will allow for more plug-ins... not much more, but could help some of you.

euconadapter (support for Euphonix / AVID controllers)
hubservice (Steinberg Hub, without this, you will only see the Project Assistant, the Hub on the left will be missing)
omffilter (you will be unable to import OMF files)
video (all files, of course all video features will be missing)
vstconnect
...."

Of course make sure you don't use any of these features

Great. Thanks for the info. I can get rid of some of those that I'll never use. I might keep the hub for now.

Cheers

It will only disable the internet part of the hub not the browsing projects and setup part

[digitalson]

I'm sorry but what is fls mean? It's not amount of CPU threads ,is it?

[GargoyleStudio]

FLS = Fiber Local Storage. It's not really necessary to know what it means (I don't) but only to understand that in MS Windows there are a maximum of 128 FLS Slots per process, and with respect to this discussion, Cubase takes up some slots itself then each unique plugin (VSTi or FX) can take up one or more slots within the Cubase process as well. Therefore there is a hard limit to the number of unique plugins that you can utilise in Cubase. I say 'unique' plugins because only the first instance of any plugin takes up the slots, after that you can use that same plugin as many times as you like.

I have problems because I have quite a large collection of plugins which I like to use within all my project (e.g. UAD, Soundtoys bundle, Arturia bundle, etc.).

It's not one plugin per slot because some plugins take more than one slot, and the worst one I've found is Arturia AnalogLab2 which will take up 28 slots. Waves is the best for me because it takes up only 2 slots ever no matter how many plugins I use.

The 128 limit was designed by MicroSoft and it's been there for many years. It looks very unlikely it'll change so it's down to the software developers to find ways around the problem. I personally think it's only really come to light recently because Steinberg have dropped the 32bit bridge and therefore all plugins now take up slots on the main Cubase process as opposed to say 1/2 the plugins taking slots in the 32bitBridge process (at least, that's what I'm seeing in my setup).

It effects every DAW not just Steinberg, and Steinberg have recently reduced the number of slots Cubase takes for itself so they're being pro-active in trying to help the situation. They say this is done by dynamically linking the DLLs instead of statically linking them. Plugin manufacturers can do this as well, and some are doing this faster than others.

Hopefully the more noise about this subject then the more the developers will streamline their software in future updates to help avoid the limit.

Mike.

[jaslan]

Interesting and educational thread. Thanks to the OP.

[medwaystudios]

Got 93 on Win 7 Cubase 9.5.2 after removing all of the unnecessary services. Any idea on how to get to 110?

[SF_Green]

Quoting Fabio from an older post
".....For the time being, those who have the problem can lower the amount of loaded dlls by moving some of the components out of the folder C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 9\Components. Of course, this applies only to the dlls which are not needed during use (eucon if you don't use such controllers, video files if you don't need video support, hubservice, etc - make sure to not remove any core component like Baios, the exception dumper, mediaservice, SamplerTack, stepdesigner and the VST files). This will allow for more plug-ins... not much more, but could help some of you.

euconadapter (support for Euphonix / AVID controllers)
hubservice (Steinberg Hub, without this, you will only see the Project Assistant, the Hub on the left will be missing)
omffilter (you will be unable to import OMF files)
video (all files, of course all video features will be missing)
vstconnect
...."

Of course make sure you don't use any of these features

Great. Thanks for the info. I can get rid of some of those that I'll never use. I might keep the hub for now.

Cheers

It will only disable the internet part of the hub not the browsing projects and setup part

Excellent. Thanks vinark!

[lokotus]

Thanks a lot for the app. Was it so difficult for steinberg to provide us at least with some little tool like this a while ago in order to at least no wonder about some weird disappearing plugins when re opening a project ??

[lokotus]

Hi all,

I have built a simpleVST2/3 plugin that counts number of FLS slots available.
Please feel free to try.
http://planetnine.jp/wp/2018/03/25/fls-checker/

BTW this is my 1st post to this forum with this account so it might look very suspicious
I am sure I had opened an account looong ago but couldn't retrieve it.

Many thanks for this, very useful!! I recently posted a long article about the subject on the gearslutz forum, explaining the need for visualization of the remaining FLS slots and also describing a work-around strategy, you can find it on the lower half of this page (almost at the end of the page):

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... e-187.html

One question, could you also make a 32-bit VST2 version of this plugin? As I described in that article I am using the 32-bit process as an additional resource for FLS slots, and I would like to be able to see the number of slots in that process... thanks in advance!

Thanks for writing that article Lucas. In that article you are suggesting: "increasing the number of Windows processes to run plugins (why not offering 5 or 10 additional processes bringing each their additional FLS capacity, with either manual or automatic configuration per plugin - like a CPU can have 10 cores, a DAW could have 10 Windows processes to run plugins in and then the FLS issue would be totally gone)..."

I think that already exists if you are familiar with Vienna Ensemble Pro. Each new Vienna Ensemble Pro instance gives you a lot of new (free Slots for Plugins and Virtual Instruments). Like in your example, you could use Analog Lab (which occupies a lot) just in a new Vienna Ensemble Pro instances, without loosing available Slots (FLS) in the main daw...

Cheers, lokotus

PS: I thought Komplete Kontrol would also be beneficial to this issue, but it does not help for more slots like Vienna Ensemble Pro does.

[GargoyleStudio]

JBridge can also be used to give you another 128 or slightly less slots.

Mike.

[GeorgeV]

Got 93 on Win 7 Cubase 9.5.2 after removing all of the unnecessary services. Any idea on how to get to 110?

It seems that adding to everything this is also system dependent

[GeorgeV]

Running a project by double click, through Cubase shortcult or pinned to taskbar shortcut adds +2FLS
This way hub ("stripped" hub - without internet part) is completely bypassed which apparently needs 2 slots to run

[Prock]

Quoting Fabio from an older post
".....For the time being, those who have the problem can lower the amount of loaded dlls by moving some of the components out of the folder C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 9\Components. Of course, this applies only to the dlls which are not needed during use (eucon if you don't use such controllers, video files if you don't need video support, hubservice, etc - make sure to not remove any core component like Baios, the exception dumper, mediaservice, SamplerTack, stepdesigner and the VST files). This will allow for more plug-ins... not much more, but could help some of you.

euconadapter (support for Euphonix / AVID controllers)
hubservice (Steinberg Hub, without this, you will only see the Project Assistant, the Hub on the left will be missing)
omffilter (you will be unable to import OMF files)
video (all files, of course all video features will be missing)
vstconnect
...."

Of course make sure you don't use any of these features

Great. Thanks for the info. I can get rid of some of those that I'll never use. I might keep the hub for now.

Cheers

It will only disable the internet part of the hub not the browsing projects and setup part

Who would have thunk it. An option to disable stuff that you don't use...

viewtopic.php?f=252&t=109929

Regards

[Fabio Bartolini]

Got 93 on Win 7 Cubase 9.5.2 after removing all of the unnecessary services. Any idea on how to get to 110?

It seems that adding to everything this is also system dependent

You are right, it is. Different drivers will eat up a different amount of FLS. Hardware integration can also use up some more.
If you have a UR interface and additional MIDI / DAW controllers with hardware integration, FLS usage can increase a lot.
It also means that another way to increase the available slots is to turn off the controllers that are not needed... it could also help to connect a keyboard controller to the audio interface via MIDI, instead of plugging it via USB. During mixdown you don't want to disable the DAW controller, but possibly don't need the keyboard.

[peakae]

How many free fls slots on a empty project there is ,is kind of pointless.
The next plugin you load may take 47 or zero fls slots.
It is not like Cubase runs faster with more fls slots free.
It is interesting

[Fabio Bartolini]

That's for sure, but knowing where to get hold of a few more slots when the last 5 plugs you need to close the mix won't fit, might come in handy

[GargoyleStudio]

It's all relative, but with the latest Cubase release Steinberg streamlined their code and I got more slots, very welcome. Also, disabling the unneeded DLLs worked to give me even more as well as bypassing the Hub opening at the start.

I'm here in this thread because I have one project which has used up all the slots. I was stuck several months ago because I had a decent mix but I wanted to add an extra VSTi to try out a different sound, but I couldn't because I didn't have any slots left. I'm still a little bit stuck because I can't use the instrument I wanted to, it takes too many slots even with the extras, but at least now with the FLS Checker I can manage my slots better.

Mike.

[medwaystudios]

Got 93 on Win 7 Cubase 9.5.2 after removing all of the unnecessary services. Any idea on how to get to 110?

It seems that adding to everything this is also system dependent

You are right, it is. Different drivers will eat up a different amount of FLS. Hardware integration can also use up some more.
If you have a UR interface and additional MIDI / DAW controllers with hardware integration, FLS usage can increase a lot.
It also means that another way to increase the available slots is to turn off the controllers that are not needed... it could also help to connect a keyboard controller to the audio interface via MIDI, instead of plugging it via USB. During mixdown you don't want to disable the DAW controller, but possibly don't need the keyboard.

Good to know. Does having more I/O through ASIO affect it? I'm running about 24 in and out.

[medwaystudios]

It's all relative, but with the latest Cubase release Steinberg streamlined their code and I got more slots, very welcome. Also, disabling the unneeded DLLs worked to give me even more as well as bypassing the Hub opening at the start.

I'm here in this thread because I have one project which has used up all the slots. I was stuck several months ago because I had a decent mix but I wanted to add an extra VSTi to try out a different sound, but I couldn't because I didn't have any slots left. I'm still a little bit stuck because I can't use the instrument I wanted to, it takes too many slots even with the extras, but at least now with the FLS Checker I can manage my slots better.

Mike.

jbridge was the answer for me. Mainly due to UAD plugins taking a lot of slots (I haven't checked yet with FLS how many but they seemed to hit the limit far faster.)

[lucas_paris]

Many thanks for this, very useful!! I recently posted a long article about the subject on the gearslutz forum, explaining the need for visualization of the remaining FLS slots and also describing a work-around strategy, you can find it on the lower half of this page (almost at the end of the page):

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... e-187.html

One question, could you also make a 32-bit VST2 version of this plugin? As I described in that article I am using the 32-bit process as an additional resource for FLS slots, and I would like to be able to see the number of slots in that process... thanks in advance!

Thanks for writing that article Lucas. In that article you are suggesting: "increasing the number of Windows processes to run plugins (why not offering 5 or 10 additional processes bringing each their additional FLS capacity, with either manual or automatic configuration per plugin - like a CPU can have 10 cores, a DAW could have 10 Windows processes to run plugins in and then the FLS issue would be totally gone)..."

I think that already exists if you are familiar with Vienna Ensemble Pro. Each new Vienna Ensemble Pro instance gives you a lot of new (free Slots for Plugins and Virtual Instruments). Like in your example, you could use Analog Lab (which occupies a lot) just in a new Vienna Ensemble Pro instances, without loosing available Slots (FLS) in the main DAW

Yes, using VEP instances connected to VEP processes on the same PC is another work-around for the FLS limitation and probably ReWire can be used for this as well (I did not do any testing on this). But having multiple DAW processes would offer a fully transparent solution and otherwise using jBridge is a much easier and cost-effective way when a few more slots are needed to complete a project.

[lucas_paris]

JBridge can also be used to give you another 128 or slightly less slots.

Mike.

When you configure jBridge to have each bridged VST starting a new Windows process, the number of VSTs you can add is not limited anymore by the FLS mechanism but only by the CPU capacity. You can see in the Windows task manager whether additional jBridged VSTs are added into one shared jBridge process or running each their own process.

[Stephen57]

Found this concise explanation of the FLS issue on Gearslutz ( 17th February 2018). I knew nothing about this until now. Thanks for the posts and the plug-in. I've not installed it yet but will post some info when I do.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpos ... ostcount=1