10.4

OPTIMIZING PERFORMANCE
609
About hyper-threading audio rendering
Hyper-threading audio rendering could improve the performance even further. Note that this depends on your com-
puter’s CPU and other hardware, so there is no guarantee the performance will improve. If you are experiencing per-
formance problems, try activating or deactivating this to see if the performance improves.
About audio rendering using the audio card buffer size setting
The “Render audio using audio card buffer size setting” function should be selected (checked) for best plugin perfor-
mance. When selected, the audio batches are rendered internally according to the set Buffer size (see “Making Buf-
fer Size adjustments in the Reason Preferences dialog” above). For example, if you have a Buffer size of 512
Samples, each audio batch will be 512 samples internally. Raising the Buffer size will let Reason process larger audio
batches in one go, which is often more efficient. Many plugins are also more efficient when doing larger audio
batches. if you are using DSP-heavy VSTs (mastering effects, for example), these will run a lot smoother with this
function selected.
! Note that old songs might sound different with this function selected, if the songs uses feedback routings and
CV connections.
If unchecked (off), all audio batches are rendered internally at a fixed size of 64 samples - regardless of the Buffer
size setting. This might be desirable if you are using feedback signal routings and CV connections in your songs, and
want the internal latency of those connections to be fixed at a short value all the time. This might result in perfor-
mance problems for DSP-heavy VSTs, though.
Unchecked will give the same performance as in previous Reason 10 versions.
About hard drives
Most state-of-the-art hard drives, including SSD drives, will work perfectly together with Reason. Generally, the faster
hard drive(s) you use, the better. Most mechanical hard drives of today runs at 5.400 rpm or faster, which is sufficient
for use with Reason. A large hard drive is also highly recommended when working with DAWs like Reason. A single
song with a lot of recordings in it could easily reach around 1 GB in final size. During recording and editing, the song
file size could be a lot bigger than that, so a hard drive space of at least 20 GB is definitely recommended.
General optimization tips
Finally, we’d like to share a couple of other general optimization tips:
• Quit other programs that are running at the same time as Reason.
• Remove background tasks on your computer.
This might be any background utilities you have installed as well as networking, background Internet activities etc.
• Under Windows, make sure you use the latest and most efficient ASIO driver for your audio card.
• Only work on one Reason Song document at a time.
Songs that are open in the background do consume some processing power, even though they’re not playing.
• Lower the sample rate setting on the Audio tab in the Preferences dialog.
This is a very quick and convenient way to try to play a song that your computer otherwise can’t handle.
• Raise the Buffer size on the Audio tab in the Preferences dialog.
See “Making Buffer Size adjustments in the Reason Preferences dialog”.