Hi Everyone,

Another step closer to beta; reViSIT v0.89.4, features ...

• A New Help System
  Though far from complete, this version of reViSiT gives a taste of what is to come. Currently a fair amount of the Pattern Editor help is complete - move the cursor around and press F1 for details. In the effect column, press F1 to get a list of possible effects, or if you have already entered an effect, pressing F1 will tell you all about it. Lists of keyboard shortcuts (Shift-F1) are also available for most editor pages. These two systems are designed to be accessible without resorting to the mouse, but there is still the occassional problems to solve in some hosts. Please do report any problems, though. Through the Help Bar (Ctrl-F1), you'll be able to read all about reViSiT, it's history, usage and future, though this is largely still under construction.
• Sample/Instrument List Audition Mode
  Now, anywhere in the Sample and Instrument Lists, you can hold down the Ctrl Key to activate Audition Mode. Keeping Ctrl pressed, you can then play the current instrument and thus audition different settings as you edit them.
• Several bug fixes and minor changes
  The mouse was 'on the blink' in .3, but is now fixed, as are a couple of MIDI bugs (hopefully) and the odd crash when selecting particular samples or instruments. A number of interface refinements are also included.

Check the readme.txt or release notes, for details of all the changes and please do report back with any comments, queries or problems you might have.

If you have already applied to the Alpha programme, you will have an email containing the details of the download. If you haven't applied, go to http://www.nashnet.co.uk/english/revisit/download.htm and sign up for the download.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to pose them on the forum - or to me directly by email, via revisit@nashnet.co.uk. For more information, see the reViSiT website @ http://revisit.nashnet.co.uk.

All the best,
Chris

> are you on holiday or what? :P

No. Just busy staying alive, doing stuff that pays the bills. :P

> Holst's Uranus from The Planets

Spooky - I just (this minute) finished listening to Karajan's version.

> Perhaps this info brings you closer to a bugfix?

Talk is cheap. I need the file, so that I can reproduce the problem and dive into the code with the debugger. Can you send it to me by email (revisit at nashnet.co.uk)?

I'll look into the other things you mentioned, but at the moment - as regards reViSiT - all my time is taken up with converting the pattern editor from bitmap fonts to TrueType fonts. Not easy to do it properly (i.e. without maxing out the CPU or memory).

Chris

It's easy for you to say that it looks like too many simultaneous notes are causing the problem, but it's far from an established fact, and I prefer to have all the details to hand when tackling a problem. There may be a specific combination that is causing the break down. On a single row alone there are over 500,000,000,000 possible combinations, so instead of me choosing one at random and hoping it exhibits your problem, I'd rather you sent me a combination that is proved to be faulty. Furthermore, there are instruments involved - it's samples you are not using - and thus it'd be useful for me to inspect the configuration you are using anyway.

Send me the file and tell me which VSTi's you're using. Also:

Is the problem only occuring on specific VSTi's, or just Halion?
Do the problems appear at the same point? For example, is it always the same note that's cut, or does it appear random?

Chris

Yes. To keep the graphics drawing overhead low, all pattern graphics are buffered in memory for quick retrieval (so that reViSiT only has to draw what has changed). The pattern, for example, is one big offscreen bitmap. The math:

64 tracks * 13 characters per track * 8 x 8 pixels per character * up to 256 rows =  6656 x 2048 pixels = 52 megabytes.

VST doesn't easily support anything other than 32-bit (4 byte) bitmaps, otherwise I could decrease it to 13mb.

Whilst implementing the pattern follow and post/pre pattern preview, even more memory is required and VST just gives up, so I'm in the midst of designing a new system for v0.89.5. It uses TrueType fonts instead of bitmap fonts, but there will still be an offscreen bitmap. Since TTF drawing is so much slower than bitmapping, the offscreen bitmap is even more critical - but since TTF characters can be larger than 8x8, it'll get even bigger. Too big, as it happens. So I have to work out some compromise between drawing performance and memory usage. It's not easy, but you shouldn't worry about such memory usage - especially when it's less than 3% of your total usage anyway.

Chris