Popular Post CJH Posted March 12, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 12, 2018 Haven't seen a thread on Process Lasso (PL) so hoping knowledgable users can share their experiences and give some recommendations to us novice computer based music lovers. Quite a few comphiles use this program from Bitsum (available in a free or a upgrade pay Pro version--I use the free) to automatically help keep their dedicated music computer and servers responsive during high CPU use (HQPlayer, Roon, etc...). It also can be adjusted manually allowing a wide assortment of tweakability. Check out their website to see all the stuff it does. There seems to be a general belief that reducing the load on a CPU reduces noise in the computer/server and improves sound. It is also accepted by many that upsampling in PCM, DSD or PCM to DSD produces very good sound. Tough to reduce the load on your CPU when using DSP. I don't have much in the way of DSD music file so my only DSP is to upsample all my PCM to 705/768 using either JRiver or HQPlayer to good effect. It can be a heavy load on the CPU and this is where PL helps. It was recommended to me a few months back by a local audiophile with a nice sounding computer based system. I am absolutely not a computer guru, so I went at this just trying things that made sense to me for my system. Everyone's needs will be different depending on their CPU, music software and how they use it. Here is what I'm doing so far: Music and software is on a cheap HP refurb laptop with a 3720QM 2.6GHz quad core, 8GB ram, 250GB EVO860. This a low wattage processor so I get about 4 hours of quality listening using laptop battery power. Music files are on an external USB drive that I may be switching to a NAS in the near future. Connection is via wired LAN (blue Jean) into a LAN switch then on to a uRendu/IsoRegen combo to a iDSD Black. All are powered via battery+regulation. I approach this looking at CPU usage (a quad core processor will have 8 single CPUs available--dual core will have 4 CPUs), Priority Class, CPU Affinity, I/O Priority and Memory Priority: I open PL and look at what processes have the highest CPU usage percentage. Then determine if they are part of the playback music process. Examples are Music software, PL, Fidelizer, AO and the LAN process, etc. For me JRiver or HQPLayer use the most processing so I give them a Real Time Priority Class, I/O Priority High, Memory Priority 5 and CPU Affinity of 4 CPUs (0,1,2,3). PL and Fidelizer have High Priority Class, I/O Priority High, Memory Priority High and share CPU Affinity core #4, NetGear LAN has Priority Class High, I/O Priority High, Memory Priority High and CPU Affinity core #4 and all other Windows processes have Priority Class Normal, I/O Priority Normal, Memory Priority 3 and CPU Affinity core # 5, 6, 7. With this distribution of the CPUs even with upsampling to 768 the CPU usage is only 5-8%. Play with these CPU configurations to get the overall CPU usage as low as possible. Note: One thing I tried was with no upsampling/DSP. With this configuration CPU usage is much lower and I put either the JRiver of HQPLayer on only 1 core by itself. With this config the sound had the best transient response I have heard in my system. Overall though I prefer upsampling. These are my current config and I play with them off and on looking for better sound. I would very much appreciate anyone with greater experience making suggestions as well as the experiences others have had with PL. Share your thoughts. Feel free to correct my usage of terms as it should be readily apparent I am no computer guru. Thanks for reading. CJH Solstice380, shahed99, Bufo Bill and 1 other 4 Link to comment
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