NAM maxes CPU, xruns ad inifitum

Got everything running nicely on a RPI zero 2W and focusrite Scarlett solo running off the pi’s usb. I must stress again that everything works great with all other plugins. CPU is about 6%, RAM is about 40% and never pins. JACK is running at 48k/128/2 with no xruns. I am on all current versions and I’m using RT kernel.

When I pull a NAM instance into frame, everything appears to run fine. When I load a model everything appears to run fine. When I link NAM to inputs and outputs and audio passes, CPU pins to 100% and xruns stack up a couple hundred at a time until I remove the NAM instance.

Doesn’t happen with any other plugins, and this is not reproducible on my desktop version of modep.

Could this be related to the RT kernel? I’ve had similar issues on my pro audio computer with RT and JACK, but never triggered by one plug-in. So I’m at a loss here. Anyone have experience with this?

@3xogenic welcome to the community!

NAM uses a lot of cpu so I’m not surprised that you would get high cou usage on a Zero. Did you try the “buffered” mode of NAM? This option is not on the main interface, it’s accessible via the settings option on the plugin.

I would assume that even in buffered mode NAM might take most of the CPU of the zero. Let us know if that helps, I’d be curious how it runs in buffered mode.

I did try buffered and unbuffered, yeah.

I knew nam would be a cpu hog, I didn’t think it would pin the meter. This seems like something else, like some other issues I’ve had with plugins on my pro audio setup where xruns aren’t really generated from missing cycles or cpu power, but a problem with config. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. It could very well be that the zero 2w just can’t handle it, but I’m hoping it’s a config issue. Like I said, with all other plugins, cpu doesn’t get above 10%.

You could try changing sample rate, buffers, etc in jack and see if that helps but my opinion is it won’t help much. Even on my pi4 I had to run nam in buffered mode, especially once I added other plugins.

You could also try the aidax plugin, it takes less CPU but the trade off is less models exist for that plugin.

Yeah I was trying all different jack settings.

Alright bud, thanks for the help. Maybe I’ll try it on a 4 and see what happens.

If you’re going to invest in another pi I highly recommend the 5 with active cooler. Run Nam unbuffered with other plugins.

I have a 4 waiting, I haven’t thought yet about buying another one, not a huge fan of the company now. But I’ll keep the ones I have and put them to work.

Any other SBCs that patch box/model would run on that you know of? Unfortunately pi is probably the standard/best at the moment.

I know a couple of folks on this forum have tried to run modep with other boards but not sure how successful they were. @Giedrius would be able to tell you if any other board would work

Cool, maybe there’s hope then. Essentially I’m looking for a dedicated nam player, other effects are cool and useful but particularly nam is what I’m after. that’s why modep is such a great project, I like it better than guitarix at this point. It would also be cool to run it on a zero 2w since it’s so small and efficient, but perhaps it’s too weak for nam. What a shame. I found Dimehead, a dedicated hardware pedal built to run nam, but they are using a fast arm chip to do it, not a standard board it looks like. That kind of thing would be awesome to build at home.

There’s users running MODEP on Banana Pi or Orange Pi: Banana Pi/Orange Pi installation

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