Under “Resampling Quality,” I recommend using 2-point linear while you’re creating your project, and using the higher settings, up to 512-point sync, when rendering or exporting your files. If we continue further down the Audio Options page, you’ll see the “Mixer” section.
You still have to turn it on through the drop down menu of each individual plugin, or go to “Tools,” “Macros,” and select “Switch Smart Disable For All Plugins.” Selecting this option here, will only enable the use in general. This allows you automatically turn off plugins when they are not in use. “Smart Disable” was a game changer when this was introduced in previous versions of FL Studio. I won’t get into detail about what it does exactly, but it helps with CPU efficiency. The two “Multithreaded” options allow your CPU to use multithreading, which is a common feature for modern CPU processors.
These two options also help the buffer by processing directly from the selected driver and giving a slight increase of latency to smooth out any additional pops and clicks.įurther down the Audio Options page, you’ll notice a section that says “CPU.” You might have noticed that I have “Mix in buffer Switch” and “Triple Buffer” selected. 44100 is CD quality, so you’re more than fine using that. You’ll notice that some third party plugins, like Omnisphere, can’t even operate any higher than 48000, so in that case it isn’t even an option to go any higher. You’ll barely hear a difference, if at all, when increasing this, so it’s not worth the CPU usage. I recommend keeping your project at 44100 because this is the same quality that your final audio will be rendered to in the first place.
So if you’re using a midi controller, you’ll notice that when you move a control, these will respond slower than before with the lower buffer size. One thing to note is that when you increase the buffer size, you increase the latency in the project. This is the same project as before, just with the increased buffer size. By switching to the FL Studio ASIO driver and increasing the buffer length to 2048, I was able to dramatically decrease the CPU usage. Recently, FL Studio has created their own driver called FL Studio ASIO, which I found performs on par, if not better than the ASIO4ALL driver.
In the past, I would recommend downloading and installing the ASIO4ALL driver, which is also an option when you install FL Studio. You can find this option by going to the main tool bar and selecting “Options” and clicking “Audio Settings.” There, you’ll see your Input/Output Device. The quick fix for this is changing the buffer length on your selected soundcard. This is the most common scenario when dealing with optimization issues.
In the example above, I’m merely using a quarter of a single GB, yet my CPU usage is clocked out at full capacity. Most projects won’t use more than 1GB of RAM. I personally have never used or even seen anyone use more than 2.5GB in an FL Studio project. They recommend having at least 4GB of RAM or more, not 8.
The minimum requirements are listed here on Image Line’s official website. These same people will recommend that you have 8GB of RAM or more.
Many people will tell you that you need to upgrade your RAM. Well, one thing you should notice right away is the difference between the CPU usage (the red bar that says 100) and the RAM usage (251MB). Are you tired of hearing pops, clicks and static when you play your beat? Does your CPU usage bar look like this?