Paul Riker

I was hoping someone could help debug my MAx/MSP/Jitter patch...

Thanks for helping! This instument is comprised of 32 sine waves, each of which moves indepentently. The sine waves are all overtones of the lowest sine. I'm trying to represent each overtone (sine wave) with a gl sphere. Each sphere takes x, y, and z values from the same numbers that govern each sine wave's panning, frequency, and amplitude respectively. I'm really just trying to visually represent what is going on musically. Originally, I was using 32 instances of gl.gridshape. The animation was working well, but my framerate was quite low (~10-15fps) on a very fast machine. With the advice of Andrew, I converted the patch so that it uses only 1 gridshape object in combination with a matrix. I believe I've assembled the patch correctly, as I can see my 32 spheres moving (very choppy) through space. However, I must have gotten off track somewhere because now, my whole system bottoms out, with nearly 0fps and frequent crashing. I've really tried to debug this thing myself, but I just can't figure it out. Any thoughts/advice are GREATLY appreciated!

Oh, by the way...Andrew's patch from Jitter recipes Book 1, patch 1, runs perfectly on this machine...~100fps with 10 dim (10 spheres), ~75fps with 32 dim.

The attached folder contains all patches necessary...the .mxb you'll want is Instrument1.mxb (and possibly Instrument1-no video.mxb).

If you can't access the zip file via this posting, please download from 

I really do appreciate your help with this...this is my first experience with Max/MSP, and with Jitter...I value your experience and expertise.

Thanks for helping!  This instument is comprised of 32 sine waves, each of which moves indepentently.  The sine waves are all overtones of the lowest sine. I'm trying to represent each overtone (sine wave) with a gl sphere.  Each sphere takes x, y, and z values from the same numbers that govern each sine wave's panning, frequency, and amplitude respectively.  I'm really just trying to visually represent what is going on musically.  Originally, I was using 32 instances of gl.gridshape.  The animation was working well, but my framerate was quite low (~10-15fps) on a very fast machine.  With the advice of Andrew, I converted the patch so that it uses only 1 gridshape object in combination with a matrix.  I believe I've assembled the patch correctly, as I can see my 32 spheres moving (very choppy) through space.  However, I must have gotten off track somewhere because now, my whole system bottoms out, with nearly 0fps and frequent crashing. I've really tried to debug this thing myself, but I just can't figure it out.  Any thoughts/advice are GREATLY appreciated!  

Oh, by the way...Andrew's patch from Jitter recipes Book 1, patch 1, runs perfectly on this machine...~100fps with 10 dim (10 spheres), ~75fps with 32 dim. 

If you can't access the zip file via this posting, please download from http://www.sharp9.com/DL/Effluvium.zip

problems-with-opengl-probably-only-with-my-brain

Hi Paul, I've had a look at your patch (instrument1) but there seems nothing

wrong on my machine. I'm running the patch at 90fps with audio turned on,

and my cpu is at 50% and I don't even have a really fast computer:-)

(pentium m1.86, nvidia 6800). I suspect there is something else going on

with your system. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Hi Paul, I've had a look at your patch (instrument1) but there seems nothing
wrong on my machine. I'm running the patch at 90fps with audio turned on,
and my cpu is at 50% and I don't even have a really fast computer:-)
(pentium m1.86, nvidia 6800).  I suspect there is something else going on
with your system. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

The problem here is that every 10 ms you are sending a massive amount of 

setcell messages to your jit.matrix. For this sort of thing, using 

jit.poke~ would be the most efficient option. The other possibility 

would be to pak all your sphere data into a list and use 3 jit.fill 

objects to load your matrix. But since you are working with audio here, 

jit.poke~ will be the ideal solution. Here is an example of what one of 

Hope that gets you started in the right direction.

The problem here is that every 10 ms you are sending a massive amount of 
setcell messages to your jit.matrix.  For this sort of thing, using 
jit.poke~ would be the most efficient option.  The other possibility 
would be to pak all your sphere data into a list and use 3 jit.fill 
objects to load your matrix.  But since you are working with audio here, 
jit.poke~ will be the ideal solution.  Here is an example of what one of 
your modules would look like:

Hope that gets you started in the right direction.
Cheers,
Andrew B.


I incorporated jit.poke~ in place of all of the setcell messages...it works better this way, but I'm still looking at a frame rate of about 10fps, even with only 1 sphere/1 dim...

Try removing the number boxes,trigger buttons, and snapshot~ objects 

This will probably give you a good performance boost.

Hi Paul,
Try removing the number boxes,trigger buttons, and snapshot~ objects 
that aren't necessary.
This will probably give you a good performance boost.

and replace those 32 send~/receive~ pairs with plain send/receive. 

here that alone almost doubled the framerate.

fredrikolofsson.com klippav.org musicalfieldsforever.com

and replace those 32 send~/receive~ pairs with plain send/receive.  
here that alone almost doubled the framerate.
_f0

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      fredrikolofsson.com     klippav.org     musicalfieldsforever.com
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Thanks! Your advice is greatly appreciated.

Problems with OpenGl (probably only with my brain)