The Effect of Random-Access Memory Capacity on the Performance of FL Studio (Fruity Loops) on Laptops

Abstract

This study discusses the effect of RAM capacity on FL Studio performance on laptop devices. This study was conducted by dividing 3 different RAM configurations (32GB, 16GB, & 8GB) to be tested one by one. This study conducted an artificial experiment by creating a music project and dividing it into two variations in the form of native and third-party software plugins to see the difference in workload and the RAM requirements for each project in FL Studio. Performance data was measured from three scenarios (load, playback, and render). It was found that the third-party project (based on a large sample library) that had been created required approximately 25GB of RAM to run optimally. With a 32GB RAM configuration, the render duration was 135.0s and the load duration was 113s. In the playback scenario, the project ran optimally and CPU usage was below 50%. With a 16GB configuration, playback was possible but experienced a bottleneck as seen from the SSD read activity (average) increasing to 16.8 MB/s. The rendering process was also successful, but slower at 154.3 seconds. In the 8GB configuration, there was a performance failure in the load scenario (305 seconds), making it impossible to proceed to the playback and real-time rendering scenarios. In contrast, the native project (synthesizer) required approximately 9.4GB of RAM with rendering in 67.3 seconds. This study concluded that RAM requirements affect projects with third-party plugins (especially those based on large sample libraries).