Disabling high resolution in Reason 12.. Will it be possible?

[Seckin]

I'm testing high resolution these days. The thing that concerns me more than how well it works or not is the fact that I simply don't need it. And I don't definitely don't need it to eat up the valuable resources of my computer either. But I'm interested in the new features of 12 as well. So, will I be able to disable it (highly doubt) and keep using Reason 12? Or am I going to have stick with Reason 11?

[Oberlai]

If you're testing this (?) you'll know soon I guess, please let us know your conclusion

[Loque]

You won't be able to disable it and it won't make any sense. Just use it at 100% scaling and you are done.

[Oberlai]

Loque do you know if 100% equals old bitmaps, or is everything redone? I'm on vacation and can't test, just curious :p

[Loque]

Loque do you know if 100% equals old bitmaps, or is everything redone? I'm on vacation and can't test, just curious :p

They are redone, cleaner and have more details, especially in hires. Some knobs and sliders are modernized with more details too.

[Oberlai]

Thank you. I did have a very soft spot for the bitmaps, I just loved them a lot, but WOW the new look is incredible in that video, it does look way better. And let's not forget the biggest upside - we don't have to hear that whine anymore from the user base xD

[Seckin]

If you're testing this (?) you'll know soon I guess, please let us know your conclusion

By "testing", I meant I just downloaded Reason 12 like a regular Reason+ user lol. I'm not in the testing team or anything, sorry for the wrong wording.

My impression so far is that it is sloppy. Say I change scale to 120% and have to wait for like 30 seconds before it adjusts, until then everything is looking pixelated. Insert a new instrument to the rack and it looks pixelated for some time. Also, adding a new device to the rack takes longer than before, in comparison to the instant effect in prior versions.

[Seckin]

You won't be able to disable it and it won't make any sense. Just use it at 100% scaling and you are done.

I don't think that's right. I use it at 100% scaling and I'm not done. Takes an unneccessarily long while to insert a new device to the rack (just waited a good 10 seconds for an instance of Europa now) and the devices look pixelated for a little while until they adjust. I just don't need all that fuss for a feature I don't need and it makes sense to have an option to disable it. Otherwise it's an instant deal breaker for me.

[sonicbyte]

I guess is still a "beta" stage, probably this will be improved before the official release.... or at least I hope

[Yonatan]

Performance is ape shit after upgraded to Hi Res. Wont panic just yet though.

[Oberlai]

Performance is ape shit after upgraded to Hi Res. Wont panic just yet though.

Well that's not good, Reason has "always" run well on low-end systems, a significant performance hit will affect a lot of people.

[Billy+]

I don't think that's right. I use it at 100% scaling and I'm not done. Takes an unneccessarily long while to insert a new device to the rack (just waited a good 10 seconds for an instance of Europa now) and the devices look pixelated for a little while until they adjust. I just don't need all that fuss for a feature I don't need and it makes sense to have an option to disable it. Otherwise it's an instant deal breaker for me.

It's not really an option the graphics engine has been changed, the way Reason now produces the images is now different from previous versions.

The loading time and pixilation is due to the rescaling and should only be occurring once per device for the level that's set and I think the trade off is either that all your RE's are rescaled on first launch or via an option but that could take a long time and would need to be done every time the zoom level was changed or the individual RE's rescale when first used at the current zoom level either way is not ideal but nor is having every RE rebuilt to include every zoom level

But I do agree with you that it's not something that I was particularly concerned with and would be definitely turning it off if the option was available, I really don't spend much time looking at the devices and don't see the point to making them bigger or smaller or even being able to read the text on them.

They do look nice though and it's surprising the amount of detail that is actually there, but I want to make music not look at shiny things.

[Oberlai]

I just don't need all that fuss for a feature I don't need and it makes sense to have an option to disable it. Otherwise it's an instant deal breaker for me.

If it slows stuff down, sure I would very much like to have the option of using the old bitmaps too.

[TritoneAddiction]

Performance is ape shit after upgraded to Hi Res. Wont panic just yet though.

If that's the case, then that's really bad news. Could be a dealbreaker to not upgrade for me. Hopefully they'll sort it out.

[Yonatan]

Performance is ape shit after upgraded to Hi Res. Wont panic just yet though.

If that's the case, then that's really bad news. Could be a dealbreaker to not upgrade for me. Hopefully they'll sort it out.

It might be due to RAM handling is my guess. Memory issue. I only load one device and the computer cannot perform. Ok, it is with 8gb ram i5 macbook, but the concern is that I used to be able to do basic stuff in R11. It seems that the hi-res affect overall performence no matter if loaded in rack or not, that should be able to adjust for RS is my hope.

[bxbrkrz]

Just waiting for the real RS12 myself, but wondering if people with more ram (32 gig?) have less or no issues with the beta+

[INFEKT]

It's really strange, at the beginning when you load a synthesizer it'll look completely terrible, then it'll slowly load a better looking version for some reason. For the first 10 seconds, the filter section Europa had completely unreadable text, until it slowly rendered the elements... This feels like a weird anti-aliasing rather than an actual redesign with hi-res assets and it makes it very hard to look at and use in my opinion.

I mean look at this:

[artotaku]

It's really strange, at the beginning when you load a synthesizer it'll look completely terrible, then it'll slowly load a better looking version for some reason. For the first 10 seconds, the filter section Europa had completely unreadable text, until it slowly rendered the elements... This feels like a weird anti-aliasing rather than an actual redesign with hi-res assets and it makes it very hard to look at and use in my opinion.

I mean look at this:

This is intentional, see the blog post by RS, the calculations for the rendering of the device bitmaps are done in a background thread. When it´s done the bitmaps will be saved in a cache folder on hard disk and when you drag the device a second time or open the Reason document a second time it will be taken from the cache and it will look good right away.
That said, there are still issues (at least on my side and others reported as well) e. g. that dragging a device into the rack takes notably longer than in R11.

[Billy+]

It's really strange, at the beginning when you load a synthesizer it'll look completely terrible, then it'll slowly load a better looking version for some reason. For the first 10 seconds, the filter section Europa had completely unreadable text, until it slowly rendered the elements... This feels like a weird anti-aliasing rather than an actual redesign with hi-res assets and it makes it very hard to look at and use in my opinion.

I mean look at this:

This is intentional, though I think we can get it even faster in future updates. Basically we're scaling each hi-res asset to suit your zoom level, OS zoom setting, screen, pixel density etc. when needed. To not cause any issues (glitches, hangs, etc.) while you're making music, this is done with low priority in the background while you see a roughly scaled preview. It then "switches in" when done. Kind of like the time stretch preview in the sequencer. Once it's scaled, we cache the images so you only need to do it once for your zoom level of choice.

The dev team is looking at how fast we can make that without interrupting anything else, but for now it's a one-time thing that at least came from a nice place: us trying to not cause issues when you're making music.

That's what Mattias said!