My songs load very slowly
If a song takes a long time to load, then this may be due to performance issues. Common causes are:
FAQ Knowledge Database Wiki HOME
- You are using a computer that does not meet the recommended system requirements for using VirtualDJ. Loading on old computers or on 'NetBook' computers will be slow due to the low performance of these systems.
- You are using a slow hard drive, or slow USB connection (Some older computers may only have USB 1.x ports instead of 2.0) If you are loading videos, these are very large files (Typically 10x the size of a normal MP3 audio file), so they will naturally take much longer to load. A 7200 RPM or faster drive and USB 2.x or better connection for external drives is recommended for videos.
- You are playing videos and have the 48Khz resampling option under CONFIG > Performances set to Quality rather than Fast. Depending on your computer's speed and performance, this may make a significant difference to the loading time with little noticeable difference in audio quality.
- The SpeedLoad setting, which can be toggled on/off in the registry - This option is designed to slow down loading on older slower computers to prevent sound break-up that could occur due to the processor being too busy while loading/analysing the song. Sometimes this can be triggered on more high-end computers, resulting in unnecessary slow loading.
- You are using an external hard drive that may have gone to sleep. This will cause a delay when you go to load a song from it, which can be anything from a few seconds to almost half a minute on some badly designed drives. If your external drive takes more than a few seconds to wake from sleep, you should replace it with a better quality and faster drive.
- You are loading a song that is longer than the "Don't pre-load files bigger than" setting, which can be found in CONFIG -> Performances. Songs that are longer than this will be streamed direct from disk, which may cause you problems if your disk is not fast enough to be able to keep up.
- The skin (User interface) has been resized or maximised. On some systems, this can cause increased CPU usage depending on the capabilities of the graphics card and whether fast or quality resizing has been chosen in CONFIG -> Performances (Quality will result in better quality resized graphics but higher CPU usage as a result.) Please either use the skin at its correct size or download and use a skin that better suits your screen resolution (You will need to purchase VirtualDJ to be able to download and use custom skins.)
- Viruses, spyware or malware may be present on your computer. Please ensure that your anti-virus software is fully up-to-date and run a full scan of all your disks.
- Other software/processes are running in the background and are slowing your computer down. Please see common PC or Mac performance issues.