Dwarf Fortress Remote now supports DF 0.47.05

February 23, 2023

After a long wait I'm happy to finally announce that Dwarf Fortress Remote iOS app and server plugin have recently been updated to support Dwarf Fortress version 0.47.05, and active development is resumed on the project.

The update also brings support for a bunch of game features and screens that were missing before. Most notably, this includes world info screens. Although unfortunately there's still no world map display, you can now view world sites, check the latest news, manage and start new missions.

Other new features include support for guildhalls, interrogations, sending units away, site-wide occupations, display of location values, better support for all petition types, viewing mission/spoils/tribute/interrogation reports, and more.

Another big change is introduction of unit and item transparency, and workshop background - features some of you using TWBT on desktop may know for a while now. They allow you to see floor tiles behind units, items and buildings, and at the same time, add background to all workshop/furnace tiles so that they are easier to see.

As it's been quite some time since 0.47.05 was released, support for older DF versions has been removed from Remote. This means that after updating the app, you will need to manually download a new Remote package and transfer your save files (located in data/save folder). You can also copy data/init/remote.txt file to retain the same Remote settings without having to configure it again. Server subscription games have been all updated to the latest version.

I have already fixed a few bugs discovered after the release, but unfortunately there may be more, so I want to thank everyone for your patience and support, and please let me know about any issues with your game or server subscription via email.

Strike the Earth!

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August 6, 2021

Not much is happening here at the moment. For miRack news visit its own page.

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miRack AU plugin for Ableton Live, FL Studio and other macOS DAWs

September 3, 2020

miRack for macOS that's available from the Mac App Store already includes an AUv3 plugin. Unfortunately, not many DAWs support loading v3 audio units yet (Logic Pro, Garage Band, Reaper, LUNA and some others do).

Today I'm happy to annouce the release of miRack Legacy AU - a version that's compatible with all macOS DAWs able to load audio units. This includes Ableton Live, FL Studio, MOTU Digital Performer, PreSonus Studio One and others.

miRack Legacy AU can be used as an instrument or an effect, supports up to 16 input/output channels and all the features of miRack and AUv3 plugin, including presets, MIDI, parameter recording and automation, and excellent performance allowing you to use many instances of miRack in your project.

Note: miRack application and AU plugins require macOS 10.15 (Catalina).

Installation Instructions

Download and install miRack app and Legacy AU package using the two links below.

miRack Legacy AU

That's all, you should see miRack Legacy and miRack FX Legacy audio units (and their 16-channel variants) in your favourite DAW. As this is the first release, if anything is wrong, please let me know.

And of course, if you did not know, miRack is available on iOS devices, too.

#miRack
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miRack 3.50 is out with multi-channel audio, MIDI out and new modules

August 25, 2020

miRack 3.50 adds two probably most requested features - MIDI output and multi-channel audio IO - as well as new modules and other improvements.

       

Multi-channel audio

miRack now supports up to 16 input/output channels in standalone, AUv3 instrument and AUv3 effect modes, both on iOS and macOS. There are new 8- and 16-channel audio IO modules, and number of channels of audio modules in existing patches can be changed from their module menus.

In particular, Expert Sleepers ES-8/ES-9 audio interfaces and expanders are now fully supported, and allow to integrate miRack and hardware Eurorack equipment. Expert Sleepers encoders for use with ES-5, ES-40, ESX-8GT and ESX-8CV modules are also available.

MIDI output

There are 3 new MIDI output modules, and new versions of MIDI CC and Trigger input modules.

MIDI out works via CoreMIDI, Audiobus and AUv3. For AUv3, a dedicated MIDI Processor AU type is also available.

Modules

Added bId°° (Bidoo) module pack. It's a great collection of modules with weird names by Sébastien Bouffier, including several powerful sequencers - perfect for use with the new MIDI out functionality.

Valley module pack updated to the latest version. New module Feline - stereo version of a filter section from Interzone module.

Added an option to Host Sync module menu to change clock output rate (instead of a fixed BEAT output). This can also be used for connection to Clocked module for more reliable timing. Set CLOCK output to Beat / 4 or Beat / 8, connect to BPM input of Clocked, and set Clocked mode to P4 or P8 accordingly.

Fixed an issue with Frozen Wasteland Quad Algorithmic Rhythm module, it's now working properly.

For MIDI keyboards that do not support per-note aftertouch but support channel pressure, it will be used for AFT output of MIDI module.

Other

Added SHIFT toolbar button to access secondary function of certain module controls. It's used in number of new Bidoo modules, in Squinky Labs mixer to solo multiple channels, and other places in the future.

Improved rendering of lights and some module controls.

Added keyboard shortcuts to macOS version to zoom when no trackpad is present.

#miRack
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Details and comparison of miRack and VCV Rack multithreading implementation and performance

June 9, 2020

I implemented multitheading for miRack audio engine back in 2018 when it was a project targeting single-board computers because with slower CPUs it's essentially a requirement to be able to run any decently-sized patches. The implementation (available here and is used in miRack app with minor modifications) is based on idea of having arrays for module input and output values, and a lock-free concurrent work queue implementation by Cameron Desrochers.

For each rendering cycle, say 512 samples (steps), all rack modules are pushed into to a work queue, also with start and end steps to process (so initially that is 1 to 512), then worker threads are woken up. The worker threads dequeue modules from the work queue and check that values for the step being processed are present for all module inputs (for disconnected inputs this is always true). If all values are available, the module is processed and output values are saved straight in input arrays of modules connected to each output for the next step number. The process continues until the end step is reached or until any of the input values are not available, in which case the module is pushed back into the work queue (updating the start step if needed) and another module is pulled from the work queue. Once there is no more modules in the work queue, the workers pause, and the rendering cycle completes. This implementation ensures that workers don't wait unless they have to.

Until recently I never looked at the multithreading implementation that later appeared in VCV Rack (available here), but wanted to run some benchmarks at some point.

During normal opearation, VCV Rack implementation uses spinlocks only. For each step in a rendering cycle, workers process only that single step for each module. Once there are no more modules for a worker to pick up, it will spinwait until all workers have finished, then values are transferred from outputs to connected inputs, and the workers are woken up to process the next single step. This implementation causes the workers to wait a lot instead of possibly processing next steps for some modules.

Now to the benchmark. I used the current miRack code and the latest VCV Rack code. All graphics rendering was disabled, as well as audio output. For VCV Rack, updating port lights was also disabled - it involves a lot of computations that substantially affect the results while not being related to audio processing.

The audio engines were told to process 1024 samples (steps) as fast as they can, and it was repeated 1000 times for a single thread then for 2, 3, and 4 worker threads. The tests were performed on a CPU with 4 physical cores. The following patches (by VCV Rack Ideas were used):

1st Patch Results

ThreadsmiRack TimemiRack %VCV Rack TimeVCV Rack %Ideal %
14242ms100.00%6313ms100.00%100.00%
22236ms52.71%5179ms82.04%50.00%
31620ms38.19%4604ms72.93%33.33%
41341ms31.61%4312ms68.30%25.00%

2nd Patch Results

ThreadsmiRack TimemiRack %VCV Rack TimeVCV Rack %Ideal %
14904ms100.00%6203ms100.00%100.00%
23054ms62.28%4944ms79.70%50.00%
32575ms52.51%4578ms73.80%33.33%
42357ms48.06%4455ms71.82%25.00%

"%" column shows time difference to the single-threaded case, and "Ideal %" shows the best theoretically achievable improvement of N times for N threads.

Also I should note that initially it was about comparing multithreaded speed increase, not absolute values (at least because miRack and VCV Rack use different versions of some of the patch modules), but absolute values turned out to be quite interesting as well. As I mentioned above, port lights update code adds about another second to VCV Rack results.

#miRack #VCVRack
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miRack AU plugin is now available on macOS

June 8, 2020

miRack AU plugin is now available in Reaper, Logic Pro and GarageBand on macOS 10.15 (Catalina). Unfortunately, other DAWs don't seem to support it currently.

#miRack
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miRack AUv3 plugin is now available

May 29, 2020

The wait is over, miRack AUv3 plugin is now available in your favourite host app or DAW. Can be used as an instrument or effect, and supports parameter automation. Enjoy!

#miRack
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miRack is now available on macOS 10.15

May 27, 2020

Many users asked for a way to work on their miRack projects on desktop, too. Initially I was planning to support exporting to and opening patches made in VCV Rack, but that does not seem to be achievable at the moment. Therefore, miRack is now also available as a free macOS app.

It contains all the same modules, supports Core MIDI and Ableton Link, and can open patches directly from miRack iCloud folder.

Several things to mention:

  • Although miRack supports opening a patch (located on iCloud) on multiple devices at the same time, I noticed that the "patch changed remotely" notifications that are displayed when the patch is changed on another device are a bit too annoying at the moment. This will be fixed in the next update, until then I recommend closing the app before opening the same patch on another device.

  • Currently, external assets, like samples loaded into certain modules, are not saved inside patch file. Therefore, when opening a patch with such modules on macOS after iOS (or the other way round), you will need to re-open assets in the modules using them. Asset management will be improved in the near future to solve this problems.

  • In general, it received much less testing than the iOS app, please report any issues you notice.

As it is essentially the iOS miRack app built for desktop, it requires macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later to work.

#miRack
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Patch management functionality overhaul in miRack 2.11

May 19, 2020

Another update while finishing the last bits for the upcoming AUv3 release.

APP FEATURES

  • This build overhauls patch management functionality. Instead of a system document browser and non-conditional autosaving, there's now a more desktop-like open/save/revert and duplicate/rename functionality.

    Don't worry, miRack still does auto-save your work, but the last manually saved patch version is also preserved and can be reverted to.

  • Support for custom patch templates. Just place a patch in Templates folder inside miRack documents folder and it will be displayed on the new Create Patch from Template screen.

BUG FIXES

  • Fixed a freeze when closing/saving patch on some of the newer iOS devices.

  • Fixed a crash when using miRack with Studiomux IAA host app.

  • Fixed trigger mode not preserved in Holonic Systems Gaps module (may also fix other rare cases of module parameters not being preserved).

  • Fixed mute and solo buttons not working in Squinky Labs Mixer-8 module.

#miRack
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Multi-touch, Ableton Link, new modules, and more in miRack 2.10

April 30, 2020

It's been a while since the last miRack update, that's because I was working on several big features - AUv3, multitouch, variable sample rate support, and also Metal rendering (this one is almost not noticeable for users users but is quite important going forward).

AUv3 is already being tested by the beta testers and is looking good, with last bits and pieces left to be done. In the meanwhile, here's an update with everything else. There will be another one with some more fixes, and then AUv3.

App Features

  • Multi-touch. Enable in Tools menu to operate multiple knobs or other module controls at the same time.

  • Ableton Link support. Enable in Tools menu and use Stellare Modular Link module to synchronize your patch with other Link-enabled apps, including IAA host apps.

  • Variable sample rate. Audio engine now works at hardware sample rate. Preferred sample rate can be set in Tools -> Settings.

  • Metal rendering. This should reduce CPU usage and battery consumption.

Modules

  • Updated Audible Instruments module pack. Added Percussive Synthesizer (based on Mutable Instruments Peaks) and Tidal Modulator 2 (based on Mutable Instruments Tides 2) modules.

  • Updated Befaco, Frozen Wasteland, Squinky and Holonic Systems module packs.

  • Added MI module pack - based on AS modules by Alfredo Santamaria (hakken.com.mx)

  • Added Valley Amalgam (signal masher and multipler) and Dexter (powerful FM wavetable oscillator in a single module).

  • Bogaudio spectre analyser modules are available again.

  • Submarine text display modules are available now.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed some modules not showing under "Filter/VCF" tag.
#miRack
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