Taking a long time to open blank basic VST

Getting Started
1

Hi all,

I’m learning JUCE from scratch using this tutorial on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Iq4_Kd7Rc&t=762s

I’m using Windows 11 and I’ve done a bit of C++ and VS Code before but not much. I’ve hit a problem on my first run of the blank basic VST project, where the window showing “Hello World” is taking a very long time to open.

Specifically, in the output window, the program runs very quickly up until the line ‘Simple_EQ.exe’ (Win32): Loaded ‘C:\Windows\System32\ResourcePolicyClient.dll’.

and then it takes a very ling time for the next line to appear - ‘Simple_EQ.exe’ (Win32): Loaded ‘C:\Windows\System32\Windows.UI.dll’.

After this the rest of the process is very quick and the window opens. It’s getting stuck on this one step for about a minute. My computer is not particularly slow either as I got it specifically for running numerical calculations for my degree dissertation.

Any ideas on how I could speed up this one loading step?

Thanks very much,

John

2

A minute does sound excessive. Unfortunately I don’t remember seeing anything like this before. A few thoughts:

  • Sometimes antivirus can take a while to scan new programs. If the problem were due to antivirus, I’d expect the first launch to take longer than subsequent launches. If you run the program for a second time without first rebuilding, does the program open more quickly?
  • It sounds like you’re running under a debugger. It could be that the debugger is doing some unnecessary work, such as downloading debug symbols for system libraries, which might take a while. Does the program launch more quickly if you launch it normally (e.g. navigate to the build directory in File Explorer and double-click on the program).
3

Hi Reuk,

Thanks for your response. I’ve tried running the program a few different ways and timed them, in the following order:

Firstly opening the application from file explorer - 45s
Then using debug in VS - 55s
Then running without debug in VS - 20s
Then with debug a second time to check if it’s any faster - 50s
Then finally again from file explorer to compare - 45s

So it looks like debug is doing a lot of work somehow, but still even when not opening from VS Code?

4

This could be because of the kind of build you are making. Debug builds are significantly less optimized than release builds since they are made for.. well.. debugging.

Try to make a release build using VS and see if the performance improves.