An update to Windows 10 is on the way, and it looks like one of its features will be of direct benefit to DAW users.
We’re referring to a raising of the FLS (Fiber Local Storage) slot allocation ceiling. We won’t pretend to know exactly what this is and how it works, so we’ll allow Microsoft to explain.
“As PCs get more powerful, musicians have created increasingly complex projects with more tracks, more instruments, and deeper effects chains,” says the company on its website. “As a result, some of those musicians were running up against a FLS (Fiber Local Storage) slot allocation ceiling that prevented them from loading into their DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) as many unique plugins as they’d like.
“This build [18312] greatly raises that per-process FLS slot allocation ceiling, allowing loading potentially thousands of unique plugins. Beyond musicians, this change will positively impact any application that dynamically loads hundreds or thousands of unique DLLs that have statically-linked Visual C++ runtimes, or otherwise allocate FLS slots.”
Of course, you’ll still be limited by the power of your PC, but anything that facilitates higher instrument and effect counts is sure to go down well with plugin-hungry producers.
The build is currently in the hands of Windows Insiders, who are testing it, but we’re assuming that this and the other improvements will be rolled out to all users in due course. Find out more on the Microsoft website.
