Hi guys, hope you can help.

So I am receiving packets via OSC that are one of 32 different messages, generally receiving multiple different messages at once, using routeOSC. These then get sent to one of 32 individual subpatches, one for every outlet on the routeOSC object.

The issue is that there's a ton of cpu load because of all these subpatches (readsf~ and dac~ in each, as well as a bunch of random/makefilename/other objects), and I don't actually need all 32 at once - probably half that number, max. I've been trying to work out a way of routing the messages coming out of routeOSC so that they go to a subpatch that isn't currently being used, but I can't figure out how to check whether a subpatch is 'free' or not. Any thoughts would be warmly received!

Thanks

there are lots of ways to do this, but here's what i'd do:

firstly, i'd put put the 32 subpatches in serial, joining each one with [inlet] and [outlet] objects. So, my mother patch would look like:

[pd reader]
|
[pd reader]
|
[pd reader]
|
[pd reader]

etc...

so then, every [pd reader] would contain my readsf~ and dac~ objects, and also contain a [switch~] object, to turn off DSP in the subpatch while idle. [switch~] accepts a 0 or 1 for off/on behaviour, so when a new file is loaded, i would also send a value of 1 to the switch~ object. When the file finishes playing, readsf~ outputs a bang on its right outlet, so i can use that to trigger a 0 message to turn off the switch~ object too.
Those same 0 and 1 messages i'm sending to switch~, i can also use to determine the state of the subpatch. 1 means it's busy and 0 means it's free. So, i would send those messages to the right inlet of a [f ] object.

So now i have pretty much everything i need, and all that remains is to incorporate a mechanism for 'checking' the state of each subpatch. Hopefully you can imagine what to do, but basically, if a subpatch receives a filename through its [inlet], it would first bang that [f ] object. If the [f ] outputs a 0, then the subpatch is free, and the filename can be passed on the load the readsf. If the [f ] outputs a 1, then the subpatch is busy, and the filename would be passed on to the next subpatch, via the [outlet].

hope that makes sense?

Ah, this is extremely helpful, and totally worked! Thanks so much for your help!