Preallocated apps

Keep an application running continuously on your streamer machine with E3DS Stream Host, so viewers connect to something already started instead of waiting for it to boot.

Normally a session starts your app when someone opens the link, and they wait through the launch. With preallocation the app is already running, and the first thing they wait for is the connection — a few seconds rather than the whole cold start.

Whether you want this

It is a trade, not an improvement. You are buying the wait time back by paying for a machine that runs whether or not anybody is watching.

Worth it

Turn it on when

A live demo or event where the first impression is the point; a public-facing experience people arrive at unprompted; anything used often enough that the machine is rarely idle anyway.

Leave it off when

Usage is occasional or bursty, or the app is one of several sharing a machine. With preallocation on, the machine serves only this one app, one session at a time. You would be paying continuously for a wait that happens a few times a day.

Configure it

  1. Add the preallocation settings to config_EL.json

    Four keys, naming which app to keep running, which of its configurations to use, and the API key of the account it belongs to: 

    {
  "preAllocateApp_configurationName": "default",
  "preAllocateApp_name": "MyProject",
  "preAllocateApps": true,
  "apiKey": "your_api_key_here"
}

    preAllocateApp_name is the application, and preAllocateApp_configurationName is which of its configurations to run — both as they appear in the Control Panel. Save the file.

    The app must be your own. The owner is taken from the account the API key belongs to, so a preAllocateApp_owner key is ignored when an API key is present — another account's app, such as a demo, cannot be preallocated with your key.

  2. Launch EL.exe

    Stream Host starts the application immediately rather than waiting for a viewer, and keeps it running.

You will know it worked when

Opening the streaming URL connects in a few seconds, with no launch phase. If you still see the app starting, Stream Host did not pick up the configuration — check the app and configuration names match the Control Panel exactly, and that the app belongs to the account of the API key.

While it is running

Preallocated apps explainedWatch on YouTube

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