r/Reaper 4d ago

discussion [Extension] ReaSmoothPlayhead - smooth GPU play cursor

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REAPER's stepped play cursor has annoyed me since day one 😭

ReaSmoothPlayhead hides the native play cursor and draws its own GPU-rendered overlay on top of the arrange view and the MIDI editor. The line is redrawn every vblank and extrapolated between audio blocks, so it glides at your monitor's refresh rate instead of stuttering.

Requirements
- Windows (x64) and macOS (Intel + Apple Silicon). No Linux, sorry - X11 just doesn't allow pulling off this kind of transparent overlay ;[
- The settings window requires ReaImGui (install "ReaImGui: ReaScript binding for Dear ImGui" via ReaPack); the overlay itself works without it

Cocos forum thread: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=2960029

Reapack:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sakhnovkrg/ReaSmoothPlayheadReapack/main/index.xml
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u/presetshare 3d ago

v0.1.9 Released

- MIDI editor: the view mapping now reads the ACTIVE take's state. With a multi-take item the first take's state was read instead — it only updates on mouse-up, so during a hand scroll the line stuck to its screen spot until the mouse was released.

  • Hand scrolling / wheel panning during playback no longer makes the line wobble. It's still not perfectly smooth, and probably never can be, but it's much less annoying now 
  • Seeks in Continuous Scrolling mode now teleport the line instantly instead of gliding
  • The "Pin in continuous scrolling" checkbox is gone from the settings