Ableton Forum

h4nc0 wrote:Just upgraded to i7 920 and overclocked it a bit.

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 11%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Desktop, custom built
3) Operating System? Win 7 64bit Ultimate
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.5
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? i7 920 @ 4.2Ghz
6) Amount of Ram? 6GB 1600mhz DDR3
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Prismound Orpheus
8.) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 RPM
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

maniac!!!!! wow...good stuff though

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 28%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model: Desktop (Self Assembled)
3) Operating System: WinXP SP2
4) Ableton Live version: 7.015
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed: Intel, Q6600, 2.4ghz
6) Amount of Ram: 2GB
7) Soundcard: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 , driver ver1.5
8.) Hard Disk Drive Speed: 7200
9) Number of playback tracks: 8

1. Ableton Live CPU Meter 26%
2. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Desktop, Custom Built, MB Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
3. Operating System? Windows 7 RC 32bit
4. Ableton Live version? 8.0.5
5. CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4 GHz)
6. Amount of Ram? 4 GB
7. Soundcard (and driver version)? Echo Gina 3G (driver v8.2.0.0 in ASIO mode)
8. Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 RPM
9. Number of playback tracks? 8

Wow, I just upgraded my macbook pro from a 2.16Ghz to a 2.8 Ghz and am very impressed by the increase in power.

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % : 49%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro
3) Operating System? OSX 10.5.8
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.5
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.8 GHZ C2D
6) Amount of Ram? 4gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Internal
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 5,400 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

My performace test with my previous machine was some in the high 60's, almost 70% on this test, but here's the interesting thing: On my 2.16 Ghz macbook pro, when I duplicated the tracks in this test, I could comfortably play 10 tracks without glitches. The 11th one would glitch slightly and then play smooth. On my new 2.8 Ghz macbook pro, I can comfortably run 16 of the tracks in this test without glitch. The 17th one has an initial glitch and plays smooth. And I'm not even running coolbook anymore, which really helped before squeeze and extra track or two out. Quite a nice improvement!

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % : 48%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro
3) Operating System? OSX 10.6.1
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.5
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.4 GHZ C2D
6) Amount of Ram? 2gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Internal
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7,200 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

@glitchrock-buddha - get snow leopard - your machine should perform way better than mine...

Rave wrote:

glitchrock-buddha wrote:Wow, I just upgraded my macbook pro from a 2.16Ghz to a 2.8 Ghz and am very impressed by the increase in power.

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % : 49%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro
3) Operating System? OSX 10.5.8
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.5
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.8 GHZ C2D
6) Amount of Ram? 4gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Internal
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 5,400 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

My performace test with my previous machine was some in the high 60's, almost 70% on this test, but here's the interesting thing: On my 2.16 Ghz macbook pro, when I duplicated the tracks in this test, I could comfortably play 10 tracks without glitches. The 11th one would glitch slightly and then play smooth. On my new 2.8 Ghz macbook pro, I can comfortably run 16 of the tracks in this test without glitch. The 17th one has an initial glitch and plays smooth. And I'm not even running coolbook anymore, which really helped before squeeze and extra track or two out. Quite a nice improvement!

Sounds great, u sure you got the same buffer size(as a sanity check)?

TBH I am holding out for quad core now. It could be a long wait

Definitely the same settings. Can't quite remember the cpu% of my old macbook, maybe it was around 65%. But the real test is in how many you can load without dropouts and that was definitely the 11th track before. Now it's the 17th track. So that's pretty great.

jhartford wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % : 48%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro
3) Operating System? OSX 10.6.1
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.5
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.4 GHZ C2D
6) Amount of Ram? 2gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Internal
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7,200 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

@glitchrock-buddha - get snow leopard - your machine should perform way better than mine...

Ya I'll get snow leopard soon enough, not in huge rush though. I didn't think it increased cpu efficiency though. I didn't want to do it at the same time as upgrading my computer though. Wanted to know exactly how each upgrade affected everything (Hardware and software). And want to sure everything work. Some things I'm not sure of yet...

1 ) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 56
2 ) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? - Laptop, Apple MacBook Pro
3 ) Operating System? - OS X 10.6.1
4 ) Ableton Live version? Live 8.0.8
5 ) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? - Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.2Ghz
6 ) Amount of Ram? - 2GB 667Mhz
7 ) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? - MOTU Ultralite
8 ) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 5400 RPM SATA
9 ) Number of playback tracks? 8

For comparison I got the same result +/- 1% CPU with:
OS X 10.5.6 w/ L8.0.1
OS X 10.8.1 w/ L8.0.4
OS X 10.6.1 w/ L8.0.8
i.e. no difference moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard...

man'X wrote:Hi everybody, my first post here

1. Ableton Live CPU Meter 43-45 %
2. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Desktop iMac 24"
3. Operating System? Mac OS 10,5,6
4. Ableton Live version? 8.0.1
5. CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel C2D 3,06 Ghz
6. Amount of Ram? 4 GB
7. Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Edirol FA-66
8. Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? i don't know
9. Number of playback tracks? 8

These results give me one more reason to buy 27" i7 iMac...
The reason is that my existing iMac (2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo) gives me steady performance of 49% - not a great deal less than 3.06GHz iMacs - i7s halve that and Ableton Live performance (%) is decreased by the factor of 2

1. Ableton Live CPU Meter 65%
2. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Apple MacBook
3. Operating System? Mac OS X 10.5.8
4. Ableton Live version? 8.0.8
5. CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 Ghz
6. Amount of Ram? 4 GB
7. Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? M-Audio fw 410
8. Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 5400 RPM
9. Number of playback tracks? 8

That is 10% more than what I get running the test on Live 7.0.16...

Oh wow I think mine is probably the slowest on here...

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 76 stabilised at 66
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Laptop - MacBook First Generation
3) Operating System? Windows XP SP2
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.8
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.0GHz Dual Core, Intel
6) Amount of Ram? 2Gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Mackie Onyx 410F driver 3.2.8
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? Fairly sure it is 5400rpm, possibly 4500rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 2!!!!!!!!!!!

For the record - when it played 8 tracks - in 143%
6 Tracks - 112%
4 tracks - 85% with heaps of glitches

The only reason I can think of why it is so slow is that I am running Windows on a Mac computer.
I highly doubt it is my soundcard, but I guess it is a distinct possibility.
Can anyone else relate to this?? I think I may just install Live on my OSX partition now.............

OK, so I installed Ableton on my OSX partition(which was way more efficient than on XP) and did the test again.

It was even worse than windows!

Even on 2 tracks it glitched out terribly it was at 105%

I am using OSX 10.5.5

Does anyone else use a Mackie Onyx 410F with Live????

@ mousetrapreplica

for better performance on OSX, update to 10.5.7 at least (10.5.8 now), i saw huge improvements with this version, because it seems Apple fixed the speedstep issue in this particular version
On the windows side, you got to set your energy settings in Power Schemes to "desktop computer" or "Always running" something like that...
Do that and test again......

Now on Win 7
same like XP SP3 for me

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 24
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Laptop - Selfbuilt Desktop (Asus MB)
3) Operating System? Win 7 Professional
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.8
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Q6600 - 2,4 Ghz
6) Amount of Ram? 3 Gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? RME Hammerfall Multiface I via Cardbus
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

Win 7 runs fine for me

@ commuter

Thanks for your suggestions, however I did all of that and the results were the same!

Can anyone else suggest some reasons why my computer has such a hard time with this test?

Could it have something to do with my HDD partitioning?