Ram, will more lower CPU usage at all?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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bytheriver
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Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:53 pm

Ram, will more lower CPU usage at all?

Post by bytheriver » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:07 pm

Hey,

I have a laptop-
P4 2.4
512mb ram
HDD is 5200/7200 i'm not sure which.


I find making music in live4 hard, mostly because I spend more time juggling CPU cycles than I do making the music itself. I use normaly two synths and two impulse kits, plus a loop or two i've rendered from a midi clip.

So, if I upgrade to 1gig ram, will it help ease the CPU, or will it make no difference since the CPU cant handle enough plugins to use the extra?

sqook
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Post by sqook » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:18 pm

Are you loading your clips into ram? Do you quit other applications before launching live? (well, when you want it to run -well-, anyways ;) ).

Fire up the windows task manager and see how much ram live is actually using. I doubt that live alone is going to touch all 512Mb of your memory, but sure, having more ram always helps. Personally, I've found that you'll get better performance out of a better soundcard rather than having ungodly amounts of ram, but this may not be the case for you, depending on your setup and system configuration.

Dogen
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Post by Dogen » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:45 pm

I have a P4 2.4 as well and I don't have nearly the CPU usage you're talking about. I'm a fairly new user of Live so my experiences with the program are limited. However, I've been working on a project with five to six VSTi's, 10-12 audio clips and a good number of send effects and clip envelopes and I'm not even hitting 50 percent CPU usage.

I do have 1 GB of RAM but that wouldn't make that big of a difference. I should mention that I'm not using any of the included plug-ins so maybe that's a factor. Anyway, more RAM is always a good idea but I'm not sure what's making your CPU usage so high.

Machinate
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Post by Machinate » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:52 pm

bytheriver, what does your live cpu-monitor read with this setup?
And is your music-pc also your internet-pc? have you checked for spyware and malware recently - those can really bog down a machine, afaik.
mbp 2.66, osx 10.6.8, 8GB ram.

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:14 pm

If you stream alot of your sounds from hard disk, then YES it will, in a way....

Adding more ram allows you to load audio clips INTO ram, and it takes less cpu in live to stream this audio from RAM than from HD.
Now, the cpu meter % won't drop, however you will be able go into higher %'s without glitching.
That is to say at 512 samples maybe now with your clips running from the HD, you can get to 85% before you start to hear drop outs. With those clips loaded into ram you may be able to get to 92% or above before hearing drop outs.

Generally, if you can afford to put more ram in your system - you should do it. The benefits aren't just seen in Live, but also at the system level.

bytheriver
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Post by bytheriver » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:18 pm

Thanks for the advice, I forgot to mention i'm also using an Maudio firewire audiophile, so the soundcard is decent with ASIO drivers, so I dont think that can be the problem.

Running the free 'Karnage' synth from the DVD of computer magazine, one impulse and a neodynium compression on the impluse I get an ableton CPU of 19% but the windows task manager says its more like 35-40%.


I'm not sure what the problem is exactly, it seems to be worse after i've been running the program a while.

I do use the laptop for everything, but i'm pretty anal about keeping it clean, I defrag once a week or so, reg scan and clean once a week, keep a firewall and antivirus up to date and active except when i'm using live.

Been playing about with the demo of 'fx teleport' to try and take some load of the laptop. At home my family has a desktop PC, and at uni my flat has lan in the five rooms...

maybe i'll talk my flatmates into running some remote plugins :lol:

randyh
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Post by randyh » Thu Mar 31, 2005 9:42 pm

Without simulating your exact setup I can't say for sure what the problem is but to me there are 2 possibilities.

1. Your cpu is overheating which is causing it to clock itself down to protect it from heat damage. A friend of mine had a p4 2.4 Sony laptop that overheated constantly because of a furball in the cpu heatsink. Try cleaning it out or running a temp utility or something like that. I think the topic has been covered thoroughly here before.

2. You're running very heavy hitting plugs. I'm not familiar with the ones you mentioned but I've demoed synths that could completely overwhelm my cpu with a single patch (Z3ta+ and Rhino to be specific). I'm very picky about the cpu hit of my plugins because, like you, I can't stand having to bounce tracks constanly because I've run out of juice.

I don't think more RAM will help you much. Like AdamJay said it might buy you a few % more before it starts to glitch out but it sounds like your problem is more serious.

The task manager always seems to display high numbers for Live. Just go with what Live says.

-r

mikemc
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Post by mikemc » Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:18 pm

Running the free 'Karnage' synth from the DVD of computer magazine, one impulse and a neodynium compression on the impluse I get an ableton CPU of 19% but the windows task manager says its more like 35-40%.
You shoiuld check out this thread http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... ance+chart

One thing to try to get a baseline/reality check is to download the perf test supplied most graciously by Mr. Jay and run it. Your CPU util should come in around the same readings as those on the chart for P4 2.4.

One thing it sounds like is that you may be using more CPU with your ASIO driver than you think. Check what the task manager indicates for CPU when you just start Live, no set loaded, and what Live's CPU meter indicates.
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.

bytheriver
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Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:53 pm

Post by bytheriver » Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:00 pm

Ok, heres the performance test on my laptop....

P4 2.4
512mb ram
40gig HDD

maudio audiophile/AC97 (no difference)

I get 42 or there abouts, jumps between 39 and 44 occasionaly.

I keep this laptop spotless, maintain it, tune it, tweak it, and care for it like a delicate child.


My familys desktop POS, used on the net 24/7 with no firewall, never defragged or tuned or anything in over six months....

athlonXP2200
256mb ram
30gig HDD

AC97 soundcard

Running performance test with all the gunk on it from my sisters use (msm/paltalk/yahoo/scannersoft/printsoft/etc)

31-32 very steady.

So, what the hells going on..?

Surely the laptop should blow the desktop out of the water, faster CPU, more ram (faster ram to I think, but not totaly sure), bigger HDD with the same speed, same soundcard, and all the TLC I give it...

klarky
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Post by klarky » Sun Apr 03, 2005 4:42 pm

you dont have stepspeed/anything similar set in bios, that clocks down the cpu to save battery power perhaps???

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:50 pm

make sure your power management is set to "Always On"

feyshay
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slow running

Post by feyshay » Sun Apr 03, 2005 7:04 pm

I assume you adjusted your buffer rate around to try to get some more speed?

bytheriver
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Post by bytheriver » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:04 am

Yeah, i've disabled all the power saving stuff, and I've adjusted latency up and down from 256 to 2000 and it doesn't seem to make any real difference.

Its very strange. I'd like to be able to buy a PC similar to the desktop specs, they are only £300 or so now, and use FXteleport or something to run all my heavy effects on it.

I dont need the extra power for DJing, just production, so its a thought for when I have some money.

feyshay
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Location: Annapolis, MD

driver

Post by feyshay » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:54 am

You have your ASIO driver selected on audio preferences, right?
I just ran what some consider a high CPU utilizer synthesizer (Operator) and Neodynium (demo) and the max CPU was 11%.
Maybe that synthesizer is not too CPU friendly.
I have a Pentium M 1.4 and 1GB, a relatively equivalent amount of computer power.

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