Ableton 9 - How many cores / Ram does it support?

[theviewer1985]

Ok, so I am one happy customer now Ableton is FINALLY 64bit. I have had enough of my final stages of tune making being full of CPU glitches.

I am upgrading to a 64bit PC right now. But i have 2 offers on the table.

A quad core, 8 gig Ram
A six Core, 16 gig ram

My questions are in three individual parts,
Does Ableton 9 make use of every core i put in?
Does Ableton 9 make use of all the Ram?
Will these aspects improve the overall CPU readout on Ableton and if not, what does it improve?

Thanks

[DJWhizzkidd]

64 bit won't make any difference to "CPU glitches", unless of course you are actually running out of ram.

64 bit means the program can address an insane amount of RAM. 32 bit limit is around 4GB, 64 bit is around 1000GB or something crazy (I know that's not an accurate figure but you get my point. It's A LOT OF RAM).

As for multi core processing, that's down to Windows. Ableton will just use the CPU that it needs. It does support multi core processing, but not a set number. It's not like you can say "Ableton will use 8 cores guaranteed". It doesn't work like that. Windows decides how to allocate CPU usage between programs.

Again, being 64 bit will make virtually no impact on CPU usage. So you just want to get the most powerful CPU that you can afford. You could get 8 core and it maybe be that Ableton will never use more than three of them, simply because it doesn't need to. Depends on the complexity of your tracks I guess.

[theviewer1985]

64 bit won't make any difference to "CPU glitches", unless of course you are actually running out of ram.

64 bit means the program can address an insane amount of RAM. 32 bit limit is around 4GB, 64 bit is around 1000GB or something crazy (I know that's not an accurate figure but you get my point. It's A LOT OF RAM).

As for multi core processing, that's down to Windows. Ableton will just use the CPU that it needs. It does support multi core processing, but not a set number. It's not like you can say "Ableton will use 8 cores guaranteed". It doesn't work like that. Windows decides how to allocate CPU usage between programs.

Again, being 64 bit will make virtually no impact on CPU usage. So you just want to get the most powerful CPU that you can afford. You could get 8 core and it maybe be that Ableton will never use more than three of them, simply because it doesn't need to. Depends on the complexity of your tracks I guess.

I know the 64bit software wont change anything on its own. I just meant i can now use more than 4gig ram finally.

Hmmm... so where would my glitches be coming from? I dont use any outboard gear (apart from midi keyboard). My soundcard is an external Prosonus Audiobox. And i use Asio4all and sometimes prosonus' own ASIO. It struggles at 512 samples.. so i tend to stay around 1024 samples.

My tracks are dance music... and the cpu hit seems to come from the number of VST's i use. The reason i say this is because when i get to the end of creating a tune and the glitches start sneaking in... i disable some of the CPU hungry VSTs (like 3rd party limiters) and the CPU drops from an impossible 100% down to a more usable 80% ish.

So i just thought faster cores (and more of them) and extra ram would handle more VST's at once ....

These are all just assumptions.

[brettonwoodsapocalypse]

Live is multicore threaded. The more core the better especially if you run plugins.
Live can only use 4GB of RAM unless you use the 64bit version which is barely usable as it can only use 64bit plugins ( most vsts are not)
To avoid glitches a good sound card and DRIVER are as important if not more than CPU. RME has an excellent reputation for that.
Last thing : an SSD drive will make a world of difference with Live, more than extra RAM...

[theviewer1985]

Live is multicore threaded. The more core the better especially if you run plugins.
Live can only use 4GB of RAM unless you use the 64bit version which is barely usable as it can only use 64bit plugins ( most vsts are not)
To avoid glitches a good sound card and DRIVER are as important if not more than CPU. RME has an excellent reputation for that.
Last thing : an SSD drive will make a world of difference with Live, more than extra RAM...

Thanks! This is what i thought. I am quite sure my VSTs are 64bit enabled, so im safe there

As for a good soundcard and Driver.... i guess you can only use the driver that the soundcard comes with? Apart from Asio4all...? I use Prosonus Audio box with Asio4all (it seems to run better the prosonus own ASIO)

[gnurf]

Well, it depends: http://www.passmark.com/forum/showthrea ... hs-amp-PT8

64-bit CPUs might have more registers and instructions to make use of, but sometimes a program needs to be specifically optimised for it to make any positive difference. You could be handling bigger numbers on a 64-bit processor, but handling them with the same old instructions as on 32-bit could be slower. In the end everything will run 64-bit (and programs written specifically for them), we'll barely remember 32-bit programs, and we can finally stop worrying about which is better ;)

[ian_halsall]

BTW - most popular VSTs have a 64 bit version.