Does Live use GPU for any compute?

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Piplodocus
Posts: 825
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:48 pm
Location: Southampton, UK

Does Live use GPU for any compute?

Post by Piplodocus » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:04 pm

Hello. Was just wondering if Live is basically all CPU or if it uses GPU for any compute based stuff.

Curious as the new MacBooks are announced and was wondering if the faster GPU option would make any difference to plugins/tracks/audio at all? Or make it possibly render exports faster? Or if it makes zero difference and is all CPU-intensive only.

Calagan
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:44 am

Re: Does Live use GPU for any compute?

Post by Calagan » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:15 pm

The only thing I know is that on my old laptop, the gpu is getting super hot while using Live, whatever the cpu use...
But I don’t think it makes any difference with the new ARM macs (given the power they offer)

grrrz
Posts: 156
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 1:54 pm

Re: Does Live use GPU for any compute?

Post by grrrz » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:45 pm

Calagan wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:15 pm
The only thing I know is that on my old laptop, the gpu is getting super hot while using Live, whatever the cpu use...
But I don’t think it makes any difference with the new ARM macs (given the power they offer)
yes live uses quite a bit of GPU and will trigger discrete GPU on the mac who have those; and it adds up if you have an external screen on a laptop. The GPU (integrated or discrete) will heat which will cause the CPU to heat and can end up throttling it. For reliability for some application where I had it running for days I minimized ableton so the interface is not showing; it actually runs cooler this way. Hopefully arm mac will be an improvement on this.

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