Live 9 Performance Test

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
blarue09
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2011 11:27 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by blarue09 » Sun Jun 02, 2013 6:32 am

Disclaimer: I got a new laptop and I am a bit of a computer geek.

After seeing that Live's CPU meter had difficulties measuring CPU usage for 8 tracks or less, I decided to measure CPU usage with HWiNFO64 v4.18 and compare results (see table below). I also wanted to see how far I could push the CPU, so I added a lot of tracks to the Performance Test Set.
As I am running windows (ASIO), I could not specifically set 512 samples. 442 samples was the maximum I could get using Focusrite's latency adjustment tool.

01) Ableton Live CPU Meter % 23-41% (ave was around 35) HWiNFRO64 CPU meter: 20.8%
02) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? 2013 Lenovo Y500
03) Operating System? Windows 8 64bit
04) Ableton Live version? Live 9.0.4 64bit Suite
05) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core i7-3630QM, 2.4GHz
06) Amount of Ram? 16GB
07) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Focusrite 2i4 (driver v2.4.128.0)
08) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 512GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD
09) Number of playback tracks? 8
10) Max playback tracks without any pops? 98 Tracks



# of Tracks-------Live CPU Average(%)------HWiNFO Average CPU(%)
-----02----------------------31---------------------------16----------------
-----04----------------------35---------------------------17----------------
-----08----------------------35---------------------------21----------------
-----16----------------------30---------------------------22----------------
-----32----------------------36---------------------------28----------------
-----64----------------------58---------------------------50----------------
-----96----------------------84---------------------------72----------------




Notes:
With less than 8 tracks, Live's CPU meter jumped around a lot! The readings were very inaccurate, as are my estimate of their averages.
Turbo boost kicked in with 32+ tracks. Perhaps a lack of turbo boost with lesser number of tracks caused Live's CPU meter difficulties.
114+ Tracks had distortion throughout with CPU above 100% in ableton (above 88% in HWiNFO64)

In my tests, Live's 100% CPU measurement seemed to be a good representation of complete CPU-related audio distortion.

ezelkow1
Posts: 366
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:22 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by ezelkow1 » Sun Jun 02, 2013 7:33 pm

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter %
16%

2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model?
Desktop - Custom

3) Operating System?
win7-x64

4) Ableton Live version?
Live 9 Suite

5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed?
Intel i7-2600k 3.4ghz

6) Amount of Ram?
16gb

7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)?
NI Audio Kontrol 1 - version 3 (one revision behind, their latest one gave me performance issues)

8) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)?
7200rpm

9) Number of playback tracks?
8

10) 64 or 32bit live?
64bit

Max tracks - duplicating the initial 8 I got up to 128, it was still usable but cpu meter was at ~98%. On initial start there was audio crackling but once the meter settled playback was fine. I figure beyond this I would have permanent crackling.

From 112-128 I would have initial crackling on start of playback that would settle down. At 104 I had no crackling at all

blarue09
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2011 11:27 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by blarue09 » Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:22 am

blarue09 wrote:Disclaimer: I got a new laptop and I am a bit of a computer geek.

After seeing that Live's CPU meter had difficulties measuring CPU usage for 8 tracks or less, I decided to measure CPU usage with HWiNFO64 v4.18 and compare results (see table below). I also wanted to see how far I could push the CPU, so I added a lot of tracks to the Performance Test Set.
As I am running windows (ASIO), I could not specifically set 512 samples. 442 samples was the maximum I could get using Focusrite's latency adjustment tool.

01) Ableton Live CPU Meter % 23-41% HWiNFRO64 CPU meter: 20.8%
02) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? 2013 Lenovo Y500
03) Operating System? Windows 8 64bit
04) Ableton Live version? Live 9.0.4 64bit Suite
05) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core i7-3630QM, 2.4GHz
06) Amount of Ram? 16GB
07) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Focusrite 2i4 (driver v2.4.128.0)
08) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 512GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD
09) Number of playback tracks? 8
10) Max playback tracks without any pops? 98 Tracks



# of Tracks-------Live CPU Average(%)------HWiNFO Average CPU(%)
-----02----------------------31---------------------------16----------------
-----04----------------------35---------------------------17----------------
-----08----------------------35---------------------------21----------------
-----16----------------------30---------------------------22----------------
-----32----------------------36---------------------------28----------------
-----64----------------------58---------------------------50----------------
-----96----------------------84---------------------------72----------------




Notes:
With less than 8 tracks, Live's CPU meter jumped around a lot! The readings were very inaccurate, as are my estimate of their averages.
Turbo boost kicked in with 32+ tracks. Perhaps a lack of turbo boost with lesser number of tracks caused Live's CPU meter difficulties.
114+ Tracks had distortion throughout with CPU above 100% in ableton (above 88% in HWiNFO64)

In my tests, Live's 100% CPU measurement seemed to be a good representation of complete CPU-related audio distortion.

01) Ableton Live CPU Meter % 17% (ave was around 35) HWiNFRO64 CPU meter: 11%
02) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? 2013 Lenovo Y500 laptop
03) Operating System? Windows 8 64bit
04) Ableton Live version? Live 9.0.4 64bit Suite
05) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core i7-3630QM, 2.4GHz
06) Amount of Ram? 16GB
07) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Focusrite 2i4 (driver v2.4.128.0)
08) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 512GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD
09) Number of playback tracks? 8
10) Max playback tracks without any pops? 98 Tracks

after following some of focusrite's "optimizing your PC for audio on Windows 8" and Native Instrument's "Windows 7 Tuning Tips for Audio Processing" guide I fixed my CPU usage issue in Live. I also cut my HWiNFO CPU usage for 8 tracks in half! This was most likely related to power-saving features.
Note: I only followed NI's guide from Energy options downward.
http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/ ... hp?id=1228
http://www.native-instruments.com/knowl ... Processing

Check these guides out if you haven't already!

Kondee
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2012 5:48 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by Kondee » Wed Jun 26, 2013 3:48 pm

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 27%
2) Acer AS3820TG laptop
3) Win7 32bit
4) 9.04
5) Intel Core i5 M450 @ 3.2Ghz
6) 4Gb
7) NI Audio Kontrol 1 , 3.1 (actually gives me better performance than 3.0)
8 ) Corsair F60 SSD
9) 8
10) 32Bit

48 Tracks (95%)without crackling or 40 Tracks @ 32 sample buffer or 16 Tracks @ 32 samples @ 96khz (7ms RTL)

twisted-space
Posts: 1253
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:50 pm
Location: UK Midlands

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by twisted-space » Wed Jun 26, 2013 5:31 pm

1) 12%
2) Selfbuilt Custom Desktop
3) Win8 Pro X64
4) 9.0.4
5) Intel i7 3770k @ 3.5GHz
6) 16GB
7) RME Babyface driver ver. 1.032
8 ) 240GB Corsair Force GS SSD
9) 8
10) X64

From 116 (90% on lives cpu meter) tracks I get crackling when playback starts but it settles down and plays back ok until I get to 134 (96%) which crackles constantly, windows cpu meter is showing 82% at that point.

carlosenriquemusic
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2013 4:34 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by carlosenriquemusic » Sat Jun 29, 2013 4:41 pm

Hi everybody, this is my system performance, I was experimenting a lot before between live 9 and live 8
my conclusion is the next.
the system performance in live 9 is the same like in live 8 but there is a important difference
the time to startup in live suit 9 is very long, sometimes 45 seconds
I think is for the ableton index system

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 26 %
2) Laptop MacBookPro8,1
3) Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
4) Ableton Live Suite 9.0.4
5) Intel Core i7 Dual core 2.7 GHz
6) 4GB DDR 1333
7) Virus TI
8) HDD 5200 RPM
9) 8 tracks
10) 32bit live?

ezelkow1
Posts: 366
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:22 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by ezelkow1 » Sat Jun 29, 2013 9:58 pm

LFO8 wrote:Guys.... C'mon.. This is not going to provide any type of benchmarkdata for audioperformance of Live 9 over various systems.

Take a page out of Gearsluts book in this thread: Logic Pro Multicore BenchmarkTest!

Live's CPU meter will tell ou nothing but the workload of ONE core. You hace to keep the sample rate, bufferr size etc. standardized, BUT, you have to play the tracks and then add a track..and another and another and keep going untill you hear the first sign of the audio breaking up.

Then people can state their results here:

System specs;
Version of Live used;
Type of soundcard used, make and model;
How many tracks were able to play right before audio started to break up.

When done this way.. It will actually tell us something usefull.
Have you looked at alot of the reports? most people are stating how many tracks before audio break up

Jrel
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:17 am

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by Jrel » Tue Jul 16, 2013 5:19 pm

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 11% (drop set into Live) / 22% (open set within Live)
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Custom-Built PC 2011
3) Operating System? Windows 7 Ultimate Pro 64-bit
4) Ableton Live version? 9.0.5b5
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? i7 920 2.66 GHz
6) Amount of Ram? 12 GB
7) Soundcard (and driver version)? M-Audio Delta 1010 5.10.0.5074
8) Hard Disk Drive Speed? 7200
9) Number of playback tracks? 8
10) 32-bit Live

PC CPU load at 3-5% before the set is started. During playback, PC CPU was 2% higher than the Live CPU.

At 74 tracks (open set within Live), dropouts and CPU at 82%. Audio crackle at 77. CPU at 84%
At 84 tracks (drop set into Live), dropouts and CPU at 83%. Audio crackle at 87. CPU at 85%

*** Here is something really strange with my PC. If I open Live, drop the set in and play it, the CPU hits 11% max. If I open Live, open the set using the browser and play it, the CPU is at 22%. I can repeat this behavior over and over, and NOT only with this set. I shave off 8-9 CPU on all my sets by dropping a Live set into Live instead of opening it with Live. What??? Well, hell, I'm dropping all my sets into Live from now on.

BRZMI Produkcje
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 1:58 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by BRZMI Produkcje » Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:03 am

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 16 %
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro April 2011 15"
3) Operating System? OSX 10.6.8
4) Ableton Live version? 9.0.5 Build: 2013-06-28
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core i7-2720QM 2.2 GHz
6) Amount of Ram? 8 GB
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? RME Fireface 400
8] Hard Disk Drive Speed ? 7200 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8
10) 64 or 32bit live? 32 bit

hivemind
Posts: 88
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2004 8:58 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Contact:

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by hivemind » Fri Aug 23, 2013 2:17 pm

Jrel wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 11% (drop set into Live) / 22% (open set within Live)

*** Here is something really strange with my PC. If I open Live, drop the set in and play it, the CPU hits 11% max. If I open Live, open the set using the browser and play it, the CPU is at 22%. I can repeat this behavior over and over, and NOT only with this set. I shave off 8-9 CPU on all my sets by dropping a Live set into Live instead of opening it with Live. What??? Well, hell, I'm dropping all my sets into Live from now on.
This seems fairly significant. Have you mentioned this to Ableton yet? Maybe make a post in the beta section?

Also, is there a difference in CPU usage if you open the set directly from Windows Explorer?

Machinesworking
Posts: 11416
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by Machinesworking » Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:20 pm

Tests of CPU meter "performance" with X amount of tracks mean absolutely nothing. The only test of a computers performance for a DAW is a test to audio failure, the amount of tracks your system can play without choking. This is why you're all getting random results, because Live's CPU meter, and your systems, are not very accurate.

marvingain
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:16 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by marvingain » Tue Sep 24, 2013 2:01 pm

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 18 % (with 8 tracks)
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro Early 2011 15"
3) Operating System? OSX 10.6.8
4) Ableton Live version? 9.1 beta13
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core i7-2635QM 2000 MHz (4 cores)
6) Amount of Ram? 4 GB
7) Soundcard? RME Babyface
8) Hard Disk Drive Speed ? Samsung 830 SSD
9) Number of tracks before audio drop outs: 74 (2 tracks more with the b13 than with 9.0.5)

trennscharf
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 11:30 am
Location: Karlsruhe

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by trennscharf » Fri Sep 27, 2013 2:24 pm

Funny:

Ableton 9.0 = 27%

Ableton 9.1b17 = 22%-23%

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 22% 9.1b17 (with 8 tracks) vs. 27% 9.0
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro Early 2011 13"
3) Operating System? OSX 10.8.5
4) Ableton Live version? see above
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel Core i7 2.7GHz (4 cores)
6) Amount of Ram? 8 GB
7) Soundcard? Edirol FA-66
8) Hard Disk Drive Speed ? Samsung 830 SSD
9) Number of tracks before audio drop outs: ?
10) 32bit

Jrel
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:17 am

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by Jrel » Sat Oct 12, 2013 2:11 am

hivemind wrote:
Jrel wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 11% (drop set into Live) / 22% (open set within Live)

*** Here is something really strange with my PC. If I open Live, drop the set in and play it, the CPU hits 11% max. If I open Live, open the set using the browser and play it, the CPU is at 22%. I can repeat this behavior over and over, and NOT only with this set. I shave off 8-9 CPU on all my sets by dropping a Live set into Live instead of opening it with Live. What??? Well, hell, I'm dropping all my sets into Live from now on.
This seems fairly significant. Have you mentioned this to Ableton yet? Maybe make a post in the beta section?

Also, is there a difference in CPU usage if you open the set directly from Windows Explorer?
Sorry, I forgot about this thread. I was dropping a set from Windows Explorer into Live. HOWEVER, the dropped set will not have any section markers along the top row (Verse, Chorus, breakdown, buildup)...

mikb
Posts: 373
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 9:53 pm

Re: Live 9 Performance Test

Post by mikb » Wed Jan 01, 2014 7:29 pm

***Update for Mavericks 9.1***

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter %.......... 60%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model?.......... Apple Macbook Pro "Core2Duo Santa Rosa"
3) Operating System?..........Mac OS X 10.9.1
4) Ableton Live version?..........9.1
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed?..........Intel, T7500, 2.2ghz
6) Amount of Ram?..........6gb
7) Soundcard..........Native Instruments Audio 2, latest driver
8 ) Hard Disk Drive Speed?..........5400 RPM (Seagate SSD Hybrid)
9) Number of playback tracks?..........8 tracks
10) 64 or 32bit live?..........64bit
11) Max amount of tracks before crackling..........14

I could do at best 14 tracks at 95% CPU without audible cracks. This is 2 less tracks (and the CPU is seemingly used significantly more) than under Live 9 on OS X 10.6.8 (see earlier report in may). On the plus side lowering the latency buffer size to only 64 samples doesn't affect the sound at all.

In the 32bit version of Live I very much repeated my earlier report under OS X 10.6.8 in may 2013, now in under OS X 10.9.1.
Last edited by mikb on Wed Jan 01, 2014 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Basic gear info: Macbook Pro with macOS 10.12, Ableton Live Suite version 9 (64bit) with Ozone, Push and APC20 as controllers.

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