1st Review of New PowerBooks...

os · Post by os » Thu May 16, 2002 9:54 pm

It seems pretty clear that Ableton haven't optimised Live for the G4 processor yet :(
Though in a way that's a good thing, as it means we can look forward to much better performance some time in the future. Maybe. Ableton? Care to comment?

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Thu May 16, 2002 10:55 pm

This is all one can hope for.... pretty poor show (on Apple's part) otherwise. An official statement would definitely be in place....

songcarverr · Post by **songcarverr** » Fri May 17, 2002 6:21 am

Yes,

will anybody at ableton comment on the G4 altivec issue??

Geraldo · Post by **Geraldo** » Fri May 17, 2002 3:16 pm

I don't think the Tibook is "shockingly bad". The Live code is not "yet" optimized for Altivec but I got an email from Ableton indicating they are working on it. If an 800Mhz Tibook can keep up with a 1Ghz Dell w/o Altivec imagine what it would do with.

yon · Post by **yon** » Fri May 17, 2002 5:39 pm

Geraldo wrote: If an 800Mhz Tibook can keep up with a 1Ghz Dell w/o Altivec imagine what it would do with.

You might rather choose to compare
an Intel or AMD PC running SSE optimized
code and a G4 Powermac running Altivec
optimized code. Or perhaps SSE2 on the
P4 and 3dnow! on the AMD. The platform
specific stuff can get quite complicated.

Of course, people have made some pretty
incredible computer music on much slower
machines than these!

-Yon

os · Post by os » Fri May 17, 2002 6:06 pm

yon wrote: Of course, people have made some pretty incredible computer music on much slower machines than these!

sure, but having paid for a G4 machine it seems a shame to have all that extra power sitting around doing nothing.

I do appreciate though that it's one thing for Ableton to improve Live with general cross-platform features, and quite another to spend time optimising things for a particular chipset.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri May 17, 2002 8:40 pm

Perhaps they are spending time on Altivec because they believe it has a future.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat May 18, 2002 7:46 pm

Another thing I have found in the Mac vs PC debate is the fact that usb and firewire soundcards (ideal for ease of use live) work much better on the Mac. This is due to the nature of how the hardware all comes from apple for Mac computers and when developers test on them they can ensure its overall success on each users computer. PC’s on the other hand have so many different components of hardware from so many different manufactures it is difficult to ensure success. (Like USB bus power is antiquate for audio cards, or firewire chipsets are of highest quality)

Outside of this, Yes-> if you want performance and cheap- that’s the pc, if you want stability and jaguar like hardware it is the Mac. I’m the one that started Live perforence test 1& 2 and I was shocked as shit to see the results of the PC and Mac. So I was all gun hoe about the pc for about a week or two until now… now I see them as equal in respect to balance but having different strengths and weakness’. So pick the strength that is important to you but know there weakness.

I also agree with one of the several developers on a comment about a key difference between the mac and pc: That is, the PC is 80% hardware dependent. The Mac is 80% software dependent. Now if you think about that for a second, when it comes time to troubleshoot and optimize your computer for audio--- what one of the two is going to be easier?

See you guys at the DEMF,

chris_borgia

SongCarver · Post by **SongCarver** » Sat May 18, 2002 11:18 pm

I have been following apple technology closely because thats what I use.

However, the clock difference has really made me pay attention to PC.

As far as I can see, the mac os, (esp the Jaguar edition) is well built (finally) for audio and midi, allowing very low latencies and great routing capabilities.

My tascam us-428 runs with 2 ms latency (as opposed to 13ms in OS 9)

I agree with chris, in that most problems i see on (for ex.) tascams boards relate to chipset issues with usb.

Another question:

Is LIVE multi-processor aware??

I will get to the stage where I need a big box, with lots of chips, eg like a server.

I

Yon · Post by **Yon** » Wed May 22, 2002 1:23 pm

SongCarver wrote: Is LIVE multi-processor aware??

Nope.

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Mon Jun 03, 2002 9:50 am

By the way, There is info on the new books at the following sites:

http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=9379

and

http://www.barefeats.com/

1st Review of New PowerBooks...

Live and Mac VS PC

windows

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