Live 4 vs 5 audio engine.

UHE is now closed. For Technical Support from Ableton, please go here: http://www.ableton.com/support
Locked
Sunburzt
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:41 pm
Location: norway

Live 4 vs 5 audio engine.

Post by Sunburzt » Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:05 pm

Hi all.

What is the main difference between the 4.X and the 5.X audio engine in live.
4.X was great and i still use it for final rendering,While 5.X is a real CPUhog 8O .And why is this (without getting to technical).My only workaround with 5.X is setting the cpu affinty to 1 cpu (winxp) from time to time.

Best regards.
Sun.

WinXP
X2 4400.
2 Gb ram.
2 X WD raptors in raid 0.
*If it takes a thousand words to describe a picture,
it must take a thousand pictures to describe music...*

Alex
Posts: 4006
Joined: Wed Apr 03, 2002 1:07 pm
Location: Ableton Headquarter

Post by Alex » Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:35 pm

Hi Sunburzt,
What is the main difference between the 4.X and the 5.X audio engine in live.
It is not really possible to answer this without "getting technical".
My only workaround with 5.X is setting the cpu affinty to 1 cpu (winxp) from time to time.
Could you please explain this a bit more? What kind of problem do you get in Live 5.x you can "fix" by bounding Live 5.x to one of the two processor cores?

4.X was great and i still use it for final rendering,While 5.X is a real CPUhog
Do you have a Live 4 set which when playing in Live 5.x needs significant more CPU? Could you send it to me? (only the .als, no samples)

regards,
/Alex

Sunburzt
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:41 pm
Location: norway

Post by Sunburzt » Sat Mar 04, 2006 12:31 am

Hi alex.

This was not ment to be a "Trash Live 5 Tread".
Don't get me wrong i love Live 5 and all it's new features when it comes to making the workflow of a project more efficient.I also know that multicore support will come in live 6 later this year and i'm SO looking forward to that :D .I was just wondering what changes where made to the audio engine since its cpu usage is much hihger then with 4.X.Like the cpu usage jumps from 70 % to 110 % and then back to 80 % and so on....with 4 VSTi's (Vaz modular,Z3ta+) and 6 live effects.It's almost impossible to make a .als file without haveing the plugins installed, but i will surely try.As for the workaround by setting the affinty to one of the cores,is something i figured out experimenting with different projects.When i'm arrangeing clip's where you need quick GUI respons i use both cores with live,but when i'm working with single instruments and tweaking the sound i use one core...strange? maybe, but it makes the cpu usage more stable.

best regards
Sun.
*If it takes a thousand words to describe a picture,
it must take a thousand pictures to describe music...*

Alex
Posts: 4006
Joined: Wed Apr 03, 2002 1:07 pm
Location: Ableton Headquarter

Post by Alex » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:39 pm

Hi Sunburzt,
This was not ment to be a "Trash Live 5 Tread".
I did not take it as such one, so no problem. :)

The issue with the CPU makes sense. If both cores are enabled, the operating system dynamically let the Audio thread run on both cores (only one at a time a Live 5 does not support multi-core CPUs for the audio thread).
These "switching" between the two core seems seems to be the reason that you get earlier dropouts in the audio.


Could you still send me this Live set (only th e.als , no samples) where you have these CPU jumps?
Does it makes a difference when trying other Plug-in buffer sizes? (in the plug-in section of the preferences)

regards,
/Alex

Locked