dragging parts or copy in arrange still appallingly slow

forge · Post by **forge** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:35 am

thing is supster - while you say it's been there since version 2 and Hardware makes no difference etc, I dont remember having the problem before 5 really - I dont think - unfortunately I cant be totally sure or prove that but you must know just how loud I've been about anything at all to do with improving live, and all I have ever used live for is production and so I spend most of my time in the arrange, so I dont think I could have had the problem without mentioning it - I mean it's very frustrating

I have had it before definitely but I dont think it was before 5, almost certainly not before 4

but I see why you're saying it's a fundamental design issue

but then one thing I wonder is what is live trying to do while dragging? I'm guessing it is because audio gets priority at all times and the GUI suffers because redraws are the issue here

maybe live is trying to do too much at once when dragging etc - i.e. maybe it just needs to draw the part on screen so you can see it then copy the info after

there must be a way around it, but I also think I wouldnt have it if I had a dual G5

my PC: Athlon 2200 (via) 1GB ram, 7200rpm HD, XP SP2, FW410 - also tried on emagic A26

BTW - At the Live workshop here Robert made it pretty clear they are well aware of alot of shortcomings in the arrange page and i get the impression he was suggesting they would be doing a fair bit to it by L6 - we already know there will my multiprocessor support

who knows, it might be one of those things like cubase 5.1->SX when the whole engine got a make over

supster · Post by **supster** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:45 am

forge wrote:I have had it before definitely but I dont think it was before 5, almost certainly not before 4

yes for me i recall it always being finicky, i wondered about it when i first started using the program. for a long time i thought it was my gear, something quirky, but as time went by i found out it was common.

definitely its not much better in 4. because i was hoping for an improvement in 5.

maybe live is trying to do too much at once when dragging etc - i.e. maybe it just needs to draw the part on screen so you can see it then copy the info after

yes, i dont know. ableton must know, the only thing we can do is speculate and hope they change whatever it is

there must be a way around it, but I also think I wouldnt have it if I had a dual G5

two friends of mine run it on dual G5s with 4+ gigs of RAM and it runs pretty smooth. but even then not as smooth as PT, SX, Logic ... there are still hitches where there should be none imo:

i know - i bring my projects over to my friends G5 studio once i build up my elements, get the majority of the soundesign done, and bounce just about everything to audio clips. i do most of my arranging work there now, its the only way i can make progess toward finishing anything

note that after a certain point in a project ... it gets "gummed up": even bouncing everything to audio and deleting VSTs, the arrange grid still wont respond. this is why i have to work in a more powerful studio even after bouncing everything

.

.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:49 am

as a test, i just played 40 tracks of audio in arrangement. it does take about 2-3 seconds under that load for a paste, copy or duplicate command to get drawn onto the screen. if i hit duplicate like 10 times, it takes quite a while to actually execute, maybe 15-20 seconds. however, no break in audio, and cpu meter is pretty steady at 65%

this is all in beats mode. throw 10 of these clips into complex mode and the whole thing grinds to a halt.

i don't know for sure if this is better or worse than what you guys are getting, but from what vonster is saying, it sounds better, right?

i'm pretty happy with that level of performance. i can't see ever needing to playback 40 simulataneous audio tracks, but i know someone somewhere probably is just getting started with that many tracks, so...

i have sets obviously with a lot fewer tracks that are more sticky to play back, because of instruments, FX, automation etc. it's all trade-offs

roby · Post by **roby** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:33 pm

i use live on 3 different PC systems with different specs (one of them being a super loaded pc laptop with dedicated video card and plenty of RAM - hell, i play Doom 3 on it!!!!), and all 3 have the same slow screen redraws.

it's more nerve racking than anything else for me because it just feels, or looks, like live is going to crash or freeze any time when moving and copying things around.

anyway, i just unplugged my mouse off the USB port and into the serial port of my laptop and tried live. there's is an improvement, but it is very minimal, noticeable, but small. what i noticed though was that as soon as i loaded a project, zooming in and out from the top zooming pane was really smooth and fast. then i went to drag all the clips in the arrangement around and it took it's sweet time as usual, again with a slight improvment. but after doing that, and then undoing it so i get the clips back to where they were, i went back to zooming in and out from the zooming pane, and it wasn't as smooth as when i first loaded the song.

i guess live is very RAM-heavy?

roby · Post by **roby** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:37 pm

...i don't know if i'm fooling myself or just being realistic, but i've always been ok with this performance because i realize that live was first concieved as a 'live instrument' dedicated to playing live with the best performance. i guess it's core engine has to use this many resources to be stable in a live situation...

justin · Post by **justin** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:09 pm

roby wrote:...i don't know if i'm fooling myself or just being realistic, but i've always been ok with this performance because i realize that live was first concieved as a 'live instrument' dedicated to playing live with the best performance. i guess it's core engine has to use this many resources to be stable in a live situation...

yep, i would agree with u if it wasnt for the spikes and drop outs...
for me v5 is unusable live, i switch to v4.

IMO, there are fundamental flaws in the v5 code.

and i sincerely wish they had spent their resources addressing these issues rather than converting "dodgy" code for the new apple machines.

i would also feel much happier as a customer if they were to address these issues before releasing v6 ...

unusable · Post by **unusable** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 6:56 pm

justin wrote: i would also feel much happier as a customer if they were to address these issues before releasing v6 ...

you mean fixing fundamental audio processes to make them work correctly? where would you come up with that kind of idea?

//end sarcasm

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:32 am

longjohns wrote:word. well in the end all i'm saying is that i was getting cpu spikes and gui lockup when moving the cursor around (which seemed similar to some problems that others were having) and having my bcf disconnect all the time. it turned out that simply plugging my mouse into a different socket completely erased the problem.

someone who's having problems might want to fiddle with their connections.

you do not. there it is

the thing is if you're on a laptop, there are no PS2 plugs

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:37 am

Just participating in saying that when 5.02 came out many people said that this version was quicker to drag & drop.
I posted that strangely that's when it started to happen for me. 2 or 3 people commented that it was not the case, it was sorted for them.
Hey, good to see you back !

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:41 am

hmmm...stranger and stranger...I'm wondering if it's specific hardware issues like particular chipsets (i.e. VIA etc) because it seems so odd that it gets fixed for some, and not for others

thing is I have a strong feeling when I had it in the past (like maybe v4.XX) it got fixed after a bugfix release but now it's back

I cant actually say if it was here for me even before 5.2 - if it was then it seems worse because I didnt notice before but now its V noticable

unless of course I just didnt notice because it's been there so long I'm used to it!

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:45 am

I'm really starting to think there needs to be an option in the Prefs to choose between studio or live mode - live mode gives priority to uninterrupted audio at the expense of CPU, studio mode frees up CPU and eases off on the real time side of things

I would definitely put it in studio mode for most of the time then only use live mode for working on live sets and doing gigs

might give it it's own thread - I have before, but worth bumping...

ttobias · Post by **ttobias** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:13 pm

interesting thread , cheer

just made me realise how stupid i have been by not bouncing my vst's patterns down to audio/wav files , that would save a hell of a lot of proceesor power
( how do you do this by the way .....)

Chris J · Post by **Chris J** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:19 pm

forge wrote:I'm really starting to think there needs to be an option in the Prefs to choose between studio or live mode - live mode gives priority to uninterrupted audio at the expense of CPU, studio mode frees up CPU and eases off on the real time side of things

I would definitely put it in studio mode for most of the time then only use live mode for working on live sets and doing gigs

might give it it's own thread - I have before, but worth bumping...

very good idea indeed !

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 2:18 pm

So, I just wanted to chime in here. You can see my config in my sig below.

I have noticed this from time to time. Both things in fact. Something strange happened about a week ago....My logitech MX-310 optical mouse starting creating spikes just when moving the cursor around. Don't know why, but it happened when I was using a Belkin USB hub to try to connect the mouse, the BCR2000, and the UC33e into two USB ports on the laptop. When I bypassed the hub, and just utilized three USB ports (which for a reason is not optimal) the problem went away.

However, I have noticed the delay in arrange mode far before this event (in fact, I was in session view when I noticed the mouse issue). So, I totally understand the frustration. But, I think you have it sussed out...it is most likely, in the way that LIVE handles audio. The ability to drop clips anywhere and have them play when you get there without stopping audio...that probably requires a lot of resources.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 2:47 pm

anti-banausic wrote: I have noticed this from time to time. Both things in fact. Something strange happened about a week ago....My logitech MX-310 optical mouse starting creating spikes just when moving the cursor around. Don't know why, but it happened when I was using a Belkin USB hub to try to connect the mouse, the BCR2000, and the UC33e into two USB ports on the laptop. When I bypassed the hub, and just utilized three USB ports (which for a reason is not optimal) the problem went away.

this is almost exactly what was happening for me, except replace controllers with BCF and Oxy8.

Who knows for sure what the current state of IRQ's is in Windows? I was under the impression that worrying about this wasn't necessary anymore because of IRQ sharing in XP or whatever.

However, when I was diagnosing this problem and saw that my video card and USB root hub were sharing an IRQ, i was very suspicious. Especially because the problem seemed to be with a conflict between activity on the USB controller and video performance.

I disabled the USB hub which was sharing with the video card. I think moving the mouse off the USB was the kicker for me, but I figure removing that hardware coinflict can't have hurt either.