ekg,
what kind of issues were you having with your MBP?
I've got one of the same and just curious what the matter was.
LIVE FIVE PERFORMANCE TEST - results here
re: LIVE FIVE PERFORMANCE TEST
Well the LIVE PEFORMANCE TEST is giving me peaks at 40,zfigz wrote:ekg,
what kind of issues were you having with your MBP?
I've got one of the same and just curious what the matter was.
despite the fact that i have a fully loaded 2.16 MBP...
2 gigs of Apple RAM and 7200 RPM drive... you can't get better than that.
And 1.83 or 2.0 MacBooks (costing LESS than half the price of my MBP) are performing in the high 20's to mid 30's.....
So i picked up a slightly-used MacBook yesterday, to see for myself. Well, it peaks at 44 (with 512mb RAM).... (I thought that the MacBook didn't do such severe speed-stepping as the MacBook Pro??? but anyway...)
So i put 2 gigs of Apple RAM in, and it peaks at 43...
What the hell? Even with the kext file intact, i shouldn't be getting readings like this....
I've read all the pre-test parameters carefully... energy saver settings, LIVE prefs, etc... I really don't think its user error.
So i'm ready to try trashing the kext file. anybody have any last-minute caveats or other-fixes that don't involve mucking around with the system?
any advice appreciated, thanks
Greg
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earthlinger
- Posts: 98
- Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:19 pm
- Location: lowlands
As you see above this is my performance results. I have another queation mark in my head. When my CPU usage in Live reaches to 60-65% area, and if there is heavy processing going on with plugins, I have to increase my buffer size up to 1024 to get rid of quiet clicks in the sound. Is this normal? I know that I have really bad performance results. Anyone after changing their logic board have better results with Macbook Pro?earthlinger wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 43%
2) Laptop: 15" MacBook Pro
3) Operating System: OS 10.4.6
4) CPU: Core Duo 2.0
5) Ram: 2Gb
6) Soundcard: Fireface 800
7) Hard Disk: 7200rpm 100gb
What should I do? Is it fixable with changing logic board? Macbook and Macmini is performing better. It's been 2 months I got this machine. If Apple updates the OSX with speed-step, is it gonna be better? Should I call Apple? It's difficult to believe that its fixable with software update when you see Macbooks performing 10% less than mine with same specs.....Any advice?
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earthlinger
- Posts: 98
- Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:19 pm
- Location: lowlands
re: LIVE FIVE PERFORMANCE TEST
I recently posted that i was sending my MBP 2.16 core duo in to Apple, with my list of issues, and betting that they would do the right thing and swap the logic board for the latest revision. well i called in yesterday to see how progress was going, and to make sure that they wouldn't just send it back as a "working" computer, with the same original logic board (first batch off the line, circa 3/10/06). The customer service rep on the phone listed the work that was done (replaced inverter.. to address my battery issues...), but they did NOT address the logic board, which was my main reason for sending it in. well of course i went to Customer Relations... and i got a rather cold response from the random person assigned to the case. And so i immediately wrote an email to a Customer Relations person who helped me out a few years ago, thinking this would surely fix the problem; and THIS is the reply i got!
<<I’m really sincerely sorry that you’re having the troubles you are with this machine. I know that given your line of work that this is not just a minor annoyance but a critical problem dealing with the massive amounts of data that are inherent with what you do. The problem here is that, as you may know, it is not possible to swap board revisions. The machines are simply not designed that way, the boards are specific to the machines themselves. I’m sure that in some cases it has been tried (with out of warranty machines mostly) and in some cases may even work, but the bottom line here is that it is an unsupported configuration. Even if we could do what you want, it could void the warranty and possibly cause all kinds of trouble for you down the road (so to speak).
In this case, if the machine is not capable of doing what you want it to do, I’d suggest selling it (I know that’s not a very palatable option) and getting something else. I really, sincerely regret that I’m not able to help you this time, I would have loved to have been the cavalry that came charging over the hill yet again - but in this instance it’s just not in your best interest, even if this swap could be done. >>
Granted, this person has since moved to the iTunes Music Store department, and no longer works in Customer Relations, but bottom line is that it appears Apple will make no logic board swaps unless its a machine that's just "not functional".
So: I can't tell you how pissed i am, having a $3000 machine (with built-to-order Apple RAM, 7200 RPM drive AND Applecare. So i WILL sell this machine to somebody who doesn't need the highest-end audio intensive performance... I'll go back to my Powerbook G4/1.67, and will either deal with a cheapo MacBook, OR finally look into getting a PC laptop for LIVE only, and either way save over $1000 in the process. YES, for my LIVE intensive work, looks like i'm DONE with Apple for now... maybe i'll check in later when there's a new revision to the MBP. But i'm done being their guinea pig on this part of the trip. This has cost me 3 weeks of messing around... Almost as bad as when LIVE 4 came out, and i upgraded to the best Powerbook at the time... with hardly any improvement. Yes, my needs are a bit more than most, since i tap into Impulse drum kits and feed my Handsonic's audio tracks at the same time... and as an electronic drummer, i need near-zero latency. The MPB in its kinda crippled state gives me a 42 peak, but i'm tired of getting audio break-up once i pile on some effects... and then have to set the buffer back to 200 or so... and then i start losing the feel of the 16th notes... My PC bretheren have been getting work DONE, while i've been trying to coax my Macs to do the job. Well, with Customer (non)Relations like this... enough mucking about... they can keep it!
(Reading back before sending... and calming down a little here....) Do you think i should try running LIVE in XP under Boot Camp? i have ZERO experience on a PC. Will my Mac-made LIVE projects open and/or will i have any problems referencing audio files in this manner? I'm assuming that i'd have to repartition the HD and designate an XP partition; and if so, then can my audio still reside happily on the Mac partition? Thanks all... Wish i had better news to report, but my gut instinct is telling me that Apple support is dumbed WAY down the past few years. Too bad...
Greg
eklektro.net
los angeles
<<I’m really sincerely sorry that you’re having the troubles you are with this machine. I know that given your line of work that this is not just a minor annoyance but a critical problem dealing with the massive amounts of data that are inherent with what you do. The problem here is that, as you may know, it is not possible to swap board revisions. The machines are simply not designed that way, the boards are specific to the machines themselves. I’m sure that in some cases it has been tried (with out of warranty machines mostly) and in some cases may even work, but the bottom line here is that it is an unsupported configuration. Even if we could do what you want, it could void the warranty and possibly cause all kinds of trouble for you down the road (so to speak).
In this case, if the machine is not capable of doing what you want it to do, I’d suggest selling it (I know that’s not a very palatable option) and getting something else. I really, sincerely regret that I’m not able to help you this time, I would have loved to have been the cavalry that came charging over the hill yet again - but in this instance it’s just not in your best interest, even if this swap could be done. >>
Granted, this person has since moved to the iTunes Music Store department, and no longer works in Customer Relations, but bottom line is that it appears Apple will make no logic board swaps unless its a machine that's just "not functional".
So: I can't tell you how pissed i am, having a $3000 machine (with built-to-order Apple RAM, 7200 RPM drive AND Applecare. So i WILL sell this machine to somebody who doesn't need the highest-end audio intensive performance... I'll go back to my Powerbook G4/1.67, and will either deal with a cheapo MacBook, OR finally look into getting a PC laptop for LIVE only, and either way save over $1000 in the process. YES, for my LIVE intensive work, looks like i'm DONE with Apple for now... maybe i'll check in later when there's a new revision to the MBP. But i'm done being their guinea pig on this part of the trip. This has cost me 3 weeks of messing around... Almost as bad as when LIVE 4 came out, and i upgraded to the best Powerbook at the time... with hardly any improvement. Yes, my needs are a bit more than most, since i tap into Impulse drum kits and feed my Handsonic's audio tracks at the same time... and as an electronic drummer, i need near-zero latency. The MPB in its kinda crippled state gives me a 42 peak, but i'm tired of getting audio break-up once i pile on some effects... and then have to set the buffer back to 200 or so... and then i start losing the feel of the 16th notes... My PC bretheren have been getting work DONE, while i've been trying to coax my Macs to do the job. Well, with Customer (non)Relations like this... enough mucking about... they can keep it!
(Reading back before sending... and calming down a little here....) Do you think i should try running LIVE in XP under Boot Camp? i have ZERO experience on a PC. Will my Mac-made LIVE projects open and/or will i have any problems referencing audio files in this manner? I'm assuming that i'd have to repartition the HD and designate an XP partition; and if so, then can my audio still reside happily on the Mac partition? Thanks all... Wish i had better news to report, but my gut instinct is telling me that Apple support is dumbed WAY down the past few years. Too bad...
Greg
eklektro.net
los angeles
windows won't natively read mac files, you would need to buy MacDrive ($50) to open mac files from within windows.
if you do go this (dualboot) route - don't bother installing XP pro, go for Home, Pro contains things you don't need and is much larger.
Bootcamp deals with the creation of the boot disk sector as part of teh setup
if you do go this (dualboot) route - don't bother installing XP pro, go for Home, Pro contains things you don't need and is much larger.
Bootcamp deals with the creation of the boot disk sector as part of teh setup
re: LIVE FIVE PERFORMANCE TEST
thanks Angstrom,
so hmmm... Sounds like a tough work-around to go Windows...
So despite the heat issues and compromised battery life, when i get my MacBook Pro back tomorrow, i'll definitely try removing the damn kext file and see what that yeilds as compared to my MacBook 2.0.
There were so many posts weeks and weeks ago... and a few variations about how exactly to do this fix, that i'm wondering which is the agreed best method, and if anybody could direct me to the most tried-and-true step-by-step version of this fix, i'd greatly appreciate it. (Thanks!)
And by the way, is it just me, or is OSX 10.45 agreed to be a better version for LIVE 5 than OSX 10.46? my peak went up by 2-3 points after upgrading to 10.46!
Fightin' the fight...
Looking forward to putting this aside and just making music....
cheers,
Greg
so hmmm... Sounds like a tough work-around to go Windows...
So despite the heat issues and compromised battery life, when i get my MacBook Pro back tomorrow, i'll definitely try removing the damn kext file and see what that yeilds as compared to my MacBook 2.0.
There were so many posts weeks and weeks ago... and a few variations about how exactly to do this fix, that i'm wondering which is the agreed best method, and if anybody could direct me to the most tried-and-true step-by-step version of this fix, i'd greatly appreciate it. (Thanks!)
And by the way, is it just me, or is OSX 10.45 agreed to be a better version for LIVE 5 than OSX 10.46? my peak went up by 2-3 points after upgrading to 10.46!
Fightin' the fight...
Looking forward to putting this aside and just making music....
cheers,
Greg
re: LIVE FIVE PERFORMANCE TEST
hey, even the revision D chip is an improvement... as compared to the first batch off the line.
And refusing to support early adapters...? Many of whom are obviously their base of power users....? This is where Apple has "dropped the ball" in my book.
$3000 machine w/Applecare... and they left me in the dust.
so yeah, I'm now officially no longer an advocate of Apple customer service.
I used to be the one to calm the fears of my cautious friends switching to Mac.... to rest assured.. that with Applecare they'd pretty much do anything but replace a smashed screen. my previous experiences were all good.
Well, that's changed slowly over time.. and iPod success has them resting on their laurels. I could tell as soon as i heard the voice of the "Customer Relations" person, questioning WHY i needed such performance.... why i needed the machine to do what its supposed to do. Well, they're dumbed down over there in Cupertino now. And you can just tell from the tone of voice from some of the reps... the outsourced generic "if it ain't 'broke', don't fix it"... approach.
And refusing to support early adapters...? Many of whom are obviously their base of power users....? This is where Apple has "dropped the ball" in my book.
$3000 machine w/Applecare... and they left me in the dust.
so yeah, I'm now officially no longer an advocate of Apple customer service.
I used to be the one to calm the fears of my cautious friends switching to Mac.... to rest assured.. that with Applecare they'd pretty much do anything but replace a smashed screen. my previous experiences were all good.
Well, that's changed slowly over time.. and iPod success has them resting on their laurels. I could tell as soon as i heard the voice of the "Customer Relations" person, questioning WHY i needed such performance.... why i needed the machine to do what its supposed to do. Well, they're dumbed down over there in Cupertino now. And you can just tell from the tone of voice from some of the reps... the outsourced generic "if it ain't 'broke', don't fix it"... approach.
reply for earthlinger:
the stutter problems you're having might be disk related...when i got my macbook i did the performance test on the stock driving with almost nothing else saved to the drive. then i did it again after loading it up about 80% full and had sutter problems. i don't know much about how all this works, but maybe there's some sort of memory virtualization thing going on that affects the processing buffer? or maybe osx's built in defragging goes to shit when there isn't enough room to shuffle files around? i had this problem with my previous computer (pb 12") too. i've since installed a 7200 hd and more ram, and haven't had problems.
reply for earhtlinger and ekg: i'd suggest cleanly installing and then doing the performance test with nothing but the os and live installed. its not the solution, but will let you know if the problem resides in hd space issues. look for my performance test post, i did some more detailed testing and the results are there.
when i bought this thing, i was in the store for 2 hours. i did the performance test on every model macbook and macbook pro. the pro scored worst, and the 1.83 and 2.0 macbook scored almost identical...that made the choice for me and so far i've got no complaints. good luck!
the stutter problems you're having might be disk related...when i got my macbook i did the performance test on the stock driving with almost nothing else saved to the drive. then i did it again after loading it up about 80% full and had sutter problems. i don't know much about how all this works, but maybe there's some sort of memory virtualization thing going on that affects the processing buffer? or maybe osx's built in defragging goes to shit when there isn't enough room to shuffle files around? i had this problem with my previous computer (pb 12") too. i've since installed a 7200 hd and more ram, and haven't had problems.
reply for earhtlinger and ekg: i'd suggest cleanly installing and then doing the performance test with nothing but the os and live installed. its not the solution, but will let you know if the problem resides in hd space issues. look for my performance test post, i did some more detailed testing and the results are there.
when i bought this thing, i was in the store for 2 hours. i did the performance test on every model macbook and macbook pro. the pro scored worst, and the 1.83 and 2.0 macbook scored almost identical...that made the choice for me and so far i've got no complaints. good luck!
1) 60%
2) Laptop Compaq Presario X1000
3) Windows XP Home SP2
4) Pentium M 1300Mhz
5) 512 MB RAM
6) Integrated sound card with asio4all driver
7) 5400 RPM
Note that my previous computer was a P3 933Mhz and this test didn't even run! it make one note of sound every like 1 second or so and it was a hell stoping the play back
So I'm REALLY happy with my result, do you see any way to improve it? is it bad or good?
thanks
2) Laptop Compaq Presario X1000
3) Windows XP Home SP2
4) Pentium M 1300Mhz
5) 512 MB RAM
6) Integrated sound card with asio4all driver
7) 5400 RPM
Note that my previous computer was a P3 933Mhz and this test didn't even run! it make one note of sound every like 1 second or so and it was a hell stoping the play back
So I'm REALLY happy with my result, do you see any way to improve it? is it bad or good?
thanks
ok this is weird...
I wanted to know if my lappy would support plotting a new mp3 while doing the test...
The CPU was 60%, then I browsed for a track, i dragged it to a new audio track and it began to plot as fast as usual, but big surprise the cpu meter went to 35% while ploting and came back to 60% when it was done
I have a Pentium M, it doesn't have HT but it have speedsteping or something, i think maybe I'm not running @ full capacity or somehow Live did something that make the cpu go to 30%
I wanted to know if my lappy would support plotting a new mp3 while doing the test...
The CPU was 60%, then I browsed for a track, i dragged it to a new audio track and it began to plot as fast as usual, but big surprise the cpu meter went to 35% while ploting and came back to 60% when it was done
I have a Pentium M, it doesn't have HT but it have speedsteping or something, i think maybe I'm not running @ full capacity or somehow Live did something that make the cpu go to 30%
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earthlinger
- Posts: 98
- Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:19 pm
- Location: lowlands
i will try with external drive first then...I have 54 GB free in my HD. i hope it's enough to install OSX with archive option...scientist wrote:reply for earthlinger:
the stutter problems you're having might be disk related...when i got my macbook i did the performance test on the stock driving with almost nothing else saved to the drive. then i did it again after loading it up about 80% full and had sutter problems. i don't know much about how all this works, but maybe there's some sort of memory virtualization thing going on that affects the processing buffer? or maybe osx's built in defragging goes to shit when there isn't enough room to shuffle files around? i had this problem with my previous computer (pb 12") too. i've since installed a 7200 hd and more ram, and haven't had problems.
reply for earhtlinger and ekg: i'd suggest cleanly installing and then doing the performance test with nothing but the os and live installed. its not the solution, but will let you know if the problem resides in hd space issues. look for my performance test post, i did some more detailed testing and the results are there.
when i bought this thing, i was in the store for 2 hours. i did the performance test on every model macbook and macbook pro. the pro scored worst, and the 1.83 and 2.0 macbook scored almost identical...that made the choice for me and so far i've got no complaints. good luck!