How's Live performing on the G5?

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:34 am

I have a Mac Powerbook , but am not closed minded to PC's either.
I think this Vaio looks awesome. Is it really reliable and stable I hear Sony's are good from some people and others say not.What is your experience?

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:55 am

my only complains with the Vaio are:
- the 1400 - 1050 resolutions is great for the big view (when using Reaktor for example)
- the mousepad is very comfortable

I bought it alsmost a year ago and at the time a Powerbook 1 gHz would cost me more or less the same kind of money. I bought it for performance and stability. With WindowsXP it's as stable as a system can be.

I am able to run very CPU intense projects on it. I recently did a remix with lots of long wave-tracks, lots of effects and a very complicated Reason rack. In combination with the RME this is a perfect setup. It can handle 1.5 ms of latency for low-cpu songs.

Oh: they are very sturdy too. More sturdy than a Powerbook or a Dell for example.

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:59 am

my only complains with the Vaio are:
- the 1400 - 1050 resolutions is great for the big view (when using Reaktor for example)

I meant to say: the 1400 - 1050 resolutions is great for the big view, BUT it makes everything a little small on the screen in my opinion. Reason's buttons for example are a looking a little small on my Vaio, same for Reaktor, Absynth, B4, Fm7, Intakt and Kontakt. Live looks good and for Tracktion the resolution is perfect.

But the screen image is very clear and sharp. It's a great screen to look at, only the resultion can be a little annoying.

claudek · Post by **claudek** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:43 am

I have a new Ibook G4 and am very happy with its' resolution and all ..It is not a power beast, like that Vaio but for about 1000US, it a fair deal & good machine. I will check out that Vaio. I love Sony products, as they always market good quality. I think computers these days are like buying synths and samplers in the old days , they all have their uses..

Mbazzy · Post by **Mbazzy** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:09 am

FYI, I think of buying next week the Toshiba Satellite p-10-221 .
Toshiba has excellent reputation for audio laptops from what I've read here .

These are the spec - if anyone cares to comment, be my guest .
At 1699 Euro, this looks like a good price & quality deal.

Processor type : Intel Pentium® 4 processor with HT Technology
Speed : 3.00 GHz
Front Side Bus : 800 MHz
2nd level cache : 512 KB

Windows® XP Home Edition triple language selection (UK, FR, NL)

Ram memory : 512 (2*256) MB
Max : 2048 MB
technology : DDR RAM

Harddisk: 60 GB

DVD±R/±RW drive compatibility : CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
maximum speed : Read: 24x CD-ROM, 24x CD-R, 20x CD-RW, 8x DVD-ROM, 4x DVD-R, 4x DVD-RW, 4x DVD+R, 4x DVD+RW / Write: 16x CD-R, 4x CD-RW, 10x HS CD-RW, 2x DVD-R, 2x DVD-RW, 2.4x DVD+R, 2.4x DVD+RW

TFT 15.4 " screen

Grafix controller : NVIDIA®
type : GeForce™ FX Go5600
Memory : 64 MB
Memory type : DDR Video RAM
grafic accellerator : 128 bit
connected bus : 8 x AGP bus

Internal video resolution : 1280 x 800

1 x DC-in
1 x line-in
1 x external screen
1 x RJ-11
1 x RJ-45
1 x parallel
1 x TV-out (s-video)
1 x i.LINK® (IEEE 1394 / Firewire)
1 x SD Card slot
1 x external microphone
1 x Fast InfraRed (FIR)
1 x headphone (stereo)
3 x USB 2.0

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:20 am

looks like a good deal indeed! for me the laptop needs to be very quiet since I am recording acoustic instrument with it. that's the reason for using a Centrino based laptop.

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 1:32 pm

I purchased the Toshiba M200, it is a centrino 1.5Ghz... very powerful but doesn't generate so much heat like a lot of my older laptops used to.

Plus with the extra large Cache the performance is much better... I'd stay away from the celeron chips... they are nice and cheap, but the performance is much lower.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 2:11 pm

I love my toshiba satelite 2430 with RME multiface--kicks ass, and has performed countless gigs trouble-free. Rappie made me jealous earlier with his screen resolution--though things might seem to small on it sometimes (though you could always change the settings), it has a HUGE advantage in that more session tracks fit onto the same size screen. I would love to have a few more track squeze into my screen. If you forsee needing lots of session tracks and sends, consider a higher resolution screen, or jump on the 17" screens. If I were to buy a new laptop today, it would be the gateway with the 17" screen, dvd burner and stuff for under $2000!

Ryan

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 8:53 am

I have a 2x2 GHz G5 with RME Multiface and the latest Ableton Live demo song used 9 percent CPU. The old demo song used 16 percent.

On my PC laptop, an IBM ThinkPad, Pentium 3, 700 MHz the old demo song used up 36 percent. Comparing this to 16 percent of the G5 gives that Live is running way more economically on a PC than on a Mac.

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 10:33 am

just for the record:
That new 3.0.3. guitarish demo-arrangement puts 8% load on my CPU at maximum using a Sony Vaio Z1 laptop (Centrino 1.5 gHz processor, single CPU) and the RME Hammerfall.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Apr 10, 2004 2:56 pm

Live 3.0.2 demo arrangement on P4 2.4, gig RAM, RME multiface toshiba satelite--10-11% while running, 4% while idling (only 2% idling on 2.0.3). So that roughly puts maybe a P4 2.8 on par with a 2x2 G5 for Live, while Rappie's 1.5 centrino appears to have a slight edge over the G5. Maybe people shouldn't wait for the G5 laptops to come out after all

Of course maybe with different effects and AUs and whatever the G5 might be great, but I have yet to hit a performance wall in terms of track or effect limitations (except when trying stupid tests) on my system, and I doubt Rappie has either.

Ryan

statik · Post by **statik** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:54 am

On a Dual 1.8 G5 I get 15% load with the old demo on Live 3.04. Pretty disappointing. On everything else, especially Logic Pro, the G5 CPU meter barely budges.
I'm still hanging out for Live 4 before Ableton get any more of my money.

raapie · Post by **raapie** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:04 am

yes, it's strange. maybe th G5 is only running very good when using the dual CPU. check for example the FiveTowers test for CubaseSX: http://www.fivetowers.moar.net/cubasete ... erformance As you can see the G5 seems to perform as good as the AMD Opteron and Athlon.

... and by the way check out how well the Intel P4 is performing (single CPU 3 gHz)

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:30 am

...and there is also some issue with the graphic representaion of CPU load with G5 machines. I don't remember technical detail but it has something to do with the two processors. A graphical CPU meter might show quite high workload but when you reach 90 to 100 % there is still room to throw more tasks at the computer.

This was discussed in detail by Gerhard Lengling from Emagic in a discussion regarding GarageBand. Hmmmm... I think it was at the www.osxaudio.com forum, if someone wants to do a search and find out more.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:14 am

all I can say, after all this debate about mac/pc etc, it's a real shame it's not straight forward for ableton to sort out their mac performance issues - I've no doubt if it was straightforward they would have done it as they must know how many people in the music world have macs, but at the moment it's a long way from PC's power, which is a shame.

How's Live performing on the G5?

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