Oh why is Live so much slower on OSX vs Bootcamp'd XP

timothyallan · Post by **timothyallan** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:10 pm

I just bought the 2.4ghz 17" SR MBP and am hella disappointed in the OSX performance of live vs XP. My bootcamp XP partition runs live about 30% faster.

I setup a test project consisting of an operator playing a few notes followed by a high quality setting Live reverb.

Buffer settings, soundcard etc was exactly the same between both OS's

In XP I was able to run 16 of the reverbs before the sound started to crackly and the processor hit 80%+ in Live.

In OSX I was only able to run 12 before the same effects happen.

If I open full projects between the two, the results are the same. I had read that people were whining about OSX being slower, but -that- much slower? I was hoping it would be imperceptable and kind of a fanboy thing, but apparently not

Any suggestions or coments?

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:51 pm

Hmm,

i have noticed that the load times for vsti's are much slower. Obv as detailsed in my otehr thread am having problems of my own.

So much for all the Mac fanboy stuff of 'Macs just work'

do they bollocks. I ahve spent more time trouble shooting this than I have since win98

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:35 pm

slow & steady wins the race...
I can totally live with 'it just works, but a bit slower'

lesterdiamond · Post by **lesterdiamond** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:59 pm

maybe your power settings in osx are different than xp?

Daurix · Post by **Daurix** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:03 pm

b0unce wrote:slow & steady wins the race...
I can totally live with 'it just works, but a bit slower'

Yeah I ended up settling on that as well, feels better to me, all in all.

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:06 pm

Yip,

agreed,

however i am much slower and not really very steady (see other posts about crashes and crackles)

Bit of a bummer really.

steve-o · Post by **steve-o** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:07 pm

tw1nstates wrote:Hmm,

i have noticed that the load times for vsti's are much slower. Obv as detailsed in my otehr thread am having problems of my own.

So much for all the Mac fanboy stuff of 'Macs just work'

do they bollocks. I ahve spent more time trouble shooting this than I have since win98

Are you really trying to say that Win 98 is/was more stable and better than OSX???

glu · Post by **glu** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:21 pm

steve-o wrote:
tw1nstates wrote:Hmm,

i have noticed that the load times for vsti's are much slower. Obv as detailsed in my otehr thread am having problems of my own.

So much for all the Mac fanboy stuff of 'Macs just work'

do they bollocks. I ahve spent more time trouble shooting this than I have since win98

Are you really trying to say that Win 98 is/was more stable and better than OSX???

The way I read it was tw1nstates hasn't done this much trouble shooting since windows 98.

In the Live performance test, XP running on a mac can outperform OSX on the same machine between 5-15%. Go ahead and use XP for Live --and use OSX for the rest of your ilife.

OSX gui and background services are probably the cause, no?

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:24 pm

In my experience, the XP one craps out early though when the CPU meter gets up there. Where as the OSX one will let you have a higher CPU before the audio drops. About the same 5-15% difference too.

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:07 pm

Of course I am not saying that (8 is better than OSX.

That's just silly.

My point was that OSX is slower and not very stable.

Have just sorted out some issues by getting a Mackie Onyx however have created more

OSX really isn't performing that well for me.

Next time a mac fanboy smugly says they just work I am going to kick them in the bollocks

Cheers
TS

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:32 am

tw1nstates wrote:Of course I am not saying that (8 is better than OSX.

That's just silly.

My point was that OSX is slower and not very stable.

Have just sorted out some issues by getting a Mackie Onyx however have created more

OSX really isn't performing that well for me.

Next time a mac fanboy smugly says they just work I am going to kick them in the bollocks

Cheers
TS

My guess is you just recently 'converted', therefore you are not as familiar with OSX etc.
I used to do the same thing to windows, trash it because I was not familiar with it. The 'it just works thing is true to a degree, but you still have to know about things like turning preformance to Highest in the Energy Saver Preference panel, You get a whopping 1% increase in CPU if you turn off Airport etc.

All in all I thought Operator was a PIG on the old 1.5 G4 powerbook I'm writing on, way too processor heavy for the sound it makes. It's possible that it's not that friendly on the mac side. I have noticed some basic differences in CPU use on synths that aren't fully coded cross platform. Case in point, Native Instruments Absynth was coded on mac first, for years PC users would complain about the CPU hit; Reactor was coded for PC first, and suffered on macs for years. At this point they are fully cross platform, but i would hesitate to use Operator as a 'cross platform' synth, even though it's from Ableton. I thought it seemed too heavy on the mac personally.
Point is, you are used to windows, nothing wrong with doing some evaluations of which OS is quicker in Live, but I don't think all your variables are covered here.
I could see XP being 5% lighter, but not 25%.

Daurix · Post by **Daurix** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:58 am

Tarekith wrote:In my experience, the XP one craps out early though when the CPU meter gets up there. Where as the OSX one will let you have a higher CPU before the audio drops. About the same 5-15% difference too.

Good point yeah, same here.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:59 am

Machinesworking wrote: you still have to know about things like turning preformance to Highest in the Energy Saver Preference panel,

It's painfully narcissistic to quote yourself!:oops:
Just curious? You had problems with Live crapping out at 40-50% CPU a while ago, and it really seems like this could be your problem. The energy saver in OSX screws with audio performance if you don;t have it set to 'highest'. There's even a command line trick that was done when the new macintels came out that freed up OSX completely from the energy saving 'features' of OSX. Apple don't want users complaining about battery life more than CPU. We audio and video people are the few who squeeze every cycle out of our CPUs. I think most people buy new computers nowadays because they think the internet will be faster with a screaming machine!

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:59 am

tw1nstates wrote:Next time a mac fanboy smugly says they just work I am going to kick them in the bollocks

Cheers
TS

Wait.... can you kick somebody in the bollocks? I thought bollocks meant something along the line of bullshit? Or is bollocks more like balls? Or did you mean to say buttocks?

Just wondering.

Forgive my ignorance, I'm American.

bonnaventure · Post by **bonnaventure** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:09 am

Does anyone have a Mac Pro they can do similar test on?

Also, is Boot camp out of public beta? I was under the impression that an XP install could be dangerous due to heating and such.... I haven't been keeping up with the news, so my info could be off.

EDIT: Also, bollocks are balls I'm pretty sure (i'm canadian so I don't know much better).