Live 7 on my PC runs faster than my boyfriends Macbook..why?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Tarekith
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Post by Tarekith » Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:14 pm

RAM has nothing to do with computer speed.

sparklepuff
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Post by sparklepuff » Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:23 pm

It's probably because you're totally hot, and your PC doesn't want you to dump it for a Mac, so it's working extra hard to show off.
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t1mp
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Post by t1mp » Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:34 pm

Tarekith wrote:RAM has nothing to do with computer speed.
hmm

aniajudie
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Post by aniajudie » Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:39 pm

I do notice other programs like Adobe Flash or Illustrator run quite fast on his Mac but Live is slower.

inmazevo
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Post by inmazevo » Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:46 pm

It would appear that Live will run a little quicker with SOME asio drivers than the same audio interface and its Core Audio driver equivalent.

I tested this on my Macbook and my Focusrite Saffire. Same machine.

Bootcamped side:
ASIO Drivers for Internal Card
Live 6
Test project
CPU 16-18%

Mac side (Tiger):
Core Audio Drivers for Internal Card
Live 6
Test Project
20-22% CPU

It's not a huge difference, but it's there on the same machine with the same project and Live being configured identically.

I can't speak to the "you get to higher CPU levels on Mac before noticing..." bit, since I honestly haven't seen that. It is, however, possible that this is interface, chipset, and machine specific as well (likely?).

I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's not a huge amount anyway.
I only tested it because I'd heard this and wanted to see if it was true on my machine. It is... but it might not be on everybody's.

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mikemc
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Post by mikemc » Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:10 pm

well, c'mon: clearly, she's dating the wrong guy. :)
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chis
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Post by chis » Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:22 pm

LJN wrote:Leave it. My two year old Acer (travelmate) is faster runnig Live than my musician's friends's Macbook even though the Acer has only one gig of ram as compared to the Mac's two. But then creativity isn't about speed or percentages. If you're fine with the Acer, stick with it.
I wonder if you'll be saying that after the motherboard develops bad caps, the tech support take their sweet time to reply to you, and the replacement they send you a couple of months later... breaks after 2 days.

Because these are all things I've experienced (or clients I know) with Acer computers. Cheap, inconsistent quality, wouldn't trust them with a [insert something worthless right here, perhaps a Time/Tiny warranty, or a PC World technician]. :wink:
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Yhtomit
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Post by Yhtomit » Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:31 pm

I keep on dropping samplers, simplers, eqs and impulses but I cant get above 16 to 20%. the cores just wont go above that ... and Im working with a buffer size of 128 samples
I have no drop outs and no glitches
im running with a fast new leopard by the way
does anyboy want to buy an mpc? :D

nebulae
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Post by nebulae » Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:22 pm

beats me wrote:6 months ago I switched from 1% milk to 2% milk and now I'm a tumblard who has to buy 2 tickets for just myself when I fly coach.
You've been sounding a bit "thicker" and "phatter" in your recent phone calls than from a few months back. I've been meaning to say something, but how does one broach such a topic. I think you'd better switch to skim, or we're gonna have some "issues" for our Disneyland trip.

sparklepuff
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Post by sparklepuff » Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:26 pm

nebulae wrote:
beats me wrote:6 months ago I switched from 1% milk to 2% milk and now I'm a tumblard who has to buy 2 tickets for just myself when I fly coach.
You've been sounding a bit "thicker" and "phatter" in your recent phone calls than from a few months back. I've been meaning to say something, but how does one broach such a topic. I think you'd better switch to skim, or we're gonna have some "issues" for our Disneyland trip.
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ciw
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Post by ciw » Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:35 pm

is it the same audio interface and drivers on each computer? firewire vs usb vs expresscard vs onboard sound can make a difference to cpu usage.

popslut
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Re: Live 7 on my PC runs faster than my boyfriends Macbook..

Post by popslut » Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:59 pm

aniajudie wrote:why?
It's because PCs are better than Macs.

Anubis
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Post by Anubis » Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:03 am

mikemc wrote:well, c'mon: clearly, she's dating the wrong guy. :)
obviously, I bet he has no (manly)body hair either.

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aniajudie
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Post by aniajudie » Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:26 am

I am not using any audio interface..just internal audio..
I think internal audio is fine and just render to disk.
I like the Macbook and seems overall faster and sharper, but just this Live thing is weird.

blank
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Post by blank » Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:13 pm

Don't you think it's normal to see some differences when running apps on different os ?

I mean osx and windows are two different things to run an apps on, it's been like this since age and I don't think it will change soon.

Also, the live cpu meter is not acurate at all and it's worst since dual and quad chip are out.

I own a macbook and a laptop pc with nearly the same specs and playing the same set in both will not give me the same cpu usage but the overall performances are pretty similar so Takerith is right.

So now, open live and go make some noise.

:D
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