Macbook Pro Santa Rosa Performance

lukas412 · Post by **lukas412** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:08 pm

YILA wrote:is this just a mac problem? Or the Santa Rosa in general?

Definitely a mac problem. I do not have this issue on my santa rosa notebook. It works amazingly well.

Luke

bleepsnbreaks · Post by **bleepsnbreaks** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:38 pm

YILA wrote:is this just a mac problem? Or the Santa Rosa in general?

This particular problem appears to only affect the santa rosa macbook pros.

glu · Post by **glu** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:47 pm

SR imacs and macbook users running everything okay then?

spielor · Post by **spielor** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:54 pm

thanks for the tip again.
i cant believe it. switching from laptop to desktop energy scheme (should be automaticly as soon as there is detected that the laptop doent run with battery anymore...) shows something between 1/3 - 2/3 less cpu usage. dont know if i should be happy that the problem is so easy to solve (at least in win xp on bootcamp) or sad because it exists.
anyway. thanks for the tip. was really worrying before.
=)

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:02 pm

This is NO problem with Windows or with Macbooks or with chipsets, this is a FEATURE!

When using the LAPTOP/ENERGY SAVING energy-scheme in Windows your CPU get clocked dynamically. That means that it is clocked down when the computer is mostly idle or doing less demanding work and clocked up when load increases. This will save energy both for saving battery life of laptops and saving money on desktops (electrical power gets more expensive by the day). Plus it will cool down your CPU considerably which results in less fan-noise if your fans are temperature-controlled.

Unfortunately with DAWs (at least with Live) the dynamic clocking leads to audio-glitches and drop-outs, most likely because the process that monitors the CPU load for dynamic clocking has to do so an realtime/highest possible priority or switches clock-speeds a tad too slow for quick changing load scenarios. In these cases you should switch to Desktop/max clock manually. You can make the energy-scheme switcher appear in the tray-icon for quick two-click switching of schemes. I use it all the time without problems. In Vista I did not find a way yet to make it appear in the tray, but maybe I simply missed something.

Unfortunately with Mac OS according to this thread it seems as if the OS does not do dynamic clocking properly. You cannot blame the chipset or hardware for this, but only the buggy software! In these cases Coolbook provides an alternative to what the OS should do properly anyway.

Emissary · Post by **Emissary** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:31 pm

glu wrote:SR imacs and macbook users running everything okay then?

i dont think my macbook is running as good as it should, its a SR and when i installed coolbook i got far more headroom

bleepsnbreaks · Post by **bleepsnbreaks** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:45 pm

Timur wrote:This is NO problem with Windows or with Macbooks or with chipsets, this is a FEATURE!

When using the LAPTOP/ENERGY SAVING energy-scheme in Windows your CPU get clocked dynamically. That means that it is clocked down when the computer is mostly idle or doing less demanding work and clocked up when load increases. This will save energy both for saving battery life of laptops and saving money on desktops (electrical power gets more expensive by the day). Plus it will cool down your CPU considerably which results in less fan-noise if your fans are temperature-controlled.

Unfortunately with DAWs (at least with Live) the dynamic clocking leads to audio-glitches and drop-outs, most likely because the process that monitors the CPU load for dynamic clocking has to do so an realtime/highest possible priority or switches clock-speeds a tad too slow for quick changing load scenarios. In these cases you should switch to Desktop/max clock manually. You can make the energy-scheme switcher appear in the tray-icon for quick two-click switching of schemes. I use it all the time without problems. In Vista I did not find a way yet to make it appear in the tray, but maybe I simply missed something.

Unfortunately with Mac OS according to this thread it seems as if the OS does not do dynamic clocking properly. You cannot blame the chipset or hardware for this,

Its but only the buggy software! In these cases Coolbook provides an alternative to what the OS should do properly anyway.

It seems to me that you are failing to understand some of the problems being experienced by people.
My CPU will NEVER run higher than 800mhz, even when you run a CPU stress app. the speed stepping NEVER makes the CPU step up. THE SPEEDSTEPPING IS BROKEN. there are a few different problems being experienced by people
I did NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM on my core duo macbook it only sterted on my santa rosa macbook pro. The only way I can get my CPU to tun higher than 800mhz is to run coolbook and force the CPU at 2400

eamoon · Post by **eamoon** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:01 pm

I'm experiencing at least some of these problems on a new 2.6ghz macbook pro. It seems like the kind of load Live puts on the CPU is something Leopard has a lot of time adapting the CPU speed to. I'm actually seeing better performance (fewer dropouts and a lower reported CPU use in Live) if I leave Coolbook's CPU load generator turned up about halfway, regardless of its other settings. I guess that smooths out the overall CPU load to the point where the speedstep firmware makes fewer dumb decisions?

Anyway, this is weird and a bit disappointing. Leopard is still young, though...

eamoon · Post by **eamoon** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:50 am

On a similar note: has anyone done this kind of stress test in other audio apps? I tried making a stress test in max/msp (N instances of a pfft~ patch... with coolbook I was able to get N up to around 40, without it started glitching around 24-32).

I'm especially curious how the new Logic performs, since Apple presumably had plenty of chances to test it on Santa Rosa machines.

btw, my tests have been using the built-in audio interface.

ekwipt · Post by **ekwipt** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:54 am

The new SR MBP are made more cheaply than the previous models.

Blame one of the manufacturers and apple for cheaping out their professional consumer base.

Here's hoping the new MACPROs are made with some love for the pros

baz00r · Post by **baz00r** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 8:20 am

i am experiencing the same issue, i have bought coolbook but dont think i have it setup correctly because i am still experiencing the problem, can somebody post a screenshot of the setup they have for coolbook?

i find also i have to go into the live preferences, reduce the buffer size to zero and then all the way back up again to get a decent performance, its very wierd

can anybody give me a hand with the correct setup of coolbook?

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:55 am

bleepsnbreaks wrote:It seems to me that you are failing to understand some of the problems being experienced by people.
My CPU will NEVER run higher than 800mhz, even when you run a CPU stress app. the speed stepping NEVER makes the CPU step up. THE SPEEDSTEPPING IS BROKEN. there are a few different problems being experienced by people
I did NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM on my core duo macbook it only sterted on my santa rosa macbook pro. The only way I can get my CPU to tun higher than 800mhz is to run coolbook and force the CPU at 2400

No, you fail to understand that this is a software problem and not a hardware one, because apparently it seems to run well on Windows when using Bootcamp (if I understood some of the posts here right). Also the fact that Coolbook is well able to clock the CPU shows that there's something wrong in Mac OS software, not in CPU/chipset hardware. Speedstep is not performed by the chipset or CPU but by a software driver that uses functions of the chipset/CPU.

SpeedStep is a trademark for a series of technologies (including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel microprocessors that allows the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software.
...
Intel's website specifically states that such drivers must come from the computer manufacturer; there are no generic drivers supplied by Intel which will enable SpeedStep for older Windows versions if one cannot obtain a manufacturer's driver.
...
Mac OS also has SpeedStep built into the kernel, since the release of the Intel version of OS X 10.4 and is controlled in the System Preference "Energy Saver"

Conclusion: Blame Apple, not Santa-Rosa!

bleepsnbreaks · Post by **bleepsnbreaks** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:07 am

Im not saying that its a hardware problem, but that its a problem that only affects the santa rosa chipsets.
I had the problem in both Tiger and Leopard.
Must admit that I havent tried it in bootcamp, but I have no interest in using windows.
I agree, this is an apple problem and Im disgusted that I cant even get them to return a phonecall about it.
All they tell me is to take it to an apple service centre, where they will molest my laptop, probably re-install macOSX and format my hard drive and still not resolve the problem becuase this is something that needs to be addressed by apple and not by a contracted break/fix company.

dango · Post by **dango** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:05 pm

be sure to report all your problems to ableton. mac is not going to change to accommodate live, so ableton needs to make the adjustments. all of my other programs run just fine, except Live. so i am convinced it is an ableton problem. i reported all my gripes to ableton tech support and they said they would contact apple. so let them know what is going on or it won't get fixed.

wilxon · Post by **wilxon** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:52 pm

Well, i was thinking of upgrading my 2.3ghz Macbook Pro C2D (Napa i think) to a SR MBP, but i dont think ill bother now.

Live runs sweet here, so......

maybe the problem is split between Apple & Santa Rosa chipset, a conflict or something.