Mac Pro 8-core not used by Live to full potential

Hardtoe · Post by **Hardtoe** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:40 am

I have a baseline mac pro 8 core (2.8l with 4 gigs of ram . I have been doing some tests with Live 7 and I am getting clicks and pops after adding about 50 Altiverbs at a 512 buffer size with a motu ultralite. Activity monitor only shows about 55% of the 8 cores being utilized with the system using 8% and there is 37% idle.(Live offloads each different track to a new processor - for this test I kept making single tracks with altiverbs - NOT a bunch of altiverbs on one track) Why is Live having audio drops out while there is still plenty of processor power available???

Thanks

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:11 am

for some odd reason this version of live is extremely temper-mental.....

What audio card do you have? Live seems to really need a high-end card....

or

they have some sort of bug in the audio engine they refuse to fix/acknowledge...

Hardtoe · Post by **Hardtoe** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:22 am

I have a motu ultralite running at a 512 buffer as I already stated.....It's, like, pretty high end......

The Phat Conductor · Post by **The Phat Conductor** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:30 am

i have the same mac and it is SMOKIN with a presonus firebox.

those MOTUs can be real issues with live in my experience.

Hardtoe · Post by **Hardtoe** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:45 am

Have you tried any stress testing like this - for general use, the motu is smokin as well, but this shows up only with extreme demands (50 altiverbs)...

Just curious...

The Phat Conductor · Post by **The Phat Conductor** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:09 am

yea, i did right when i got it. it could handle much more than i would ever need. most of my songs have like 8 instances of reaktor and 10 instances of massive no problem at all.

poshook · Post by **poshook** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:48 am

same here with the same comp and mackie Onyx 400F. with Logic 8 I can get almost twice as much

nuxnamon · Post by **nuxnamon** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:16 am

I say worry about it when the time comes that you actually need 50 instances of reverb. Why create an issue when there isn't one.. just focus on making some bangin' tracks..

The Phat Conductor · Post by **The Phat Conductor** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:48 pm

nuxnamon wrote:I say worry about it when the time comes that you actually need 50 instances of reverb. Why create an issue when there isn't one.. just focus on making some bangin' tracks..

dingdingdingdingdingdingding!!!

full marks!

poshook · Post by **poshook** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:05 pm

nuxnamon wrote:I say worry about it when the time comes that you actually need 50 instances of reverb. Why create an issue when there isn't one.. just focus on making some bangin' tracks..

try understand the main idea.
I bought 8-Core Mac Pro, what is by far the fastest personal computer today. In my standard mixing and performing situation (50-60) tracks, 5 reverb sends track, some "group" tracks, a lot of common virtual instruments (80% of all tracks), master track - system shows 30% of CPU load, Live 7 shows 55% of CPU load and what is most important, I hear a lot of audio artefacts. Tried Logic 8 with the same project - Logic CPU load shows less then 40% and no latency issues.

what is very important, the newer version of Live the significantly higher CPU usage. Live 7 is one of the haviest DAW for CPU with worst latencies... but we do not need another slow and lazy audio application, we need fast, low latency and powerfull sequencer what was the main reason why Ableton Live is

nuxnamon · Post by **nuxnamon** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:38 pm

I have the same system as you but with less RAM (10 gigs) and my audio buffer is I think set at 128.. The current project I am working on has about 40 tracks and the live CPU jumps around 45-50% but I don't notice any dropouts yet so I don't worry about "yet". I am using an m-audio 1814 which is substandard compared to the ultralite. I've been told that live's cpu meter isn't that all reliable and you should trust the activity monitor instead but still doesn't explain your drop outs.. did you make sure your RAM configuration is correctly interlaced? I've read tests where they say it's make a good difference in performance.. I found the article on OWC computing, where I got my RAM.. But what's funny is their suggested configuration differs from what apple suggests as far as pairing RAM modules in both risers.. BTW, using 7.0.7 and osx 10.5.4.. I know some people noticed an increase after updating to 10.5.4. Last suggestion is to stream some of your clips directly from the RAM.. Hope you figure it out man..

ThrowAway · Post by **ThrowAway** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:25 am

If I bought a ferrari Id find a place to dog the shit out of it somewhere, some how. just saying.

veggieryan · Post by **veggieryan** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:32 am

make a test file with 50 reverbs and upload it somewhere so we can test it on our rigs to be sure.

sublimelobc · Post by **sublimelobc** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 5:53 am

I have had issues with audio units instruments, where their vst versions run fine.

Had one that sends my cpu full throttle with error logging, I would try some troubleshooting....sometimes Live isn't the problem, sometimes it's an issue with a third party not playing nice.

I use Motu and Mac Pro and agree that the math showing cpu usage doesn't add up..but I would guess your problems may be specific to a certain piece of software that is causing conflict or other factors.

I haven't had any issues with Motu on mac, on pc I would lose firewire connection at times. I sometimes have buffers set at 128 sometimes at 512....actually having to bump it higher now for a song i'm working on now that i'm throwing everything but the kitchen sink. Just adjust latency as needed, freeze tracks as needed....it's not live's fault line6 gearbox is a resource hog for example.

I just got thinking, with 50 instances of reverb going on and 4 gigs your bottleneck is probably in the memory. I don't know how much active memory each instance would use, but you could easily chew up 4 gigs I would think....then the glitches would likely be the computer shufffling to create virtual memory.

I think your issue might be memory not cpu, but I might be wrong. Check your activity monitor and see how much real memory you are using.

You are right in saying that you shouldn't be getting glitches at that low of cpu activity.

Good luck.

poshook · Post by **poshook** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 6:19 am

sublimelobc wrote:I have had issues with audio units instruments, where their vst versions run fine.

Had one that sends my cpu full throttle with error logging, I would try some troubleshooting....sometimes Live isn't the problem, sometimes it's an issue with a third party not playing nice.

I use Motu and Mac Pro and agree that the math showing cpu usage doesn't add up..but I would guess your problems may be specific to a certain piece of software that is causing conflict or other factors.

I haven't had any issues with Motu on mac, on pc I would lose firewire connection at times. I sometimes have buffers set at 128 sometimes at 512....actually having to bump it higher now for a song i'm working on now that i'm throwing everything but the kitchen sink. Just adjust latency as needed, freeze tracks as needed....it's not live's fault line6 gearbox is a resource hog for example.

I just got thinking, with 50 instances of reverb going on and 4 gigs your bottleneck is probably in the memory. I don't know how much active memory each instance would use, but you could easily chew up 4 gigs I would think....then the glitches would likely be the computer shufffling to create virtual memory.

I think your issue might be memory not cpu, but I might be wrong. Check your activity monitor and see how much real memory you are using.

You are right in saying that you shouldn't be getting glitches at that low of cpu activity.

Good luck.

I am sure it is in Live, because Logic with the same project including the same plugins has no problem. Logic has no problem with even bigger projects with higher CPU load