annoying poor shopkeepers with ableton performance test

twitterytom · Post by **twitterytom** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:44 pm

so i dropped my laptop the other day and the display shattered.

now im in the market for a new laptop that i will use heavily for performance with live. got my eyes on the hp pavilion dv5. first bad news was that it doesnt support xp and it seems that there are no decent drivers available.

i decided may be i need to take the plunge and start using vista. in the shop i then downloaded the ableton trial and ran the live 6-7 performance test (http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0) and got a disappointing 90% cpu usage. the shopkeeper kept assuring me it was the best system he had and was sad i didnt want to buy it anymore.

this is a system with 4gb of ram dual core amd turion processors. is that normal? can vista be causing this?

ok so my real question: i really need to buy a new laptop tomorrow because im stuck with work and everything. ive heard toshiba has a good reputation. preferably a fast new pc laptop with the ability to run windows xp.

any recommendations? anyone had experience with acer notebooks? there are quite a few good deals on those around here too.

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:51 pm

Performance testing means nothing without knowing the latency/sample rate and if the proper drivers are installed.

10ms total I/O latency @ 96khz is MUCH different than 40ms @48khz, for instance!

twitterytom · Post by **twitterytom** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:52 pm

for the performance test i set the parameters to 512 samples output buffer at a rate of 44100.

latency hasnt really been a problem with my external m-audio card, shooting over the cpu meter is the reason (apart from shattered display) why i need a new laptop

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:24 am

Hrmmm... then it really could be a factor of component or installed software differences making a difference.

I would generally just put together a PC out of quality parts.

Dell & especially HP/Compaq will bottom dollar everything they can to get the high specs on the sign @ the lowest price possible.

There are a few exceptions in the PC maker world, but for the most part - I think it's just too tempting to skimp out on things that don't appear on the specs card.

last man on earth · Post by **last man on earth** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:32 am

How do you run this test? I've never tried, but then, never had problems on my MBP, at least not from Live.

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:38 am

Oh sorry I just now saw you need a laptop.

In the PC world, I tend to like Toshiba & Fujitsu.

Of course I do love my MBP though!

gavscope · Post by **gavscope** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 5:47 am

I have an acer travelmate 7720g which is fantastic. the latest models have dual 2.5ghz cpu's which are beefier than mine. the 5720,s are the same, just smaler and only one harddrive. the Vista business models come with an XP downgrade.
I think the biggest seling point is the build quality- it has a magnesium alloy case that is solid as- there is none of the floppiness that I have seen with toshibas and fujitsu's. also, it has great battery life. and shock protection on the hard drives. as a bonus- it has excellent wi fi pickup too. I get a beter signal than anyone else i've come across.
I am running Vista fine.
btw, no AMD cpu is as fast as intel- they are losing the race atm.
my 2.2 dual cpu and 2 gig ram runs live fine- it is hard to even get it to freeze on purpose. and Live by nature uses very little RAM, I would avoid looking at Ram as a major selling point. you could always stick more in anyway.