very high CPU Usage with Operator. Is it just me?

Cache · Post by **Cache** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:42 pm

supster, i like the sound of that. thats good. slow panning LFOs fed from midi to dual operators.
good stuff.

as for the rest of ye, for f sake. stop pissing about mac vs pc and just talk about Live.

machines-whateveryournameis i'm sure you're knowledgeable.

adamjay - anyone who puts that Live perf test together and puts in that much time to update the results, well says it all really. Props big time.

hehe, i'm writing this from a pc laptop thats actually sitting on a G4 as a table. does that mean i'm getting involved in mac-vs-pissy wars?

nope.

my soup is cooking...more later

shiver · Post by **shiver** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 3:52 pm

dito!!

these discussions are so lame..
why is literally EVERY discussion about Live's (or Operator's - in this case) performance ending up in a mac vs. pc battle? i really can't hear all this anymore. yes live is a million times better/faster/whatever on a PC... no they still don't have altivec, and i'm not happy with that at all.. but, i love my mac and i can totally understand if someone loves his pc (for these reasons).. let's do a poll that they integrate altivec! just for these kind of discussions to end !!!

next topic please..

ultrasource · Post by **ultrasource** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 4:54 pm

Between operator gripes and pc vs. mac debates, it's amazing that people still have time to make music.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 5:56 pm

these figures do seem odd.

I'm working on a VSTi at the moment that I am trying to keep below 6% - it has a 'performance sequencer' arpegiator, 3 osc synth and effects built in.

Now I am a crap programmer, and this is a VSTi . I am a bit suprised that some people are seeing higher CPU on a synth that is simpler in structure and more integrated with the host.

Something is up here. A basic 4 operator fm synth should use about 2-3% on my dothan 2.
With softsynths - audio processing costs cycles where control paths don't use very much, so I can reasonably legitimately make parallels between any lame VSTi of mine and one made by Ableton.

If I can make a 4 op fm that uses 2-3% and Operator is using more ... expect an update.

Post by **Alex** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 6:17 pm

Hi Angstrom,

If I can make a 4 op fm that uses 2-3% and Operator is using more ... expect an update.

this kind of comparison is a bit easy. If you play a bit with the Operator instrument you should see that the a the CPU usage mainly depends on the the settings and not on the number of operators.
So many voices with long envelope release values will result in higher CPU load. Another good one is the "Spread" parameter. You should see that this takes a lot of CPU if you use it.

So if you want to compare the CPU usage between different FM synth you cannot only count the numbers of operator the synth has.

regards,
Alex

alias · Post by **alias** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 7:20 pm

by the way, if you have enough voices enabled, operator has zero latency. the only latency you have is the one of your soundcard.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 7:47 pm

Angstrom wrote:With softsynths - audio processing costs cycles where control paths don't use very much, so I can reasonably legitimately make parallels between any lame VSTi of mine and one made by Ableton.

If I can make a 4 op fm that uses 2-3% and Operator is using more ... expect an update.

I'm under the impression rightly or wrongly, that Operator is suffering from the same audio engine problems that Live itself does. On my system Simpler is no different, it uses as much juice as Kontact? for whatever reason Live's built in FX seem to suffer from the same bloat that the audio engine itself has.
This is platform independent from what I can tell.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 7:49 pm

i wonder if it Operator performance could be improved with altivec optimization. hmmmm.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Jan 22, 2005 11:53 pm

AdamJay wrote:i wonder if it Operator performance could be improved with altivec optimization. hmmmm.

Possibly.
Personally I think Live just has a bloated audio engine in general. I don't think FM7 is altivec and it performs much better in Live than Operator? and I'm not sure a synth would be able to use that sort of code in a host that is not? Dunno?
Makes sense to buy the biggest baddest machine you can if Live's your main soft synth composition tool considering.

One thing, I'm not all doom and gloom about this, I'll bet Operator improves significantly, and Live starts using cpu cycles more efficiently in the future. They stated years ago that altivec would eventually happen, and I bet they improve the PC side as well! This is Live's first year as a VSTi host after all!

At 50/50 sales they can't afford to ignore either OS.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 12:26 am

I think Live just has a bloated audio engine in general.

I've not used Live on Mac, but on PC Live seems very efficient to me.

The VSTi I have done all return the same cpu values in live as I would expect - occaisionally lower ... which is always a shock! Other effects which traditionally eat CPU such as Trueverb all operate well in Live with no problems.

As far as dealing with samples and loops/ stretching goes, I have always found it pretty efficient. Comparable to, or lower than anything else I have been using.

Although, having said this, I have started using my laptop a hell of a lot since I got it - and as the Live 4 performance chart shows it's quite good on Dothans.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 12:58 am

Angstrom wrote:I've not used Live on Mac, but on PC Live seems very efficient to me.

How do you compare it to Cubase SX or Sonar? I know personally that Live's efficiency is much worse than either Logic or Digital Performer on a mac, comparable to Traction, maybe worse.
Adams performance was comparable to mine in the test if you went with straight CPU. My main contention was that FM7 was more than twice as efficient as Operator, and honestly Simpler performs at the same CPU usage as Kontact on my machine. Kontact 1.5 is not optimized for macs.....
Are you comparing Operator and Live's FX to other devices of similar quality?
My main machine is three years old, and my laptop is two years old, both macs, so I'm a little more cautious about PIGS than most people.

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:12 am

Alias knows what they are saying. I was running 6 instances of operator on my 2gig dual g5, and it was sometimes pushing 80%.
After dropping spread to 0 I am steady below 50%.
That will do for now.
Thanks man, I owe you.
Time will straighten out the Operator quirks- no doubt.

16 BIT · Post by **16 BIT** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:58 pm

I totally forgot this thread. thought it had vanished.

I mentioned on another thread the operator CPU usage was normal. When I posted the this thread I did indeed see my CP usage up to 60+%. The next day the CPU was a more respectable 16%. No Idea whay this happened but I do get large CPU spikes sometimes fro no apparnet reason. Usually restarting the machine solves the problem.

A ghost in the machine perhaps.