Ableton Forum

here's the old one:
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0

lezef wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % (if it bounces around, please list the peak) 119%-135%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model APPLE Ibook G4 1Ghz
3) Operating System Mac OS X.4.2
4) CPU Make Model and Speed G4 1Ghz
5) Amount of Ram / Speed of Ram (if you know) 768 Mo DDR2700
6) Soundcard (Stock or add on?, usb/firewire/pci ?) M-AUDIO Firewire Audiophile
7) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know) Hitachi 60 Go 7200 rd/min

I'm compltely upset by this result ! I think Live 4.1.4 was less hungry on the CPU than LIVE 5. Maybe it's possible to make the same liveset for both version, isn't it ?

Live 5 is more CPU hungry than Live 4.

You're not going to get great performance numbers with a G4 processor. This thread should be testamony to that fact.

Doesn't mean your comp is no good for Live.... it can still work great for you.... it's just not running this rather CPU intensive test program well.

lonemale wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 68-74%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model: iBook G4 laptop
3) Operating System: OSX 10.4.2
4) CPU Make Model and Speed : 1.33 Ghz
5) Amount of Ram / Speed of Ram 1.5 Gigs
6) Soundcard (Stock or add on?, usb/firewire/pci ?): 1/8 jack
7) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know): 4200 I think.

I have the same results on the same machine, but with only 512 MB Ram (stock). The hard disk drive speed should be 5400 for those ibooks (I think ...).

1. 45%
2.Emachines T4510
3. XP (home)
4.Pentium 4, 2.53 ghz
5.1gb ram ddr
6.delta 1010
7.?

Ok, my results were similar to others with a similar set up about 42%.

I just got this set up, and wondered quite a bit whether to go for an imac G5, or spend the bucks and get a dual processor G5.

There are a lot of posts that claim that the dual processor will not do any good for live. That can not possibly be the case. I checked the activity monitor on CPU usage, and both processors are used about evenly. So, even though Live is not opimized for DP on Mac OSX. It does not need to be, because, according to Apple, the operating system is. So, the operating system, and CPU architecture will automatically allocate system resources as needed for whatever application is being used.

Now for whatever reason iMac G5s are getting similar results in this test. I do not know why they would be so similar. But what I really want to know is how well an iMac G5 would do with the full set of NI Komplete 2 running?

I upgraded to this set up from a powerbook 867mhz machine, and must say, I can insert 4 times as many NI soft synths with live on the new machine than the old.

30%
AthlonXP 2500 Oc'd to 3200
512MB PC3200 Ram
2 Seagate Sata drives, 120 and 160 gig
Asus A7N8X-E board
Aardvark 2496 audio card

There are a lot of posts that claim that the dual processor will not do any good for live. That can not possibly be the case. I checked the activity monitor on CPU usage, and both processors are used about evenly. So, even though Live is not opimized for DP on Mac OSX. It does not need to be, because, according to Apple, the operating system is. So, the operating system, and CPU architecture will automatically allocate system resources as needed for whatever application is being used.

That is interesting.... although I'm not sure if it is true.

As anyone who is honest will report, the Apple computer simply get lower results on these performance tests with Live. Plain and simple.

So far, the explanations for that seems to be the following:

1. The G4 processor is extremely old technology, and just not up to par with top end PC processor power available today.

2. The G5 processor is leaps and bounds stronger than the G4, but since Live "can't use dual processors" it doesn't get the same level of results as competing technologies on the PC end. For example, an AMD processor with a similar clock speed to the G5 is blowing the Mac performance numbers out of the water.



If what you say is true.... and Live does indeed use dual processors.... then this is only a more damning commentary on the overall poor performance of Apple computers in general. It just says that a single PC laptop worth $1000 can dish out more CPU processing power than 2 of the best Mac desktop processors.

While I'm not a big Mac fan right now.... I do like the company.... but I am not so sure I believe that Live is really using both CPUs. I know Apple's are slow.... but are they REALLY that slow? I could understand if one of those G5 cpus was not being utilized... that makes sense... but if both are, that's just embarassing... don't you think?

As a PC and Mac-user I would like to have an answer to the above questions too. What makes it worthwile to buy a G5 (as I've been considering), while my Acer laptop scores better in this test...32%

QUAZAR wrote:As a PC and Mac-user I would like to have an answer to the above questions too. What makes it worthwile to buy a G5 (as I've been considering), while my Acer laptop scores better in this test...32%

Os X.

what about OSX then?

first attempt:

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter %
Bouncing up and down all over the place, max 70%+, WTF is wrong with my system?!

carefully apply all advice available in this thread.
second attempt:

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 36 - 39 % steady as a rock.

2) Siemens Nixdorf AMILO D laptop
3) XP SP2
4) Mobile P4 3.33Ghz dual core
5) 1GB ram
6) M-Audio FW 410
7) 5400

So thanks for this thread and all the advise on it. Doubled the performance of my music software for the sake of an hour's fiddling with settings.

What's more I can take the buffer size down to 64 and the CPU still stays below 40% I could never use a latency this low before - this makes me very happy!

Still chokes at 96KHz though

QUAZAR wrote:what about OSX then?

It's much better than Windows, in every aspect.
Silmpe like that.

in what ways does this make any difference when you're working with ableton live?

QUAZAR wrote:in what ways does this make any difference when you're working with ableton live?

None - it's only the operating system, who cares if it's ergonomyc and stable...