Ableton Forum

pribeh_tom wrote:R.J.,

If you use coolbook to monitor the frequency (speed) of your processor without modifying it (you download and do this for free) you'll notice that the speed is jumping constantly back and forth between frequencies an awful lot while playing the T's test. Once I started just throttling I saw 49% come up.

Another thing, if I only throttled (on high, with default settings) in CoolBook I would get 120% spike at first while running 12 tracks (of T's) test. Once I used the highest processor frequency (by setting it as the only option for the MBP) I could play 12 tracks (of T's) test without any high spiking (120%) while getting a smooth 64%.

Very good to know, thanks man!

my 2.33Ghz 3GB mbp (5400) is absolutely choking on the first 16 bars with this test, using the internal interface. maybe a cold boot will help or something


can't get a non drop out, even down to 4 tracks

R.J.Dubya wrote:

Nokatus wrote:There is an actual benefit only if the default throttling is "lazy" enough to induce dropouts before speeding up.

Which it is. Because Ableton stutters at pretty low cpu quite often (lke 65%), it is totally worth it to get that extra throttling from the processor. The computer doesn't think it needs to be at full speed when live is around 60-70%, but at the same time that's really Live's maximum useable percentage, unfortunately.

and

pribeh_tom wrote:Prior to using coolbook the test broke my mbp, 90-110% (rendering it unusable). With coolbook however, I can run 12 at 64%.

It definitely does sound like there's something wrong. Based on people reporting these kinds of experiences, I'd say both the default throttling and Live itself are functioning worse than optimal.

Edit: However, also consider that the Live CPU meter is a compound score of all CPU cores. This means that you are able to max out only a part of your CPU, have the meter far away from a full 100%, and still have the audio glitch. For example, think about maxing out one core in Live, with a very heavy plug-in setup on a single channel. On a quad system, this would result in a meter reading around 25%, and the audio would naturally start glitching if you pushed the stuff on that channel further.

So, having glitches on a relatively low combined CPU meter reading doesn't necessarily always mean that Live is having problems, that's just how it goes when dividing the load among multiple cores and reporting the compound load.

Ok...I've been running some more tests with the like of Xbench,Core Duo Temp and Cinebench....

Sparklepuff helped me out with some Activity Monitor comparisons (thanks fella) while running the LPT. Turns out, despite the fact that Live's CPU meter was showing 135% while everyone elses's is around 60 -67%, Activity Monitor on both our systems shows around 126%. Very strange...because this is the first time that Live, for me, has shown a higher figure than AM.

Xbench shows my processor running at a rate of considerably under half of the megaflop rate of other Xbench testers on the same machine....with my overall system result running at almost exactly one half.

Core Duo Temp shows my processor locked on a clock of 1.33Mhz even when subjected to the load of the LPT. I have yet to install the licensed version to see whether re-clocking the processor is possible and if so what it effect it has.

Also cinebench, which runs a series of heavy load 3D rendering tests, shows my MBP smoking other pre Santa Rosa, non Nvidia machines.....

so all this conflicting information leaves me very confused....

Sorry, I posted this in the TEST results section, here it is:
Hi all,
I just tried to test my set up but I run into a strange problem.
My set up: PC- Home built/ Windows XP SP2
Pentium 4- 2.8Ghz
2Go Corsair memory
2 Sata discs 7500
Nvidea geforce 7600GT
M-audio firewire solo - (anybody tried with this sound card?)
I tried to follow your instructions, in prefs,when I disable audio input processor turns red and AUDIO engine is off.I can't run anything.
When i run it with audio on, PC locks, and nothing is responding...screachy distorted sound... mouse locks
When I load your set, the PCU indicator is on 8%, when it stops after it "unfreezes" the PCU shoots up to 180% WOW.
What is going wrong? I didn't think my PC is sooooo bad???

Installed Coolbook

Now my test is down to 48% Live's CPU and 105% Activity Monitor. No audio glitches on 8 tracks.

It would seem, as i suspected, that the stepping on the Santa Rosa chip was just not working at all. Previously, under load, there was no evident change to the CPU frequency. Now it reacts properly when the Live Performance Test is running.

Anyone running one of the new Santa Rosa PC laptops? I'm still considering the Lenovo with XP. I can install a second internal 7200RPM HD in there, so that is what has me most intruiged about these machines. I would like to know if it plays nice with live. Looking at T61.

glu wrote:Anyone running one of the new Santa Rosa PC laptops? I'm still considering the Lenovo with XP. I can install a second internal 7200RPM HD in there, so that is what has me most intruiged about these machines. I would like to know if it plays nice with live. Looking at T61.

I just got a sonica livetracker with a 2.4 santa rosa. 47% in the test. It's totally solid right up to 100%. Fluid graphics and no dropouts.

Luke

the stepping on the Santa Rosa chip was just not working at all

Yup. At least we figured it out.

How does Live run on XP...through bootcamp on a macbook pro?

If anyone else can help me host the test files, I'd greatly appreciate it. Demand for these has been much higher than I expected, and I'm borderline on my bandwidth for my site 2 months running.

Thanks!

hi,

I get 65-69% with macbook c2d 2ghz 2gbram (no santa rosa), live6.0.10, os 10.4.10.

coolbook DEMO with cpu load at 5 (2004mhz) make the score fall to 54 %.


I have a question about memory use:

in the activity monitor, while playing this test liveset back, I have:

total : 2gb
resident : 311Mb
active : 926Mb
inactive : 437Mb
used : 1.67Gb
free / usable : 371Mb

IS IT NORMAL ???

only 371 Gb free, with no sample in ram, and only cpu task plugin racks ???


I've got nearly the same ram check up when working on my live set, but with 3rd party plugins, so the Free ram falls to... ... 25 Mb !!!

should I upgrade to 3go, or is it another problem, or not a problem???

cheers

Restart yuour laptop, and then run the test, looks like you had other apps running too. The test should not be using anywhere near that much memory.

okay, I'll try tonight.

seems that I have a kind of memory use problem...

is there some links to specific macbook/live memory theme?

thanks tarekith

I don't know of any memory issues with Live and OSX, if that's what you mean.