Ableton Forum

Somethings not right here. My 4year old laptop is beating my brand new tower I built....

Laptop
1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 83%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? HP Pavilion dv8233cl
3) Operating System? XP SP3
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.1
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel T2300 Centrino Duo 1.66
6) Amount of Ram? 1GB
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Conexant
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)?
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

Tower
1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 130%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Custom
3) Operating System? Windows 7 64-bit
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0.1
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? AMD Athlon II X2 250 - 3.0Ghz dual
6) Amount of Ram? 4GB
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? NI Kore 1
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200
9) Number of playback tracks? 2

At 8 tracks, my tower pushes pass 300%.......WTF?

I find this test to be horribly misleading.

The problem with it is a basic misunderstanding of what CPU % means in respect to track count.

First, some performance data. On my 2009 Mac Pro, I run 8 tracks at something like a 39% CPU reading. I can run 32 tracks at almost the same cpu % -- mid 40s. I can run 56 tracks with no audio breakup.

The CPU reading is basically a single core reading, it does not indicate the effect of multiple cores on performance, and it is not a reliable guide to how many tracks can be added.

-Luddy

Tarekith wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter 61%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? MacBook Pro
3) Operating System? OSX 10.5.6
4) Ableton Live version? 8.0b23
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.16gHz, c2d.
6) Amount of Ram? 2GB
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? MOTU Ultralite, v1.4.9
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 5400 RPM
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

Hi, I saw you had 33% on your i7 macbook at 256 sample buffer. I would be interested to hear how low latency you would be able to work smoothly on , you were using RME UC, right?

It would also be helpful to hear how this compares to Logic! Thanks

luddy wrote:I find this test to be horribly misleading.

The problem with it is a basic misunderstanding of what CPU % means in respect to track count.

First, some performance data. On my 2009 Mac Pro, I run 8 tracks at something like a 39% CPU reading. I can run 32 tracks at almost the same cpu % -- mid 40s. I can run 56 tracks with no audio breakup.

The CPU reading is basically a single core reading, it does not indicate the effect of multiple cores on performance, and it is not a reliable guide to how many tracks can be added.

-Luddy

Looking back at the 2 threads referenced in the beginning, there are lots of results, but I can find no robust explanation of what is being tested, what the results mean or how they add up. But we've got lots of nice numbers to look at!

Well, it measures CPU performance @ 256 sample buffer

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 16%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model: Custom Built PC
3) Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit
4) Ableton Live version: 8.1.3
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed: Intel i7 870 2.93ghz
6) Amount of Ram: 6 GB
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it): MOTU Ultralite 3.7.39083
8) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know): samples on 7200 rpm, OS/Live on SSD
9) Number of playback tracks?: 8

maxforlive wrote:Well, it measures CPU performance @ 256 sample buffer

it measures single core performance, but on a machine with a bunch of cores that number doesn't mean very much. You might get a reading like 40% but then double the number of tracks and get almost the same number. A much more valuable version of this test would tell folks to keep increasing the number of tracks until the audio breaks up.

Put another way, a reading like 30% does not at all mean that 30% of your computer is being consumed by Live. If you turn on the CPU Usage window in the Activity Monitor (on Mac) you'll get a picture of the usage across all the cores of your machine.

-Luddy

luddy wrote:
It measures single core performance, but on a machine with a bunch of cores that number doesn't mean very much. You might get a reading like 40% but then double the number of tracks and get almost the same number. A much more valuable version of this test would tell folks to keep increasing the number of tracks until the audio breaks up.

-Luddy

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=870696#p870696

In case you haven't seen it before... clears up what the "CPU" meter is really doing. I think that the current method (as I understand it, it is the ratio: (computation time in samples) / (block size)) makes more sense than using an OS-level CPU meter, in terms of anticipating audio breakups and such... but idk really.

rbrown46 wrote: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=870696#p870696

In case you haven't seen it before... clears up what the "CPU" meter is really doing. I think that the current method (as I understand it, it is the ratio: (computation time in samples) / (block size)) makes more sense than using an OS-level CPU meter, in terms of anticipating audio breakups and such... but idk really.

Yes, I've seen that, and it's good information. But the critical point is that "the time available to compute it" is the time on a single core, because individual audio processes aren't distributed over multiple cores. Put differently, the CPU% does not appear to reflect anything about the consumption of multiple cores.

This is important because the big problem with scaling up in Live is not so much to get through one plug-in or long effect chain without running out of CPU (although that can be a problem), but rather that as you build up a lot of tracks and effects and routing, the whole computer (all the cores and the disk capacity) begins to be saturated. The CPU% meter doesn't tell you about that.

This by the way is the reason that moderately powerful laptops and enormous mac pros stuffed full of memory and processors don't score as differently from one another on the test as one would expect.

-Luddy

1. Ableton Live CPU Meter 11% / 12% (Virus TI ASIO was 11%, others 12%)
2. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Custom Build PC - Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, 1600 DDR3 memory, i7 930 @ 4GHz
3. Operating System? Windows XP SP3
4. Ableton Live version? 8.1.3
5. CPU Make, Model, and Speed? i7 930 @ 4GHz
6. Amount of Ram? 6GB (3.5GB available to XP)
7. Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Virus TI ASIO, Creative X-Fi ASIO, Yamaha 01x mLan ASIO (All gave similar results)
8. Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 10000rpm SATA 2
9. Number of playback tracks? 8

I'll repost this for Win7/64 once I have Live installed on Win7 as well.

^^

Nice machine Khazul.

Err, easy to clock your i7 930 to 4 Ghz?

Any stability issues?

Sibanger wrote:^^

Nice machine Khazul.

Err, easy to clock your i7 930 to 4 Ghz?

Any stability issues?

No issues at all - motherboard/ram/cpu was pre-overclocked and 'guaranteed' to run stable at 4GHz (www.overclockers.co.uk). I just needed to make sure that other bits would complement it and keep it cool enough - decent case, PSU and cooling etc, so Ive semi-customised an off the shelf antec P183 sound damped case to significantly enhance its cooling, airflow, dust resistance etc. CPU is watercooled and I havnt seen the cores go much past 44C in quite a warm room even when stressed.

Machine is quiet too, though still waiting for a few bits to quieten it more.

Has anyone posted single figures (< 10%) yet? Too lazy to sift through 20+ pages and curious what it takes to get there? Overclocked intel extreme 6 core?

Just upgraded my MBP's 5400rpm 120GB internal HD to a 7200rpm one. OS X feels a lot faster, but made negligible difference in this test...

1. Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 54 (was 55 with the 5400rpm HD)
2. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? - Laptop, Apple MacBook Pro
3. Operating System? - OS X 10.6.4
4. Ableton Live version? Live 8.1.3
5. CPU Make, Model, and Speed? - Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.2Ghz
6. Amount of Ram? - 2GB 667Mhz
7. Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? - MOTU Ultralite
8. Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 RPM SATA
9. Number of playback tracks? 8

Updated for Windows 7/64 on same hardware:

1. Ableton Live CPU Meter 12%
2. Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Custom Build PC - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R, 1600Mhz DDR3 memory, i7 930 @ 4GHz
3. Operating System? Windows 7, 64 bit
4. Ableton Live version? 8.1.3
5. CPU Make, Model, and Speed? intel i7 930 @ 4GHz
6. Amount of Ram? 6GB
7. Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Virus TI ASIO (4.0.5), Creative X-Fi ASIO (All same results)
8. Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 10000rpm SATA 2
9. Number of playback tracks? 8

Basically no significant difference between XP/32 and Win7/64 on same hardware. Perhaps the Virus TI XP driver is marginally more efficient, but at 512 samples, shouldnt make any much difference. I did notice the CPU clock multipliers kept cycling (0->16->21) during the test run despite telling Win7 not to reduce the CPU speed , though the ableton CPU meter never wavered off 12%.