Ableton Forum

AdamJay wrote:spacerboy and amberience seem to be getting very good results with Athlon XP's at 2600 and 2400. One thing in common - they are both running XP SP2. I wonder if thats a factor.

either of you care to comment on any noticable performance boosts since updating to SP2 ?

Good question, although I can't really comment too well. My system has always had SP2 on it because I bought this setup way after SP2 was released. I've never had anything other than WinXP on it, and I've never had any upgrades. This system is the same as the day I built it.

Mind you... I did custom build it. I chose the components myself and I got the shop to set it up. I never use a Ghost image either, always a fresh install.

At the moment I have a Rewire setup going.

I've got Reason going into Live on the channels. I've got a pretty hefty spider setup in Reason with 5 mixers, 3 dr-rex's playing drumloops. In there is also some rex bass shots in an NNXT and polyphony for each device is set to 6. I have the bass and drums going through a scream each - two screams then.

I have 2 BV512 vocoders, two filters and two spider units splitting and joining the drums (so I can compress the lows and highs seperately) The vocoders have lines drawn down the frequency chart - fading down from the lows on the low device, and fading down from the highs on the highs device.

In Live I have the lows of the drums on channel 1, and the highs on channel 2. Each of these has a Kjaerhus Audio Golden Compressor on it. These two channels are routed to the 3rd channel and that also has a GCO-1 on it.

The bass comes in on channel 4.

CPU usage - 22%

To be truthful, I hardly ever have trouble with needing more CPU power. There is the odd occassion, but Live makes it so easy to bounce down its pretty much a non-issue.

I love this program!!

I might be upgrading however to this - what do you think???

MarkH wrote:

Per Boysen wrote: 1) 24% - 26%
2) Desktop: Apple G5
4) G5 2x2 GHz

Such a shame there isn't better support for dual CPU. This machine would be seriously smokin! Results still aren't bad at all, but I'll bet Logic would run stellar on your configuration.

Yes, you're right. With Logic this machine flies on two processors. It's ok with Live though, thanks to some "CPU over capacity" I wanted to turn off one of the processors for a second test but it seems that the latest version of Chud Tools doesn't permit that.

[quote="AdamJay"]

VERY IMPORTANT!!!!
before performing the test - please set in preferences...
Audio - Input Audio Device > "No Input"
Audio - Output Buffer Latency > "512 Samples" (if you can't get latency this low - set it as low as you can without pops'n'clicks and make a note in your post)
Audio - Sample Rate > "44100"
Audio - Overall Latency - 11ms + 0ms + "0ms" = 11ms

I don't get this, since when I set input audio device to "No Input" the audio engine turns off so obviously I can't play the file.

I therfore play the clip with my Terratec DMX 6Fire card selected with output buffer latency at 512 samples which gives an overall latency of 11ms + 34ms

Am I overlooking something here?

jimmyalba wrote: I don't get this, since when I set input audio device to "No Input" the audio engine turns off so obviously I can't play the file.

I therfore play the clip with my Terratec DMX 6Fire card selected with output buffer latency at 512 samples which gives an overall latency of 11ms + 34ms

Am I overlooking something here?

When he says set input audio to no inputs he means your actual physical inputs - Like if you've got a delta1010, you should turn off all your 10 inputs in the Live preferences.

Live your card and asio activated though!

It's not SP2 it makes no difference.
I don't have SP2 and my % was lower Amberience .
Infact it was lower than the G5 test also.
Still have yet to hit a wall so far with what i do using VSti's + effects myself.

I honestly think its as simple as pc's being much more faster than a G4. Fax has a 3ghz machine, so its no surprise that its running as fast as it does. Mine is just over 2ghz, which isn't a bad speed to be at during this point in time.

Again, not trying to cause WW3. Just my observation.

same prob as jimmyalba :

if i set my soundcard's buffer to 512ms I get 23 +23 = 46ms
and these are values i can't change.

I always work with a buffer size of 256ms which gives me 11ms latency but still that makes 11ms +11ms = 22ms

???

System 1 PC
1) 32% (35% with Hyperthreading enabled)
2) Desktop
3) Win XP Pro SP2
4) P4 2,6 Ghz
5) 1GB
6) Delta 44
7) 7200 RPM

Note: The PC was connected to the internet (firewall and virus scan active)

System 2 Mac

1) 80%
2) IBook
3) OS x 10.2.8
4) G3 800 Mhz
5) 640 MB
6) Internal
7) 4200 ???

Sony Z1 laptop:
1) 27% peak
2) Laptop Sony Z1
3) Windows XP Professional SP2
4) Intel Centrino 1.5 gHz
5) 1 GB Ram
6) RME Hammerfall Multiface
7) 5400rpm



Old (4 years and 8 months) PentiumII850:
1) 71 %
2) Desktop selfmade
3) Windows XP Professional SP2
4) PentiumIII850
5) 768 Mb Ram
6) RME Hammerfall Multiface
7) 7200rpm

1) 30%
2) "Bamboo rocket" (no brand)
3) Win XP Pro SP 2
4) P4 2.8 gHz
5) 512 mb Kingston
6) Audiophile 2496
7) 7200rpm HD Seagate 80GB disc

so what's the trick to get 11+ 0 sec = 11 sec in the overall latency ?

anyone ?

Service Pack 2 seems to be great btw. I have had some trouble on my old and slow PentiumIII with 24 bits files in Wavelab4 and running some plugins underSP1. But with SP2 it seems to be a bit more powerful.

1) 21% - 22%
2) Desktop: Apple G5
3) OSX 10.3.5
4) G5 2x2.5 GHz
5) 2 G Ram / DDR SDRAM (400 MHz), PC32OOU-30330
6) Built-in Audio (CoreAudio)
7) 7200RPM FW800 Boot drive

yea, Apple needs some faster laptops, cause my 1.33GHz 17" peaks at 58%!

Lovin the G5 tho!

1) 89%, buffersize 2048 (occasional dropouts using UA-25, slightly better results with builtin audio)
2) Apple iBook G4
3) Mac OS X 10.3.5
4) G4@800MHz, 256kb L2 Cache
5) 640 MB RAM, 133MHz Bus Speed
6) Edirol UA-25
7) 4200 iirc

This is slightly depressing since I was looking forward to using Live as my main DAW.

1) 32-37%
2) Laptop: Toshiba Satellite 2430-401
3) WinXP SP1
4) P4 2.53 GHz
5) 512MB DDR Ram
6) Motu 828mkII Firewire
7) 5400 rpm