Ableton Forum

The reality is that when it comes to Ableton OSX just doesn't perform as fast as windows. I am not the first to discover this either. I had heard alot of rumors but now from my own findings I know it to be true. I don't prefer one or the other though, I just like having the ability to use both. I do notice OSX to be alot more secure as far as spyware and viruses (which definately helps Ableton to run more smoother) but when it comes to processing power Windows get's it done hands down.

I think the reason is Apples fault more than Ableton's. They really need to offer more features that allow you to squeeze more processing power out of your system. Maybe cut back on all the fancy features of OSX that you don't really need and a better way to shut the speed steppin off than deleting the kernel extension yourself.

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 38%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model - Desktop 'Bitsa'
3) Operating System - WinXP SP2
4) CPU Make Model and Speed - P4 3.2ghz Prescott, Socket 478 (HT=On)
5) Amount of Ram / Speed of Ram - 2GB / PC3200, Bandwidth 3700MB/s
6) Soundcard - ASIO driver on DIGI002R (firewire)
7) Hard Disk Drive Speed - 7200rpm, 8.5ms, SATA 1.5 Gb/s

Am still having trouble with 'cyclic' spiking on my tunes, but not on this test. On my tunes, LIVE meter can show 150% and at same time in Task Manager/Performance, meter shows CPU usage at 44%. ????

gvhull wrote:1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 38%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model - Desktop 'Bitsa'
3) Operating System - WinXP SP2
4) CPU Make Model and Speed - P4 3.2ghz Prescott, Socket 478 (HT=On)
5) Amount of Ram / Speed of Ram - 2GB / PC3200, Bandwidth 3700MB/s
6) Soundcard - ASIO driver on DIGI002R (firewire)
7) Hard Disk Drive Speed - 7200rpm, 8.5ms, SATA 1.5 Gb/s

Am still having trouble with 'cyclic' spiking on my tunes, but not on this test. On my tunes, LIVE meter can show 150% and at same time in Task Manager/Performance, meter shows CPU usage at 44%. ????

Take HT off. It only hurts. You will notice that your spikes disappear. I did the same thing on my P4 3.0Ghz Dell Inspiron 5150 and it made all the difference.

1) 34 %
2) Desktop
3) WinXP
4) AMD Athlon 2700+
5) 1GB, DDR 400
6) PCI M-Audio Delta 1010LT
7) 7200 rpm

1) %35-41
2) Desktop
3) XP
4) P4 3.0GHz
5) 1GB (2x512mb) Kingston
6) M-Audio Audiophile USB
7) 7200RPM

Well it suprised me that OSXs being slower than XPs..I wonder if its going to be still that slow on the dualcore MacBook Pro's..

1) 39%-42%
2) Desktop
3) XP SP2
4) P4 511 (2,8GHz/533Mhz FSB/1MB L2 Cache/Without HT)
5) 1GB DDR2/533MHz (Samsung,1 piece)
6) Realtek ALC882 (On board)
7) 7200RPM with 8MB Cache

DJSK wrote:I think the reason is Apples fault more than Ableton's. They really need to offer more features that allow you to squeeze more processing power out of your system. Maybe cut back on all the fancy features of OSX that you don't really need and a better way to shut the speed steppin off than deleting the kernel extension yourself.

i was getting 24% on the windows partion of my macbook and 27% on the OS X. this is a 2ghz 2GB of RAM model. personally, i'll take the 3% processor hit with OSX, it's worth it.

Funny thing is that now that I am running Windows XP on my mac it has been running so stable. That and Windows ASIO Latency is so much faster than OSX Core Audio. I will stick to windows for now for producing until more Universal Binaries come out. For performing it's definately OSX though. OSX is definately rock solid.

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 49%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model - Mac Book Pro
3) Operating System - OSX
4) CPU Make Model and Speed - Dual Core Intel 2.0ghz
5) Amount of Ram / Speed of Ram - 1GB
6) Soundcard - ASIO driver on MOTU Ultralite
7) Hard Disk Drive Speed - 7200rpm

Not so good huh?

yes, if you do searching here in the forums about Macbook Pros and speedstepping, you'll see that you're CPU is running at about half or 75% of it's optimum speed... this is to save battery life. if you do something CPU intensive in another program while Live is playing your CPU meter in Live will drop from 49% to 28-30% - which is the actual performance of your laptop.

1. 32%-34%
2. HP L2000 Special Edition
3. XP Pro SP 2
4. AMD Turion 64
5. 1 GB RAM
6. ASIO on whatever is built in
7. 5400 RPM

It's my work laptop that just so happens to blow my 1ghz powerbook away. I'm still using the powerbook, though, but I spend most of my time freezing tracks.....
Soon I'll upgrade to a macintel for music purposes.

edited...

hold up, got a new lappie, need to tweak it some more.

Without speed stepping extension removed:
1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 39%
2) Macbook
3) OS X 10.4.6
4) Core Duo 1.83ghz
5) 512MB RAM (stock)
6) Soundcard - Built in
7) 5400 rpm hard drive (stock)

With speed stepping extension removed:
1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % - 37%
2) Macbook
3) OS X 10.4.6
4) Core Duo 1.83ghz
5) 512MB RAM (stock)
6) Soundcard - Built in
7) 5400 rpm hard drive (stock)
i haven't tested much else yet with the speed stepping extension removed. it might make a bigger difference on sets with a larger cpu load.

That's the haps for the new mac laptops. sure beats the 97% score for my 1ghz 12" powerbook.

Scientist, numbers aside, how is your computer performing while in Live? Any skips or stalling?