Ableton Forum

I have been running live 5.2 on my Powerbook G4 1.5 ghz, 1.5 gig of RAM for years, and I am now in the position for a LIVE upgrade. It's done all I need and more for live sets, but I would like to take advantage of some of the newer features. The issue is that I don't want to spend the money if it's just going to run like shit on my machine, and I don't want to have to buy a whole new setup just to run a new version of live.

I've looked at the LIVE 8 performance test, but I can't find a setup similar to mine, and it's not really telling me all that I'd like to know....

So, anyone got any experiences to share? Should I avoid Live 8 til I get a new computer? What's a better alternative for my machine - Live 6 or 7?

If so, anyone got a copy of Live 6 or 7 (whichever would run better on my setup) they would like to sell?

jah4life wrote:I have been running live 5.2 on my Powerbook G4 1.5 ghz, 1.5 gig of RAM for years, and I am now in the position for a LIVE upgrade. It's done all I need and more for live sets, but I would like to take advantage of some of the newer features. The issue is that I don't want to spend the money if it's just going to run like shit on my machine, and I don't want to have to buy a whole new setup just to run a new version of live.

I've looked at the LIVE 8 performance test, but I can't find a setup similar to mine, and it's not really telling me all that I'd like to know....

So, anyone got any experiences to share? Should I avoid Live 8 til I get a new computer? What's a better alternative for my machine - Live 6 or 7?

If so, anyone got a copy of Live 6 or 7 (whichever would run better on my setup) they would like to sell?

My personal opinion would be that ver 6 would be the last functional version for ppc. Anything higher up and the Intel would give you better results.

i think so too, i made the jump from 6 to 8 on an MBP intel core2duo 2.16ghz and the performance even on that still fast machine is everything but good with 8, with 6 it was acceptable.

I had dropouts and heavy processor usage with 8+ tracks on my 12", 1.5, 1.25 gigs ram, also the last version of G4 before intel.

That was on Live 5...

SubFunk wrote:i think so too, i made the jump from 6 to 8 on an MBP intel core2duo 2.16ghz and the performance even on that still fast machine is everything but good with 8, with 6 it was acceptable.

If I understand your saying that on you MBP the performance is not that great with 8 I have the same MBP, I am still on 7, makes me think about waiting......

^^^ i can make tracks, but i do think it's poor, performance wise... and i'd rather see improving that in the future then adding another damn hundred functions...

from what i hear people will tell you that it is about on par with 7, but i made the jump from 6 to 8 leaving 7 out... so to me it's a downer... more functions or not.

before i never had trouble... (with 6 did not ever manage to push him over about 40%) now i can push easy the border, crackle, crackle... drop... kkkrkrkskss... stutter. it's my fault that i already in my wow yeah 8 attack opened to many of my old sets in 8, otherwise i would go back to 6.

SubFunk wrote:^^^ i can make tracks, but i do think it's poor, performance wise... and i'd rather see improving that in the future then adding another damn hundred functions...

from what i hear people will tell you that it is about on par with 7, but i made the jump from 6 to 8 leaving 7 out... so to me it's a downer... more functions or not.

before i never had trouble... (with 6 did not ever manage to push him over about 40%) now i can push easy the border, crackle, crackle... drop... kkkrkrkskss... stutter. it's my fault that i already in my wow yeah 8 attack opened to many of my old sets in 8, otherwise i would go back to 6.

Thanks for sharring this. You may have put a cold shower on my upgrade mania. Although, I have been pretty funtional with 7 for the way I produce, so hoding off may not be bad until I can really afford my toys, and not financing them, or laundering money from my wife and kids.....

I have a G4 Powerbook with 1G of Ram - I upgraded to Suite 8 which is primarily used on the Imac, which works great, but frankly on the powerbook it is completely hopeless... Its virtually unusable - i should have stuck with 7 for the laptop side of things - but i want the new White macbook now cos the new Live 8 features i think are worth it.. Shame really.. I may risk an extra gig in the powerbook, but that could be money spent on the new mobile unit!!

sdmiddleton wrote:I have a G4 Powerbook with 1G of Ram - I upgraded to Suite 8 which is primarily used on the Imac, which works great, but frankly on the powerbook it is completely hopeless... Its virtually unusable - i should have stuck with 7 for the laptop side of things - but i want the new White macbook now cos the new Live 8 features i think are worth it.. Shame really.. I may risk an extra gig in the powerbook, but that could be money spent on the new mobile unit!!

So you've run 7 on your Powerbook G4 with relative success? What about 6?

Sounds like I should definitely wait to upgrade to 8 after I get a new machine.

So what's the consensus on the best option for users with pre-intel macs?

Also, from what I gather, LIVE 8 isn't even working very well on newer Macbook Pros and the like?

I'm using Live 7 on a Mac Mini G4 1.5GHz and it can barely keep up if you use more than just a few samples. I beta-tested Live 8 and it couldn't cope at all; crashing often.

jah4life wrote:I have been running live 5.2 on my Powerbook G4 1.5 ghz, 1.5 gig of RAM for years, and I am now in the position for a LIVE upgrade. It's done all I need and more for live sets, but I would like to take advantage of some of the newer features. The issue is that I don't want to spend the money if it's just going to run like shit on my machine, and I don't want to have to buy a whole new setup just to run a new version of live.

I've looked at the LIVE 8 performance test, but I can't find a setup similar to mine, and it's not really telling me all that I'd like to know....

So, anyone got any experiences to share? Should I avoid Live 8 til I get a new computer? What's a better alternative for my machine - Live 6 or 7?

If so, anyone got a copy of Live 6 or 7 (whichever would run better on my setup) they would like to sell?

I had the same Powerbook setup as you. I was very happy with the performance increase from 5.2 to 7. (good luck finding a copy of 7 though!). Yes, 7 ran better than 5 on that puppy.
But the performance increase of Live7 going from my P-book to my Macbook Pro was simply revelational!!!

Things were working OK with 7 on the powerbook, but i had to be so CPU conscious and having more than one Midi device plugged in would also slow things down alot. I only had 6 for about a week before the 7 release so never fully tested it...

Have you tried downloading the Live 8 Demo? It will probably be really slow but no harm trying...If the demo song can't hack it - as it can't on mine, it'll probably give you an idea of what you'll be up against...

If finances are the issue, why not upgrade the computer to a macbook (intel) and use 5.2 until you ready to upgrade to 8?

aisling wrote:If finances are the issue, why not upgrade the computer to a macbook (intel) and use 5.2 until you ready to upgrade to 8?

Well, I have some friends who tried to run 5.2 on their intel macs and it acted really strange and ran slowly, but that was quite a while ago and we never tried it since. I figured that 5.2 was not optimized for intel macs' multi-core processors and runs slowly as a result of only utilizing one of the processor cores. Am I wrong on this?

If I could afford a new mac, I would probably get it, but that's at least a $500-1000 difference between the price of an new version of live or a new computer.


I have not tried the demo of 8 yet, but from what I'm hearing, it will probably be a humbling experience.

Anyone got a copy of 6 or 7 they would be willing to sell?

There's a Live7 for sale on ebay.