Does Ableton support 8core/12core systems?

[workistorture]

I was wondering if Live actually used more than 4 processors when multicore/multiprocessor support is turned on because I've read that most DAW's don't even support anything higher than a quad core system... And if does support more than quadcore, how much of a difference in performance is there?

[Jarvisimon]

I couldn't tell you the answer to that, however I have done a bit of surfing on this subject and have read that intel are working on an 80 core processor which they hope to release by 2012.

Along with this new technology, they're also working on ways to programme such a chip as it doesn't work in the same way as present ones do. They're trying to make it so that the cores group together as and when needed, so if something's doing a lot of heavy duty number crunching, it's got the power to do so at speed.

What I want to know is, are the software developers (not just Ableton) doing their research in this area, so that once the chip is released, we have software that's able to utilise it, or must we wait another 5 yrs for them to catch up?

[workistorture]

So far I have found these threads:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... ktest.html

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=116894


The second thread is probably most relevant to the situation I'm in since I'm deciding if I should just get the nice quad core instead of getting the entry-level 8 core. I wish somebody did a benchmark test though to make sure that Ableton actually uses all 8 cores to its fullest capabilities or not.

[AceLuby]

Personally, I'm not confident that live uses both of my duo cores.

[luddy]

Yeah, it definitely uses multiple cores, and it looks to me like it does a better job balancing the load on them than Logic does. It's easy to watch it in action: you can turn on the activity meter (on a Mac) and put up the CPU view, then fire up Live and watch it go. I can't post a screenshot, but I have an 8 core mac pro. Before starting Live, there is a tiny activity in one or two cores, basically all quiet. When I load a big project in Live, the cores light up all the way across.

-Luddy

[Pasha]

Live uses both cores I have got but beware:

When you have a rack with four operators (or analog) in it your CPU usage is the double
of the same setup done with routing on more tracks.
This initially gave me the impression that Live was not using 2 cores, then I understood that in order to use cores the audio data stream has to be separated. When using a rack you are actually using 1 core. When using more tracks your are using 2 cores. I can't say what happens on more than 2 cores because I do not have that machine.

- My 2 cents
- Pasha

[octopod]

There's some more on multiple core systems here http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=110780

That chip Jarvisimon is talking about is a completely different beast to the x86 lineage we all use now. Your operating system won't run on it never mind running Live. Even if it could, the only people who *really* know how to program 80 core processors are the ones writing weather and nuclear weapon simulators on mainframes. Concurrency is hard, the more cores you have the more communication you have to do to synchronise everything that's going on so there are diminishing returns. A DAW that could use 80 cores properly would be very, very different internally.