Ableton Forum

OK so I've been curious about performance differences between these two? I did a small test with Absynth 2 default preset 1, and a quarter note repeating in a loop on C1. Here are the results so far.

Dual Gig G4, Gig RAM:

Logic- 16 instances
( that's the limit of Absynth, but the mac probably couldn't handle another, based on the CPU )

Live 4- 7

Live is not optimized for dual machines, So next.....

Powerbook G4 800mhz, Gig RAM

Logic- 8

Live- 5!!
A roughly 40% decrease in efficiency from Live?

So just for fun I rewire Logic and Live on the powerbook, Live is slave of course.
I get 8 instances of Absynth while Live plays around 8 tracks of audio in rewire mode!!

Next I'll check on the dual Gig, but so far, it looks like I'm back to rewire, which I was thinking of anyway because of all the goodies in Logic 7, but this just cinches it.
So at least on the mac Live is the biggest pig when it comes to CPU, I'll test Traction for fun next.

kinda makes sense that the software owned by the company that makes the hardware performs a hell of a lot better than the software we all know runs like crap on the mac.

Logic is a super effecient app, even Logic on PC is very easy on the CPU load.

yea but... well... ummm.... most apps on PC are easy on the CPU load. especially with the more modern CPU's.

Altivec needs to happen yesterday!!

Live 4.0.3 running a modest project on my system(see specs below) reports 11% CPU load. Meanwhile, Windows Task Manager(under the Processes tab) reports Live's CPU load at more like 40%! And when the plug-in laden passages kick in it jumps up to 90%. I don't remember Live 3 being such a CPU hog. Then again, I wasn't running any VSTi's through it either. But still!

Yeah,

I am considering Logic Express, becuase I just cannot get anything done in Live, and I cannot stand working on a Windows machine.

It is too bad that I cannot demo Logic Express, and it is hard to find a cracked version (to all you rightous users, I didn't buy Live untill I used a cracked version).

AdamJay wrote:Altivec needs to happen yesterday!!

Yeah I agree, I bought the laptop, the dual Gig was given to me as a payback of an old debt, so I'm used to working with not much overhead, and I would probably write in Live on the powerbook more often than I do, if it had 80% of the output of Logic. Besides, Live is a laptop machine first, so dual isn't as important to me as a proper ( new word for the day) Altivecking! To be fair, Logic beats Digital Performer and SX in CPU as well, ( if I remember right, it beat SX and Sonar on PCs ) but not by a 40% difference!

One thing this really points out is that Ableton can't really say Altivec might not make much of a difference, if Live rewired doesn't affect the performance of Logic one bit, and that's running audio tracks, as well as firing them off in Live's Session veiw! Altivec helps VST/AU hosting, that's clear as day I think.

why does everyone keep forgetting that it's the price you pay for real time functionality - you will never have Live close to competing with Logic in track counts etc just like Logic wil never do what live does - completely different animals

Live is much more focused on manipulation of audio data in real time, NOT running VSTIs. It will always be beat by other packages that are less focused on beat matching, time stretching etc.

Now Logic 7 and apple loops is an interesting development in that direction I will agree. But I think Live is still more capable and "better optimized" for handling audio in an elastic way.

Why oh why won't Live support Apple Loops?

i agree 100% that performance is going to take a hit for realtime functionality. this is obvious.

However, the OSX version could still be improved..... alot.

we aren't taking nearly the performance hit for realtime functionality on the PC side of things

gnapier wrote:Why oh why won't Live support Apple Loops?

That format hasn't been around for too long, give it time. If time shows that it's being widely accepted, maybe Ableton can be persuaded to support AppleLoops.

AdamJay wrote:i agree 100% that performance is going to take a hit for realtime functionality. this is obvious.

However, the OSX version could still be improved..... alot.

we aren't taking nearly the performance hit for realtime functionality on the PC side of things

Well then, how does Live Rewired use NO Resources to perform this function if it is such a different animal, and realtime functionality is so costly? I don't see it like that at all, both sides take a larger hit for audio routing, FX, and soft synths than we should IMO.

My personal take is the soft synth, and audio engine part of Live 4 are badly written compared to other apps, I love Live, but really, why would Logic be able to host Live as a Slave, with me firing clips in the Session view, and Logic hosting 40% more soft synths than Live does when Logic's audio engine is used via rewire? Seriously I can still time stretch and mangle audio in Live as a slave, I'm just not reliant on their audio engine that way.
Logic was pretty dammed efficient on a mac before Apple bought it, like I said already, but I see no reason why Live couldn't squeeze another 20% at least out of a G4? There is absolutely NO Altivec code in Live, no SSE either, and my guess is Live would run just as poorly on a similarly specked PC, an 800mhz PC would produce roughly 5 Absynths before the audio engine takes a crap.

Truth is Altivec works a bit better for boosting a G4 CPU than SSE does for AMD/Intel, without it G4s aren't any better than a similarly clocked P4. With it, I'm guessing an application can get up to a 40% boost in performance.

I don't think they coded it worse on a mac, they just didn't code it for mac at all, the little code they added in v4 that wasn't Altivec, but simply streamlined code, that gave a small boost to PC as well, proved that.

Just to add to that. The weirdest thing about all this to me is that it was first developed on a mac?
The developer used Max/MSP to come up with the basic idea.

Also to let people know, Traction scores no better really than Live 4 I got 5 instances of Absynth, 6 was where it started to crackle, but it's one guy who codes Traction! and it's FREE NOW!

the performance chasm between mac and pc is not new to version 4. perhaps whatever mac optimizing they did for v4 is indicative of how useless Live may have been with VSTi/AU's had they not done it.

i really wish i knew technically, literally what the issue is. but it's obvious that they wrote first and foremost for the PC. while this thread is all well and good, the reason i'm so married to Live is that i don't want to use Logic/SX/DP/etc. even rewired.

for the longest time i was understanding of Ableton's plight. coding primarily for x86 makes sense on paper. but they've got to have decent operating capital by now, if not be profitable. FIX THE APP ALREADY.

then again, if they did what would we bitch about.

my guess is there'll be a few decent maintenance releases - since Propellerheads gave away their main update and are now about to charge for their maintenance realease you would think the recent revenue boost from Live 4 would set the stage for a few more of our requests to be sneakily introduced (like solo in place was!)