Ableton 12 and the use of efficiency and performance cores on M-processors

[mrweasel]

Are you really experiencing any cpu issue with your silicon mac when using Live?

For my projects (with 11) I am not. But looking at the M-architecture of efficiency and performance cores, it's obvious Ableton is not using the cores fully at all and I am curious if that will be solved with 12. Many tests have shown M1 still performs better for audio than the M3 because of the switch from less performance cores to more efficiency cores. Ableton does use the performance cores and not the efficiency cores and Apple is adding more efficiency cores instead of performance cores. When both would be equally used, than that would double the tracks we could use on M-processors.

It's disappointing that Ableton Live and Logic don't use all efficiency cores at all, as Apple are slowly increasing them at the cost of Performance cores.
Is this something Ableton is going to address in an upcoming Live 12 update?
It's pretty big.
It appears mainly Reaper and Cubase are able to fare well with those M3 Silicon chips (and the M2 ones)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSqX4bt9to4

[mrweasel]

Are you really experiencing any cpu issue with your silicon mac when using Live?

For my projects (with 11) I am not.

Then, why bother??
In any case Live does utilize the efficiency cores, but only when it needs it, i.e when a project gets enormous to the point where the performance cores are fully utilized. You rarely or never see it because those machines are beasts.

Are you sure about that?
The video I just posted (testing from Live 11 though, so maybe Live 12 is different?) seems to indicate the contrary.

[Machinesworking]

I get the concern, but lets' go over this a bit.
Live, and a few other DAWs, (Bitwig, MPC, FL it seems etc.) do not use a "secondary buffer" or some form of pre rendering on tracks that aren't armed to save on CPU cycles. This increases their ability to not have audio glitches in playback when adding in instruments, editing etc. etc. This was a super noticeable advantage of using Live when it introduced virtual instruments etc. It's why it was rock solid for liver performance use. Logic, DP, Cubase, Reaper etc. etc. all use a secondary buffer for unarmed tracks to drastically save on CPU. Typically Reaper will get 35% more CPU than Live for instance.

Now that Apple and other chip manufacturers are using lower CPU efficiency cores for daily tasks, it's not really that surprising to me that Live is essentially probably using those only for the GUI rendering etc. Pro Tools and FL it seems do the same. There was a situation with plugin developers where DAWs that could handle all CPUs were not relinquishing control of a plug in to a performance core without causing audio dropouts, if Ableton ran into that at all, there's no way they would want the efficiency cores to handle plugin CPU at all until that's sorted. It's possible in the future Ableton does handle all cores, but the fact is there are right now some issues with the way some plugins and DAWs react to jumping from one to the other. Blue Cat blogged about it quite a bit. https://www.bluecataudio.com/Blog/previ ... the-story/

It might be a case of careful what you wish for. So I think if you take in what I've written here you get an idea of why it is like it is.

[mrweasel]

Thanks. That’s a very interesting answer worth pondering on.

[[jur]]

BTW, a statement from Ableton on the topic here

[cids]

I looked at the video, and the reviewer is observing exactly what he just read in the Ableton article, but concludes the opposite...

1, that the M3 family is not necessarily better for Ableton (or other DAWs) than the previous versions and 2, that Max and Ultra chips are in no way better for using Ableton than the Pro chip.

I'm not sure your conclusions are correct, what is important is the number of performance cores:

M1/2 - 4 performance cores
M1/2 Pro - 6 or 8 performance cores
M1/2 Max - 8 performance cores
M1/2 Ultra - 16 performance cores

More than happy to test any project you can provide to show the performance (CPU usage) on my systems

[subsky]

I've been using Ableton Live 12 on my M-processor, and it's pretty cool. The best part for me is mixing right in the Arrangement View. It saves time because I don't have to switch screens.

Tagging stuff in the browser is super helpful. I can find my sounds way faster now. The Sound Similarity Search is excellent for quickly finding sounds that are alike.

Playing around with MIDI Generators has been a lot of fun. They help me come up with new tunes and beats easily. The Roar effect adds a nice touch or some heavy distortion to my tracks. And Granulator III? It's fantastic for making all these unique sound effects. Meld is fun, too, especially for making each note sound special.

For more cool stuff on Ableton 12, you might want to check out https://faqaudio.com/. They've got good info on these features, especially for M-processors.

[SkyJay]

Is this problem also occurring to the newest intel CPUs? From the 12th generation of intel CPUs they also introduced efficiency cores. I want to buy one with 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. But if Ableton doesn't support efficiency cores it wouldn't be a good investment. It's kind of scandalous that I have to pay 159 for a software upgrade that doesn't support modern hardware from three years ago efficiently.

[cids]

Is this problem also occurring to the newest intel CPUs? From the 12th generation of intel CPUs they also introduced efficiency cores. I want to buy one with 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. But if Ableton doesn't support efficiency cores it wouldn't be a good investment. It's kind of scandalous that I have to pay 159 for a software upgrade that doesn't support modern hardware from three years ago efficiently.

Hi SkyJay, are you sure this is a problem? I'm sure Ableton is optimizing their software constantly to make best use of latest processor developments. I'm running Ableton 11 and 12 on multiple Apple Silicon Macs without any performance issues.

[JoséCarven]

I've just run a quick test on Live 12 Beta, and it looks like E-Cores problem is not solved. In Activity Monitor Performance cores spiked when I played CPU Heavy project with low latency, while Efficiency Cores stays at the same load level as before Live was even launched. So.. for Live M1 is still better than M3..

[cids]

I've just run a quick test on Live 12 Beta, and it looks like E-Cores problem is not solved. In Activity Monitor Performance cores spiked when I played CPU Heavy project with low latency, while Efficiency Cores stays at the same load level as before Live was even launched. So.. for Live M1 is still better than M3..

I don't think that statement is true - an Apple M3 Max (with 10 performance cores) will be faster than any M1 except the M1 Ultra

[JoséCarven]

I don't think that statement is true - an Apple M3 Max (with 10 performance cores) will be faster than any M1 except the M1 Ultra

You've got the idea — efficiency cores are still useless.

[Rod Underleaf]

But we need to get back to the question of how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin...or are they devils...

[[jur]]

Hi,

M1,2,3 apple silicon chips today have an architecture composed of performance and efficiency cores. This was known in the past as a big.LITTLE architecture and did not exist on personal computers, only mobile phones. Nowadays it's both on Mac and PC with Intel's latest offerings as well.

This creates a challenge on how a DAW best distributes work to various cores. It's definitely being worked on by our engine team.

[KC FYX]

I don't think that statement is true - an Apple M3 Max (with 10 performance cores) will be faster than any M1 except the M1 Ultra

You've got the idea — efficiency cores are still useless.

Indeed they are not used at all.