Getting slower?

dachy · Post by **dachy** » Sun May 07, 2006 4:17 pm

I don't know if this classes as a bug or not, but I would certainly like to hear a reason for this behaviour.

I have noticed a radical slowdown in 5.0.3. I am comparing it to 4.1.2, feel free to try this out on other versions if you use them. I own a 500mhz old, old computer, which means I need to be very careful about CPU usage. Ableton has (wonderfully) allowed me to do quite a lot even on this limited machine.

However, I notice a radical slowdown almost immediately with 5.0.3. So I performed the following simple test. I open up a single wav file, start it playing, and add an EQ3 to the track. Activating the EQ3 on 4.0.3 increases my CPU usage by 7%. Doing exactly this on 5.0.3 causes an increase of 12%.

Now, would someone at Ableton care to explain to me how they managed to screw this up? Surely you can not have added such a gigantic overhead, for such a simple thing? I can understand that newer software does newer things, but what the hell has changed so much between versions? Since each EQ3 I add, adds the same CPU load, I'm assuming that the plugin management is radically slower. That, or some idiot rewrote EQ3 and destroyed the optimisation. This shit WORKED EXCELLENTLY, why is it now a piece of shit?!!!

Come on Ableton, I have been so impressed with this software, until now, the only program I've come across that really, truely works, works well, and still manages to cut out all the useless bullshit. It has been completely outstanding.

I feel its very sad that with the move to 5, Live has begun to loose its grip, and it's heading into the bloatware category real fast. That is NOT OK. After noticing this sort of crap, I get the feeling that I won't be recommending Ableton Live quite so strongly in future.

zappen · Post by **zappen** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:03 am

you can't pretend to use a computer from the middle 90's with a software of the year 2005/6, man it's almost ten years of difference, this happends with many of the best softwares, live with it , trash you shitty computer and get a new one
welcome in the software/hardware evolution

tayloredsound · Post by **tayloredsound** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:16 am

The last post was not very helpful at all . You might be some little rich boy but not everyone can trash there computer and fork out that type of money.
I have the same problem ver 4 worked perfectly on my g4/733 plenty of pluins plenty of tracks no a stutter on ver 5 I am battling to palyback a couple of tracks with out live going into 65% cpu come on ableton give us an answer?

zappen · Post by **zappen** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:21 am

how much is the value of a 500 mhz computer today? exclude the monitor/keyboard/mouse wich u can recycle... and let me know how much u can get from it...if you find someone that want to buy it lol!

about macs... as i know, macs in the last years suffered about performance problems with non optimized apps, generally and with live, u didn't know? that also why they switched to intel.

live 5 introduced many new features and those are using more cpu then in 4. that is. easy

kineticUk · Post by **kineticUk** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:48 am

Zappen ... this guy does have a valid point
I Dont think you should just cuss him for stating his point of view, he isnt the only person who has noticed these sort of things. I am sure ableton are aware of these issues as well. Quite alot of previous Live users have said similar things.
Even when we get more powerful machines its still going to be there.
Peace

Synthbuilder · Post by **Synthbuilder** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:11 am

I have to agree with the original poster here. Live 5.2 is hugely heavy on resources. With bigger PCs we can afford to have some waste, but lack of efficiency should never be supported on this forum.

More efficiency means more plugs can be used and that surely is a good thing.

Compared with eXT and Traction, Live is a real CPU hog. This and the slow graphics response are the only two reasons I would leave Live.

There is some sort of cryptic wording regarding the forthcoming Live 6 on this very website. It suggests that we will see a speed increase, but this could be construed as simply better use of dual cores rather than an increase in Live's core efficiency.

We'll have to wait and see I think.

Tony

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Mon May 08, 2006 3:47 pm

Agreed on that Live of course should be as efficient as possible, but you can't expect a dinosaur 500mhz machine to run a recent program like Live at any kind of decent performance, there are probably tons of stuff in new processors that Live makes use of that such an old box just doesnt have.

If we want to move on and develop new amazing software utilizing the latest hardware we can't keep optimizing for 10 year old technology.

Think about how the internet has progressed, would anyone want everything dumbed down to how it was 10 years ago just because a few people still use an old 56k modem?

I don't think so.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:02 pm

selling that g4 would probably get enough cash to upgrade to a decent PC

dachy · Post by **dachy** » Mon May 08, 2006 4:17 pm

Telling me to upgrade my hardware is rather off topic, so I would appreciate an end to those irrelevant comments.

I do not expect my old machine to run Live perfectly, but I do expect the developers to improve their software between versions. In my simple test case, Live5 is now substantially slower at doing the same thing as Live4, so I am questioning it being called an 'upgrade'. Yes, they stuck on new features, but the issue remains unanswered, why has something so very basic gotten so much slower?

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:06 am

I have gotten rid of LIVE4 from my main laptop, so I can't check your results, but one thing that has not been mentioned yet..

Do you have delay compensation on? It eats up CPU, and might be the cause of such an event once you turn on EQ3. Just a pie-in-the-sky guess, but.

It does seem weird that doing the same thing would change CPU usage.

dachy · Post by **dachy** » Tue May 09, 2006 10:55 am

anti-banausic wrote:I have gotten rid of LIVE4 from my main laptop, so I can't check your results, but one thing that has not been mentioned yet..

Do you have delay compensation on? It eats up CPU, and might be the cause of such an event once you turn on EQ3. Just a pie-in-the-sky guess, but.

It does seem weird that doing the same thing would change CPU usage.

It made no difference whether I had delay compensation turned on or off.

scorb · Post by **scorb** » Wed May 10, 2006 11:03 pm

experiencing exactly this problem.

I've slimmed down songs to 16-20 tracks where i would have comfortably used 30-40 in 4.1.4. Struggling to finish these tracks as Live is so sluggish. Yesterday I upgraded my ram from 512 to 1 and a half gig and there is no real improvement.

So, as a test I loaded an old (1 year ago) 4.1.4 song in live 4.1.4 after trashing prefs. then I opened same song in 5.2 and it used nearly twice the juice. Display and program response was laughable as well whereas in Live 4.1.4 it was super fast.

Have to agree with dachy about this issue. I loved live but am considering dropping it as it ruins my workflow since 5. Ableton have a real nerve announcing the release of version 6 this year when their software has degenerated so much since version 4. i find it hard to be impressed by the way ableton have implemented much of the new features since 4 to be honest.

They really lost it big time hahaha!

time to learn the mouth organ!

dachy · Post by **dachy** » Mon May 15, 2006 10:25 am

Still no response from Ableton, apart from "is delay compensation turned on?"

Their product goes from version 4 to 5, and mysteriously takes a massive CPU hit, and they are clueless. It's becoming obvious to me that whoever was responsible for the outstanding work in previous versions has been replaced by a marketting department screaming "add more features, that'll make it sell".

Sorry Ableton, you've lost my support over this. And the fact that the bug forum is clearly labelled as not read every day. WHY THE FUCK NOT?

Amaury · Post by **Amaury** » Mon May 15, 2006 11:18 am

dachy wrote:Still no response from Ableton, apart from "is delay compensation turned on?"

Their product goes from version 4 to 5, and mysteriously takes a massive CPU hit, and they are clueless. It's becoming obvious to me that whoever was responsible for the outstanding work in previous versions has been replaced by a marketting department screaming "add more features, that'll make it sell".

Sorry Ableton, you've lost my support over this. And the fact that the bug forum is clearly labelled as not read every day. WHY THE FUCK NOT?

Hello Dachy,

In our experience, the same set with the same Preferences takes as much, if not less CPU in Live 5 than in Live 4. That is why I asked you to test your issue using the exact same Preferences as in Live 4.
I have tried your issue from your description, and can not see a significant change in the CPU load using Eq3 in Live 5 compared to Live 4. If you have a set demonstrating that please send it to me at [email protected], and our developers and myself will be happy to look into it and find if there is any bug or wrong behaviour.

I asked Scorb to send me that set that takes twice as much CPU in Live 5 than in Live 4 and still wait for his mail.

Be assured that this forum is monitored daily, as well as the others, and that we gather information and solve problems on a daily basis.
Not all the users have issues with Live 5, and that makes it harder to solve individual problems.

If you are not happy with Live 5, in the end, feel free to ask for a refund.

Kind regards,

Amaury

Getting slower?

Getting slower?

getting slower