Ableton utilising more than 2 cores. ..

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:16 am

Do we think it's going to happen in the next versoin?

My understanding is that at the moment it's only running across 2 cores on my octo core Mac Pro. . .

Anyone got any info?

crumhorn · Post by **crumhorn** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:30 am

I think the current version runs on multiple cores from what I've seen written.

Each track only runs on one core though, so the load might not be evenly spread if one or two tracks are more CPU hungry than the rest.

Don't know how intelligent the algorithm for allocating cores to tracks is though. If it's a fairly dumb allocator you could still end up with all your CPU hungry plug-ins running on the same core. It would be tricky for Live to easily predict in advance which plug-ins are going to use the most CPU.

Khazul · Post by **Khazul** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:50 am

A thought if you have a huge long chain on a track - perhaps splitting it into two tracks with the fx part on another track could help?

Then try re-ordering the resulting tracks until you see some evidence that the CPU use has spread more evently. I suspect however that Live might just try and keep an exclusive routing like this on a single CPU.

m:o · Post by **m:o** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:53 am

Live def. using all available cores. One at a track.

How do you come to think it uses only 2 of 8 ?

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:08 pm

Thanks for the heads up guys. . .
Hmm that's a bummer, I thought it was only workign across 2 cores, based upon something i read a while back.

I am only getting about 60-7-% performance on my Mac pro, this means there's 2 cores not doing anything.

Which means that's about the equivalent of my macbook c2duo sitting therre. Obviously it doesn't need 2 cores for system resources as my old machine only needed 20% or so. . .

I find that a few instances of Arturia's synths, some Omnisphere, stylus etc and i am getting glitches around the 60-70% mark. . .

Figured that was cos it's only running across 2 cores. . .

m:o · Post by **m:o** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:20 pm

Indeed, strange.
If you have Multicoresupport enabled. and Live utilies only 2 cores there
might be something wrong. Don't know macs, but don't you have a Processor
display where you see exactly the cpu utilisation ? Maybe some mac heads
can help you...

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:23 pm

Your percentage CPU usage calculation is misleading. That doesn't tell you how many cores you have 'left' or 'used'.

Also, most audio software will start glitching if your latency/buffer is too low and you push your CPU usage percentage too high anyways. This is because it doesn't have enough time time render the audio before the buffer isn't output through the sound card.

TobiasHahn · Post by **TobiasHahn** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:44 pm

tw1nstates wrote:Do we think it's going to happen in the next versoin?

My understanding is that at the moment it's only running across 2 cores on my octo core Mac Pro. . .

Anyone got any info?

L7 supports up to 8 cores on a Mac. L8 will support up to 64 cores on a Mac.

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:14 am

Thanks for the reply guys.

Uh, what a bummer then. Guess I am gonna have to start rendering etc. . .

Or get a faster machine.

Or hope everyone optimises their code,

it would be great to have a DAW / Live switch on Live, so that youcan use it in DAW mode and get a similar track count as Logic and then switch to 'Live' mode where you get everything happening instantly and clips playing as soon as you launch them obviously this would run as live does onw.

crumhorn · Post by **crumhorn** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:17 am

tw1nstates wrote:Thanks for the reply guys.

Uh, what a bummer then. Guess I am gonna have to start rendering etc. . .

Or get a faster machine.

Or hope everyone optimises their code,

it would be great to have a DAW / Live switch on Live, so that youcan use it in DAW mode and get a similar track count as Logic and then switch to 'Live' mode where you get everything happening instantly and clips playing as soon as you launch them obviously this would run as live does onw.

You can already make this trade off yourself - by changing your sound card's buffer size.

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:49 pm

TobiasHahn wrote:L7 supports up to 8 cores on a Mac. L8 will support up to 64 cores on a Mac.

Will there be finer granularity for multithreading in L8? I find myself hitting the limit all the time lately with heavily involved tracks using generative instrument racks.
7 cores doing nothing and one choking...
(MacPro running Vista 64)

I guess I have to start splitting stuff into more tracks, but that makes the concept of racks a bit weak IMO. Would be cool if the layers in a rack could be multithreaded as well!

BTW. when will the 64 core mac come out?

Cheers and thanks for the info,

Thomas

TobiasHahn · Post by **TobiasHahn** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:25 pm

ThomasHelzle wrote: Will there be finer granularity for multithreading in L8? I find myself hitting the limit all the time lately with heavily involved tracks using generative instrument racks.
7 cores doing nothing and one choking...
(MacPro running Vista 64)

I guess I have to start splitting stuff into more tracks, but that makes the concept of racks a bit weak IMO. Would be cool if the layers in a rack could be multithreaded as well!

Agreed, parallelizing racks would be a cool feature, but there are still quite a few technical problems to solve before this will be possible. For instance, you want to avoid introducing additional latencies.

BTW, on windows L7's audio engine supports at most 4 cores, so depending on your setup you might benefit from actually using OSX.

ThomasHelzle wrote: BTW. when will the 64 core mac come out?

Guess you'll have to ask Steve about that one... And then you definitely want to use OSX since AFAIK windows currently doesn't support more than 32.

ThomasHelzle · Post by **ThomasHelzle** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:40 pm

Thanks Tobias!

Well, so far Vista 64 gives me better performance overall than OSX on this machine and my main work is 3D in Softimage:XSI which isn't available for OSX (not to mention that adobe doesn't allow OS-shifting licenses) but I may give those projects a try on the mac-side to see if it makes a difference.

I see the problems with synchronizing multitasking between threads, but I personally would be happy to have a switch per track to allow multitasking for non-latency critical situations (as my generative sets are).
Would that be an interim solution?

How many cores will L8 on Windows support?

Thank you very much!

Thomas Helzle
http://www.screendream.de

TobiasHahn · Post by **TobiasHahn** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:08 pm

ThomasHelzle wrote:Thanks Tobias!
I see the problems with synchronizing multitasking between threads, but I personally would be happy to have a switch per track to allow multitasking for non-latency critical situations (as my generative sets are).
Would that be an interim solution?

I guess that depends on your setup, but I wouldn't be the right person to know the answer anyways. Fortunately there are a lot of smart users out here, and I'm sure there are some here who would be happy to help you with this. You can also contact Support.

ThomasHelzle wrote:How many cores will L8 on Windows support?

L8 will support 32 cores on Windows. In any case, AFAIK Vista Home and Home Premium are limited to one cpu (with unlimited cores), Business and Ultimate to two cpus (with unlimited cores), so running Home or Premium on a Mac Pro would be kind of pointless.

BTW, please also note that Vista 64 (as opposed to Vista 32) is still not officially supported, although this might change with L8.

tw1nstates · Post by **tw1nstates** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:10 pm

crumhorn wrote:
tw1nstates wrote:Thanks for the reply guys.

Uh, what a bummer then. Guess I am gonna have to start rendering etc. . .

Or get a faster machine.

Or hope everyone optimises their code,

it would be great to have a DAW / Live switch on Live, so that youcan use it in DAW mode and get a similar track count as Logic and then switch to 'Live' mode where you get everything happening instantly and clips playing as soon as you launch them obviously this would run as live does onw.
You can already make this trade off yourself - by changing your sound card's buffer size.

It's not the same though if you think about it. The programme (according to Ableton sources) uses a LOT more processing cycles due to always on type availabilityfor clips and fx. If there was a way of making that a lower priority then this would mean I can still play my vstis with several fx on in somthing approximating real time.

THink of it sa being a littel like a guitarist - you play and get the groove from the fx so higher latency or trning them off to preserve cycles doesnt quite work . ..

Good idea though. .

Ableton utilising more than 2 cores. ..

Ableton utilising more than 2 cores. ..

Re: Ableton utilising more than 2 cores. ..

Re: Ableton utilising more than 2 cores. ..

Re: Ableton utilising more than 2 cores. ..