So... is Live optimized for Altivec engine for Mac??

Andrew K · Post by **Andrew K** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 6:01 am

So... is Live optimized for Altivec engine for Mac??

Has Ableton given an official response to this yet?

Sorry if this was already covered... with all the debates re: Mac vs PC I didn't want to do a search.

Thanks in advance,

Andrew K

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 7:16 am

Nope. And...Nope. We have no idea if and/or when it will happen. Join the bunch of us who are waiting, very patiently, to find out.

Andrew K · Post by **Andrew K** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 3:23 pm

Thanks Tj,

Damn... I was just at the AES show and could have askd them but didn't think of it at the time.

Well Ableton, seeing as Acid in not available for Mac, Live will become the defacto Acid for the Mac and it would be great if the Live was writtten for Altivec.

My 43% cpu usage opinion,

Andrew K

Geraldo · Post by **Geraldo** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 5:31 pm

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 5:36 pm

Bump again...

-Alex

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 10:39 am

I agree... this needs to be addressed and a statement from Ableton would certainly be in place. I am a prospective TI user but keep holding off for the poor performance in Live.

Andrew K · Post by **Andrew K** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 4:40 pm

Ableton,

We'd love to hear a response if you will ever support the Mac's Altivec chip for better perfoprmance. Will you????

My guess is that a lack of response would imply a "NO".

Can you give us some kind of response.... please.

Thanks

Andrew K

Geraldo · Post by **Geraldo** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 5:17 am

Yeah. Why bother supporting both platforms if only one of them (PC) works?

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 7:46 am

word up. and from the looks of the latest Apple rumors they will be going with a new IBM processor in the future that has a vector processing unit just like AltiVec. so, for the Mac to be truly supported we are going to need some AltiVec(or whatever they decide to call it) optimisation or else it is really just half-assed support.

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 3:16 pm

It's just not right that Windows users get the full-ass level of developer support.

-Alex

Geraldo · Post by **Geraldo** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 4:50 pm

Maybe they could do some creative deal with Steinberg where they receive some temporary program developer support for Altivec in lieu of royalty payments for the Steinberg "Lame Live" agreement. There have been crazier suggestions in the past.
I know! Why don't they just sell everything to Steinberg and retire in the Bahamas.

jory · Post by **jory** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 10:39 pm

yes the performance difference is entirely unacceptable. don't call Live cross-platform until you actually put some effort into optimizing for Mac.

I can't speak to the laptop music scene in Europe, but I have been to COUNTLESS laptop-based shows here in San Francisco and I have seen a PC used only once.

please...at least a comment on this, ableton, as a good-faith gesture.

I Guest None Is Listening · Post by **I Guest None Is Listening** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 11:42 pm

Alex: It's just not right that Windows users get the full-ass level of developer support.

dude, what are you talking about. it is right that windows gets the full support, you should be asking for macs to get the full support. friggen unreal.

Ableton are you guys on the crapper or what? Everybody has been asking
this one question. We thought you guys were different, give us a heads up
yea or nay are you going to optimise for Apples core audio or not.

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Sat Oct 19, 2002 12:10 am

Dude, I was joking around. Of course I would ask for full-ass Mac support. (And I have been, since my first posts in this forum...)

It's all up to Ableton to decide how much they want to talk about v2 of Live. For that matter, they haven't talked very much in a "summary" fashion about what will make it into the GM of v2 -- whether on Windows or Mac.

We have no right to demand of them improved Mac support.

The best we can do is thank them for the great work done so far, ask them politely for improvements and bug fixes, hope they are listening, and then vote with our dollars, yen, francs, pounds, or marks, etc. if they decide not to provide adequate Mac support in the next paid release.

The reality is that they have to maintain their code on multiple platforms. So there is a problem with specializing their code even further for hardware that may or may not make it in Apple's future.

We've heard rumors that Apple will use IBMs slimmed-down Power4 with its SIMD ("Altivec") acceleration hardware -- but Apple often changes its mind and never shows its hand until the last second. So we have no confirmation that Altivec has a future.

We have strong to very strong rumors, but nothing truly concrete about the future of Apple hardware. For all we know, Jobs could jump to Intel hardware if the economy really worsens, or if the quasi-Power4 doesn't work at a good performance-price point towards the second half of 2003. We're still in a global recession.

So I don't blame them if Ableton developers are reticent due the uncertainty around Apple's future hardware path.

I'm more than certain that Ableton has read all our requests for accelerated performance in Live and I hope that they will consider these requests seriously.

-Alex

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Sat Oct 19, 2002 12:31 am

they did comment on it few months back. i think it was robert from monolake saying something to the effect of 'yeah, we agree it would be neato, but we just can't really do it right now 'cause we're bitty and optimizing for altivec is a big ole project that we just don't have the resources to embark upon.' of course...i can't for the life of me find the thread on which this statement rests...but i swear something was said...by somebody...on some subject...who knows...

k