Why is Mac OSX so slow compared to Windows, especially using Logic and MainStage, despite better HW?

[MeldaProduction]

Hehe yeah exactly I'm asking devs, if somebody can explain to me this rather extreme phenomenon! And so far only acceptances...

el-bo: I'm not talking about user-experience. Most Apple users use it to browse web, play music from iTunes and post stuff on facebook. These sort of things you could do on 15 years old PC laptop. The question here is about performance, which Apple users ignore for some reason. Of course, you wouldn't have that problem if you'd just browse web. But for me, the all-the-time lags and waiting for unresponsive computer is just the worst part of any user experience.

[otristan]

Launch Xcode Instruments and check what's really happening.

There is maybe some other function besides basic computation that slow the whole things down
and/or non optimal synchronisation mechanism (locks)

[MeldaProduction]

That's what I thought, but there shouldn't be any locks in between the instances and without GUI there's just one processing thread. Also it wouldn't explain, why Reaper is so much faster than Logic and especially than MainStage. I'll check another hosts when time allows, I'm pretty curious.

[penguinfromdeep]

Well I'm intrigued by your findings, I have i7 Macbook Pro here with Mavericks and Win 7 installed ... I didn't really notice any speed difference (or difference in responsiveness) between the two operating systems, they seem to be about the same to me in daily use (I didn't make any measurements or anything though). I just seem to prefer the way OS X works and handles things much more than the way things work in Windows. I didn't try to make music on Windows side, I use it for other things, but I didn't really run out of juice yet in my projects on OS X side either

[MeldaProduction]

Hmm, interesting - I don't really know, how efficient is the "Windows under OSX", but can you try the hardcore test I did? I'd be quite interested in the results - basically just take a host on each system, create one track with just some stereo audio in it and put there some high-CPU-demanding plugin (I used the MVintageRotary) and duplicate and duplicate and duplicate... until it won't be able to work anymore. Btw. I just tried on the Windows desktop i7 3.8GHz and managed 90 tracks.. but it's a desktop, that cannot be compared to laptops of course.

[koalaboy]

Benchmarks are pointless across systems.

Updates / Installed applications (and therefore disk patterns) / services / drivers, all affect speed.

Speed is also very subject to perception.

I run PC / Mac and Linux on several machines. Windows 'feels' faster, but also 'feels' more messy, on the same machine. I don't worry about it. All that matters is that the hardware is up to the task, otherwise it gets upgraded.

All the marketers want you to think the differences matter - that the 750DPI screen on your phone is important - so they can sell new hardware year on year. Meh.

Buy the best you can at the time, run whichever OS/apps 'feel' the best to you, and use whatever makes you productive / happy.

Stop looking at benchmarks

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Hehe yeah exactly I'm asking devs, if somebody can explain to me this rather extreme phenomenon! And so far only acceptances...

el-bo: I'm not talking about user-experience. Most Apple users use it to browse web, play music from iTunes and post stuff on facebook. These sort of things you could do on 15 years old PC laptop. The question here is about performance, which Apple users ignore for some reason. Of course, you wouldn't have that problem if you'd just browse web. But for me, the all-the-time lags and waiting for unresponsive computer is just the worst part of any user experience.

except you aren't just asking dev's to confirm your findings, but making an incorrect generalisation about most apple users only browsing the web and posting stuff on facebook. I suppose we could ignore the patronising bullshit were it not for the fact that you are seemingly unaware of how many users on here (not to mention in professional studios), are using the mac platform. And what about the graphic and video arts ???

apple users don't "ignore" mac performance, rather they have come to rely on it. Most mac users in the professional, semi-professional or hobbyist creative arena are unlikely to be all that interested in the coding of the software, though i wouldn't want to generalise . Should they care ?? i don't know. the revelation, here, that macs aren't up to speed in your findings is unlikely to affect me in my usage, other than that there is a chance that you'll not bother making your plugs available to me

see, i can imagine it being a bitch to code apple software, given their track record and MO when it comes to os upgrading. i'm sure many developers get fed up and just don't bother. the end-user doesn't really get to see that side of things

my computer doesn't crash....EVER...My 7-year old macbook maybe crashed a handful of time in it's life, no matter what i threw at it. i was careful to stick to an os that didn't force the aging components to overstretch, and i could easily have my mac powered on for months without any hiccups at all. while the idea of 'it just works' might be stretching the truth, my 8 years of user experience is not far from it. much of this is down to the fact that apple makes the hardware and the os, something that windows can't really do. this is why a mac user pays a premium. i'll take the thought of ('cause it doesn't affect my daily life), performance hit over dealing with windows. i'm not the only one

no point in having the fastest car in the world if the seats are so uncomfortable you can't sit in them for more than a minute

[MeldaProduction]

koalaboy: Completely agree! I was just posting this, because the findings are rather extreme. I mean a computer that is technically faster gets more than 3x slower in audio practice? I almost lost my eyes watching the stats .
And I spent 2 days figuring this out, just trying to measure different things I could do wrong. At the end I just downloaded a few benchmarks, that just confirmed my hypothesis. Benchmarks are really very very problematic, but when it comes to simple calculations, these can be very accurate, if you give them enough time. They will simply compute the raw CPU power, which at the end can be misguiding. But before all tests I ensure there were no processes taking more CPU than 1%.

el-bo: Please don't take it personally. I'm NOT trying to convert! After all our plugins are working on Macs just fine. But for me it is especially important to understand the performance issues and try to understand them. And so far it seems that it just is slow. But it MAY still be fast enough for you!
And I'm NOT saying that everything on that platform is wrong. For example, the recently introduced GPU acceleration is working like charm on Macs, but there have been several weird cases on PCs, where the HW (or even software, yeah ATI, I'm talking about you ) was just not working well...

Everything has its pros and cons. But to be honest, I hate the Apple propaganda. Windows users are not spreading everywhere that it is the only platform that "just works", is the fastest, most modern and stuff. If someone spreads so much crap, it should be really global truth, which well is not . And neither is on Windows. My experiment shows that the best option is to buy a Mac and install Windows on it! Now what the hell

[otristan]

That's what I thought, but there shouldn't be any locks in between the instances and without GUI there's just one processing thread. Also it wouldn't explain, why Reaper is so much faster than Logic and especially than MainStage. I'll check another hosts when time allows, I'm pretty curious.

You're talking about the audio engine choking so you're not comparing the actual CPU performance but rather the starvation of the audio thread which can be related to the multithread and low latency handling.

You probably have your explanation for older Mainstage regarding its non multi core handling.
Logic 9 is quite old and they said to have increase a lot the Multi Core handling in version X and I've heard that Reaper is very good on this point so this would explain the order of those 3.

Now to compare between OSX and Windows, I think you need to check stuff beside number crunching (computation) where indeed it should be similar (beside compiler optimisation difference). In that case I suppose synchronisation stuff which have usually a better latency on Windows: lock latency, thread starting, ...

I suppose you are not allocating in the audio thread ?

Do you have a lot of critical section/locks in your code or is everything lockfree ?

[MeldaProduction]

Good points Otristan!

About the OSX vs Windows. Yeah, it must be something related to thread handling. There are no allocs (well they may happen initially of course, but then it's over). And critical sections are there, but they should always pass, since they are separate for each instance. The only case would be if the passing critical section would be that slow, but as far as I know both cases (Win32 and OSX) should be using the test & set instruction, so technically no CPU overhead. I'm using this on OSX: MPEnterCriticalRegion . Is there a better alternative?

[DrGonzo]

I hate the Apple propaganda. Windows users are not spreading everywhere that it is the only platform that "just works", is the fastest, most modern and stuff. If someone spreads so much crap, it should be really global truth, which well is not . And neither is on Windows. My experiment shows that the best option is to buy a Mac and install Windows on it! Now what the hell [/i]

Again, my highly personal take on it and I'm not saying this because I defend Apple in any way. If you've ever worked with sales or marketing people, you probably know that they do/say pretty much anything to sell their stuff and from that respect Apple is no more different than Microsoft, Coca Cola, Monsanto or the company that makes Oreos. Of course they are spreading the myth.

That being said - yeah. I'm agreeing with all you said. iTunes is a bloated mess. Although I own most of their products, you have to effing kick them at times to work. iCloud - don't get me started. What a stupid effing idea.

I think that when Apple was the underdog, there were some well needed innovation and self-criticism in the company. Now, when they are the hottest kid on the block - they have disappeared in their own fumes of smugness. Totally.

But still - I'd never want to experience the amount of fckery I've had with Windows again in my life. If that means I have to live with expensive and underperforming hardware - so be it.

But that's me. And I'm that kind of weird guy who actually is contemplating to start using my 8MHz Atari instead and only use the iMac for tracking.

/C

[MeldaProduction]

Perfectly understandable DrGonzo . I started on Atari too! Those were the times... ehm... I'm glad they are gone . I'm pretty sure it's the history of Windows that many people scared... Up to Win XP it wasn't operating system at all . And Win XP is more like Linux than a user friendly system, good for hackers though . With Win 7 are great. Win 8 less so... but survivable. They start in a few seconds, don't know how they did it .

[JCJR]

When I got the MacPro a few years ago, installed winders via VMWare Fusion, which works fine but no speed demon. Have been too lazy to reinstall everything from scratch to install bootcamp, but have often suspected that one of the best PC's a person could get, might be a well-outfitted MacPro running winders native.

As long as a puter works the way the user likes, performance doesn't matter.

As a geezer I tend to speak of the past, which is what geezers excell at, but OTOH history has a way of repeating, except all those cases in which it doesn't.

My last OS 9 Mac, as a general-duty machine sucked. Running ordinary consumer programs it was crash city. Could barely surf the internet for an hour without it crashing. But that thing would run Digital Performer forever without crashing, and even though it was stupid-slower performance compared with modern walmart low-end PC's, DP on that machine would run more tracks and plugins than I ever needed.

Just thinking, sure some of the modern synths eat CPU like candy, but it is not inconceivable that talented programmers might make quasi-turnkey specialized systems based on a "slow" OS or hardware, which are fine products, perfectly fit-for-purpose.

Was impressed by capabilities of the Korg Kronos, which hardware-wise appears to be basically a linux netbook with knobs, switches and a keyboard slung on it. Makes one wonder what an 8 or 12 core modern puter could do if "programmed from scratch" to be a music machine, rather than sitting atop MacOS or Winders.

[MeldaProduction]

True! But the OSes are sooooo complicated these days, that creating a dedicated machine just for that is impossible. With Windows you can really have great performance, but then the musicians find out about games and porn and start wondering where did all the performance go . With Macs, well who knows... that's what I'm trying to find out .

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

I had the same feelings testing my software till I realized I was programming in the wrong way. Winodows and mac osx are pretty the same, maybe mac is faster on hard drives.
Oh, and winodows works very well in virtual machines on latest macbooks