why does Ableton only using one thread core? CPU overloading.

[zoogoo]

Its freaking like 2018, we are in the future and they cant make this technology any better then it was 15 years ago? I thought LIVE 10 would be better designed to work with up to date systems, but really its just the same shit, different box.

Independent of possible issues with the actual computer build or possible Live 10 bugs: even when everything is working super smooth and there are no issues with the system or DAW software per se, note that sequential audio processes can't be parallelized in the same way than, for example, rendering in-game graphics. This isn't about designing a better system, it's literally impossible to calculate the result of a process that needs the result of an earlier process as an input, in parallel with said earlier process.

Resource utilization between actually parallel signal chains can of course be optimized, but there's inherently so much sequential processing in the audio realm (processing the result of an earlier process working on the result of an earlier process , you get the idea), with relatively few actually parallel units when compared to graphics processing (think of different channels running in parallel in the overall project signal chain, how many of those there are, and what sort of processing each of those channels hold, compared with the way areas of the image composed of individual pixels can be parallelized) that it's not possible to distribute such loads comparable to game graphics without supernatural technology.

I understand exactly what your saying about how the audio computer proccess is doing complex things on a single chain which causes bottle necking more or less. What i was trying to emphasize is that computers are being designed to best play games and not process audio. There hasnt been a huge market to design a system that could cater to this very specific need. I remember they were trying to launch plugo and receptor which i thought was on the right track even though they were still using the same technology to build any old pc, but the idea there could be a system built specifically for this type of channel paths would be ideal.

You know one of those companies like MSI or gigabyte could totally make a special motherboard with like a really bad ass on board device that allows the DAW to really be a true multi thread. The problem has always been the hardware, the software developers really are at the mercy of the manufactures, which as we know are not making products for us. We are kinda of leaching off "necessary" technology essentially. Wouldnt you agree?

[zoogoo]

Hate to point this out, but your old CPU will be better at single thread performance than your new Ryzen. Although your new CPU can run more threads, a lot of audio performance requires a single threaded operation per track (FX chains, etc.).

Ryzen 5 1600 is running at 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo).

i7-3770 Processor - Processor Base Frequency = 3.40 GHz / Max Turbo Frequency = 3.90 GHz.

well before i figured out how to properly optimize my system, i returned that build.

im going to wait for the 7700k to drop before upgrading, or just wait for something that has high single thread speed.

sadly you are right my friend.

[zzz00m]

As far as the audio interface goes, it seems that ship has sailed on PCI/PCIe interfaces (legacy).

For a budget USB audio interface, the Focusrite and Steinberg units look good. For the lowest latency, the RME and UAD Apollo units seem to offer the highest performance USB has available. There is also the possibility for Thunderbolt, but on Windows it has a lot of dependencies to get it right. i would wait a bit for that tech to mature...

[Guenon]

You know one of those companies like MSI or gigabyte could totally make a special motherboard with like a really bad ass on board device that allows the DAW to really be a true multi thread. The problem has always been the hardware, the software developers really are at the mercy of the manufactures, which as we know are not making products for us. We are kinda of leaching off "necessary" technology essentially. Wouldnt you agree?

In a way I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, yeah; having a media production platform that prioritizes efficient realtime use cases, from both the OS and hardware perspective, would be extremely cool. Still the point was, there is literally no magic device that can make the DAW "truly multithreaded" if that implies parallelizing and multithreading the kind of audio processes we are using in our DAWs, and making them work in some dramatically "more multithreaded" way.

When you have a chain of plugins placed on a channel, and each of them feeds the subsequent one with a result (not to mention that the internal workings of complex plugins may well contain many sequential stages like this) it's... rather difficult to make such a unit -- that sequential chain of events as a whole -- "truly multithreaded" or parallel processed.

[zzz00m]

I think the biggest difference with gaming and DAWs is that games can be more easily broken into concurrent threads, where more cores = more performance.

Not to mention the tasks that can be offloaded to the GPU. The equivalent to that in the audio world would be to use external DSP units, so that the local CPU is not occupied with processing effects in the signal chain.

Take a look at the Waves SoundGrid for an example of current technology: https://www.waves.com/soundgrid-systems

SoundGrid systems are software and hardware solutions designed to bring real-time processing and networking and the power of Waves tools to any system, studio or live.

SoundGrid is an Audio-over-Ethernet technology developed by Waves. It allows to stream high counts of digital audio channels (up to 128) and to process that audio through plugins at ultra-low-latency (as low as 0.8 ms). All taking place over a 1Gb network.

This makes SoundGrid a great fit for any environment – from simple project studios to live venues to complex networked recording and broadcast facilities

[generaldiomedes]

What I find disheartening is that in the 4 years since I purchased my I7-4720HQ based laptop, the latest and greatest laptop CPU (I7-7700HQ) is only 20% faster.

Am I going to have to wait a decade to run more than a handful of Repro-5 instances without freezing tracks??

[EnGee]

I'm happy with the performance of Ryzen. It's definitely better than my previous CPU (one and half times at least of the performance of my i5-4570).

I still use it with the balanced power options (now, even in Cubase without the Steinberg power profile), but I don't need many tracks or many instances of RePro as I use also other 'light' synths like Massive and Dune 2. It's rare I see the CPU usage measure passes 30% in Cubase , Reaper or FL Studio

[JerGoertz]

'light' synths like Massive

LOL, I remember when Massive was released it was considered a CPU hog...

Times, they are a-changin'...

[EnGee]

'light' synths like Massive

LOL, I remember when Massive was released it was considered a CPU hog...

Times, they are a-changin'...

Yes!

I remember when it was released, many complained here that it was a cpu hog (the same I remember for Largo as well)!
One day it will be the same for RePro and some others.

I can't wait the day that I say "...light synths like RePro and Diva"

[generaldiomedes]

I'm happy with the performance of Ryzen. It's definitely better than my previous CPU (one and half times at least of the performance of my i5-4570).

On the desktop there are certainly many more options available, however I feel laptops have hit a wall, maybe due to power consumption limitations? Perhaps we are going to have to wait for ARM chips to one day overtake Intel/AMD.

[zzz00m]

Here's a laptop that should get the job done...

For the professional user - a mobile solution!

http://studiocat.com/opencart2/index.ph ... duct_id=61

[EnGee]

I'm happy with the performance of Ryzen. It's definitely better than my previous CPU (one and half times at least of the performance of my i5-4570).

On the desktop there are certainly many more options available, however I feel laptops have hit a wall, maybe due to power consumption limitations? Perhaps we are going to have to wait for ARM chips to one day overtake Intel/AMD.

I won't bother with the laptops (including Mac ones) anymore! I have given my i7-4700 HP to my sister as I haven't used it for years!
If I want a good portable solution in the future, I would buy iPad Pro because it seems a better value than Microsoft Surface. If they only port Logic Pro to the iOS!
Anyway, for most of the times, the desktop is a better solution for me as I don't gig or travel

[rod_zero]

Probably the reason there haven't been big leaps in how the DAW use processing power comes down tot he simple reason that audio is a small world (in relative terms) and there is no company around with the capital to invest in developing that kind of technology.

It has gotten better because general use CPUs have gotten much better, but that is all.

[fluffy_little_something]

Hate to point this out, but your old CPU will be better at single thread performance than your new Ryzen. Although your new CPU can run more threads, a lot of audio performance requires a single threaded operation per track (FX chains, etc.).

Ryzen 5 1600 is running at 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo).

i7-3770 Processor - Processor Base Frequency = 3.40 GHz / Max Turbo Frequency = 3.90 GHz.

I read that the 2nd generation of Ryzen will become available in April. Its clock speed is said to be .2 GHz higher across the series.

[zzz00m]

Hate to point this out, but your old CPU will be better at single thread performance than your new Ryzen. Although your new CPU can run more threads, a lot of audio performance requires a single threaded operation per track (FX chains, etc.).

Ryzen 5 1600 is running at 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo).

i7-3770 Processor - Processor Base Frequency = 3.40 GHz / Max Turbo Frequency = 3.90 GHz.

I read that the 2nd generation of Ryzen will become available in April. Its clock speed is said to be .2 GHz higher across the series.

I wasn't trying to say that Ryzen was slow, only that the particular CPU was slower than the Intel he already had.

If it was me, I would have bought a new CPU with a faster clock speed. The faster a single core can run, the faster a single threaded process can run. Obviously you can do more work with more cores and more threads, but not all audio processes can be split across multiple cores. So to be safe, you should get the fastest processor you can afford!