MuLab 5.0.31 Test

[> DiGiT <]

well bro, all i can say is 'you first' and quit following an unrealistic ideal. oh and dont be a hypocrite. if you inherited your fortune, how can you tell an orphaned worker what money is like? hmm? just please take a look at how your reactions appear: as if you believe youre being wronged by a guy who already bends over backwards for everybody. youre bogarting the ideal for which jo lives, shall we say. you dont need me to see that do you? i hope you can resolve that asap.

ok i think the point has been delivered.

[megalodonnl]

Thanks. I've tried to do as much as possible. I even use portable software almost entirely to reduce installations 'corrupting' the registry etc. But I don't have a disc for win7 and even if I did, my laptop comes with built in hidden ssd for sleep only. I don't have the tech knowhow to get that working after a fresh install. I could probably figure it out if I had a win7 disc but I don't. Great advice though, thanks again.

Well, I've heard that if you bought the laptop new, then you have a OEM license for Windows which gives you the right to actually download a Windows image from Microsoft and burn it to a cd.

Also: at the laptop's manufacturer's website should contain any driver needed for your system.

By all means, don't do it if you really don't feel comfortable, but the info should be available online. And even if you don't do it, a Win7 cd can always come in handy.

[> DiGiT <]

i have never installed win7 but xp is seriously self explanatory. you could possibly get xp drivers for your laptop and go that route. xp uses way fewer resources than 7 does. its quite good for multimedia in fact. may not be a possibility tho, depends on your machines manufacturer.

[sl23]

well bro, all i can say is 'you first' and quit following an unrealistic ideal. oh and dont be a hypocrite. if you inherited your fortune, how can you tell an orphaned worker what money is like? hmm? just please take a look at how your reactions appear: as if you believe youre being wronged by a guy who already bends over backwards for everybody. youre bogarting the ideal for which jo lives, shall we say. you don't need me to see that do you? i hope you can resolve that asap.

ok i think the point has been delivered.

I understand what you're saying, seriously, but I promise you it aint like that. My mum died three years ago and I've literally just got the rights to the house. I don't have and never have had money in large amounts so I know exactly what poor is. Don't assume I don't when you don't know me or my situation. I have a run down house in middle of portugal not worth a great deal as far as property goes but I stand by what I said - money is used to control and causes more harm than good. If you can't see that you must be one of those that thinks religion is a good thing!

Oh, and did you realise you made the same mistake you accuse others of? Assumption. Sorry? Who's the hypocrite?

I'm not saying Jo wronged me, your words not mine. Just that maybe, just maybe, it could have been explained that the UI would need it's own core and HT is unsupported. Maybe that wasn't known at the time? I know it's easy to say in hind sight I suppose but just a thought. See M5 has little extra to offer for me personally except the MC and the Mux front panel enhancements are good. Other than that it's really all about tweaks mostly which I don't use. I'm talking generally btw so no need to point out specifics!

Like I said, but you either didn't read or ignored it, I respect Jo, appreciate he works hard, and he's done/doing a great job. I got nothing against him so can you quit trying to make out I have please.

Ok, that said, thanks for the advice. Though I've fixed several pc's I'm not proficient or daring enough to break one on the assumption I should be able to fix it.

Anyway, lets leave it at that I was just a bit peeved that MC was expected but then find out that only if you have more than 2 REAL cores! Bit of a let down. Didn't blame anyone, I was just trying to find if there's a solution, obviously not.

[pljones]

The UI prioritisation should be considered: perhaps M4 could continue to be supported (for bug fixes, not new functionality) for single core or lower power machines? (I realise this isn't in Jo's interests.) As I've suggested, I'd like to see an option for "Auto with UI-reserved" (ideally as the default) to let MuLab just get on with it, seeing as it seems several people have reported problems with UI sluggishness. Those who have sufficiently powerful machines would (a) might not really notice the difference and (b) could have the option of not reserving a core for UI.

I don't see how mentioning that "hyperthreading" is not "multi-core" needed to be explained. The terms are different and mean different things.

[sl23]

I know what HT is I didn't ask for an explanation, please point to where I did... MuLab chose the Auto setting which made 4 altogether. If Ht is unsupported why do this? Is that down to the user? No. Is it down to the program? No. It's down to the dev, sorry this isn't a dig at Jo, simply a fact.

I agree about the Auto with UI reserved. But HT shouldn't even have been taken into account if it's not supported.

[pquenin]

Hmm, if I understand well, you must buy a computer with at least 4 cores if you want some benefit from the MC support in M5.

But maybe, Jo can find a way to take advantage of HT threads. They are often seen as "virtual" cores, so I think it's something close enougth to real cores that can be taken into account.

I'm still looking for a new PC, so these things are important for me because most of the laptop PCs under 1000 euros have 2 cores, even certain i7 mobile processors. So I really don't know what to do, because I don't want to buy a desktop computer...

[> DiGiT <]

I agree about the Auto with UI reserved. But HT shouldn't even have been taken into account if it's not supported.

i agree. i like this way of saying it a lot better. jo with all the details he has to deal with sometimes misses the obvious. we still like him tho. eventually he will make every bell and whistle that everyone wants haha!

[pljones]

I know what HT is I didn't ask for an explanation, please point to where I did...

Here's what I was replying to:

Just that maybe, just maybe, it could have been explained that the UI would need it's own core and HT is unsupported.

As far as I'm aware, no one ever said HT would be supported in any way. Only multi-core support has ever been discussed. So why would there need to be an explanation that HT is unsupported?

Also, as Jo has said: the UI does not need its own core. That's a decision the for each user to make, as to whether they want all their CPU power to prioritise audio or prevent audio processing on a single core to give better UI response. Not reserving a core does not mean no UI funtionality.

Hmm, if I understand well, you must buy a computer with at least 4 cores if you want some benefit from the MC support in M5.

This is wrong. See above. M4 only ran audio tasks on a single core. M5 runs them on multiple cores. If your audio processing was suffering because of this, there will be a benefit seen in M5 from more than one core. Of course, if you're asking your computer to process more in total (UI plus audio) than it has the power to process, something will have to give. M4 would have degraded on the audio side (assuming that's what was overloading one core). By default, M5 will degrade on the UI side (assuming again that it's audio doing the extra work) - assumed to be a better compromise in an audio app. That applies regardless of the number of cores. The only benefit of more than two cores comes from still having more than one core for audio if you choose to reserve a core for UI and, hence, restrict how much power you give to audio.

[mutools]

Thanks for the suggestion to add a "Reserve UI Thread". I'm not convinced by it though, it might be confusing. I prefer to keep it simple at this point by just having a single straight parameter "Num Audio Threads" like it is now. One thing i've tweaked though which is related to all the above: The Auto setting will use half of the reported num processors. So that's a 'balance' value which leaves room for UI and/or VSTs that use MC too, and at the same time it statistically decreases the risk on HT issues. So concrete: On a 2 core system, MuLab will default to 1 audio thread, on a 4 core system to 2 audio threads, on an octo-core to 4 audio threads. This Auto value can be tweaked as you want, with a max at the reported num processors in your system. So a user with a dual core can push MuLab so it uses both cores for audio, of course on heavy audio processing this will slow down all UI aspects including loading/saving, but with the benefit of more lovely audio.

[mutools]

Hmm, if I understand well, you must buy a computer with at least 4 cores if you want some benefit from the MC support in M5.

There indeed is some practical truth in that. But note it's not MuLab specific, it's just technical logic.

[mutools]

I've had occasions where plugins has gone bonanza causing my computer to slow down with choppy mouse cursor and no response. When i manage to get the cursor on the off-switch of the plugin in question it will turn off after a few seconds and cpu meter goes back down. If i reload the plugin the problem seems to be gone. There's nothing special that i do that i can think of. It's not that im loading a certain plugin or that i maybe close a window but maybe only turning a knob or two. It's hard to be specific but i can tell as much as that it has not happened with 4.x.

You're talking about the situation where that plugin was processing a lot of audio right?

Well in case you have assigned the max number of audio threads (as many as there are processors) then when you have heavy audio processing the UI slows down.

Solution: Reduce the Num Audio Threads by 1. Cfr the other recent posts here in this topic.

Does this answers the question?

Is there a way i can put my system and mutools 5 to the test?

How do you mean? I'm not sure if i understand this question, sorry if i'm missing sometin obvious.

[sl23]

If I'm right he wants mulab to push his computer to its limit to see how far it can be pushed before it starts to break down.

[> DiGiT <]

what about denormalization?

[mutools]

The Mu DSP code avoids denormalization wherever possible. If a denormalization would occur in Mu code i regard that as a bug. But i have no indication that's the case. But maybe there is such denormalization prob in the VST plugin Crackbaby used..?