Best Service

Maddcow · Post by **Maddcow** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:24 am

Hi all. I bought Titan and Nitron on Christmas Eve (my time) due to the 2for1 promotion and started messing around with Titan yesterday. I use a MacBook Pro 17" (specs below) with MainStage as my live performance DAW and was running Titan as an AU plugin in 32-bit (64 sample buffer). Something that really surprised me was the incredibly poor performance of Engine when it was running with the GUI onscreen. I was constantly getting audio dropouts and crackles and my CPU meter was virtually always at 100%. I checked Console and sure enough, there was message after message of audio engine overloads. This never happens with any other synth I own, even Omnisphere!

However, as soon as I closed the Engine GUI the Titan sounds became playable and I experienced almost no audio overloads at all. My CPU meter rarely got above 30-40% with the GUI closed. I couldn't believe the difference....it was very noticeable.

Why is Engine virtually unusable when its GUI is onscreen? I run a LOT of virtual synths and never have any issues with them, regardless of whether their GUI is onscreen or not.

Cheers
Gary

MACBOOK PRO 17" SPECS
3.06GHz
8GB RAM
512 GB Samsung 830 series SSD
OSX 10.8.2

cyphersuit · Post by **cyphersuit** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:29 pm

haven't seen this behaviour here on my rig... intel 7 16 gb ram, win7 64 bit.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:39 pm

Are you using the latest version of Engine? It was updated to v2.1 a month ago.

Maddcow · Post by **Maddcow** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 9:55 pm

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yes, I'm running the latest version of Engine. I tested the standalone last night and it suffers with the same issue. Here's what I did: with Engine onscreen, I used my trackpad to click notes on Engine's virtual keyboard. I had a digital atmosphere pad and sure enough, I got audio crackles using a 64 sample buffer. I then minimized Engine (so it wasn't onscreen) and tested it the same way by using a freeware virtual MIDI keyboard called MIDIMock - guess what, no audio crackles.

The only thing I can think of is that there seems to be an issue with CPU usage when Engine is onscreen.

PhilG · Post by **PhilG** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:29 pm

I have similar problems with Desert Wind and Medieval Legends, which I have purchased today.

When the GUI of Engine 2.1 is open, the CPU load raises significantly and often leads to CPU spikes while playing some notes.

I can run a project with two instances of Zebra, 2 tracks from Omnisphere and 8 Tracks from Stylus RMX with Engine easily when the GUI is minimized, but with the GUI in the foreground it is unusable.

VST is running much better than the AU.
AU is crashing the host when I close or remove it after changing the preferences.

OSX 10.7.5, Core2Duo 2.2 GHz, 6 GB Ram, 128 GB SSD, Presonus Studio One 2 Pro 64bit, StudioLive 16.0.2 Buffersize 256.

Maddcow · Post by **Maddcow** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:44 am

PhilG, would you mind emailing Best Service tech support to report this? I communicated with Martin from BS the other week but they can't seem to replicate the issue. If BS is made aware this isn't just a one-off situation, they might look into it a bit further for us.

I'm 100% convinced there is a bug in Engine....what I've experienced can't be normal behavior.

Cheers
Gary

PhilG · Post by **PhilG** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:19 am

Maddcow wrote:PhilG, would you mind emailing Best Service tech support to report this? I communicated with Martin from BS the other week but they can't seem to replicate the issue. If BS is made aware this isn't just a one-off situation, they might look into it a bit further for us.

I'm 100% convinced there is a bug in Engine....what I've experienced can't be normal behavior.

Cheers
Gary

Done, I'm sure too that this is a problem with Engine.
After I had it installed I experience some strange behaviour in projects, where an instance of Engine is involved.

BTW do you have Automap installed?

Cheers
Phil

Maddcow · Post by **Maddcow** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:23 am

No, I don't have AutoMap installed. I did use it a while ago but got rid of it about 3 months ago because I never used it.

NoSoniX · Post by **NoSoniX** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 9:32 pm

Hey Gary, Hey Phil

we're already into this issue... and have it on our list of improvements.
This problem happens in an earlier version of engine (as far i remember version 1) and actually should be gone.. but it seems that some people still experience this problem.

I apologize the inconveniences you have!

Thanks for you patience and all the best

Martin

taoyoyo · Post by **taoyoyo** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:12 pm

Just to add to this, I'm having the same problem with Engine on OSX.

I'm using Engine to host 'Independence Culture' (or the Magix version) and Evolution World Percussion (Compact).

On loading one patch in any host I'm getting the same kind of audio issues others have mentioned in this thread.

Initially I had thought it was the Independent engine, so switched to Engine... and still having the same problem.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:31 pm

Obviously the mac version is broken. I have exchanged many emails in the last week with support at Best service for precisely the same issue, although i have 5 libraries installed and have had over 100 crashes in 7 days (always when choosing presets from the drop down menu rather than arrow keys, especially when switching libraries)

That, coupled with the most atrocious performance i have ever seen on a sample player, has rendered all my purchases effectively unusable.

Man, sometimes a single patch will spike multiple cores in logic. It's crazy.

So now, i have simply thrown over $500 away.

I am negotiation a refund as this is unacceptable and there was no way of knowing pre purchase.

Wanna hear about bad cpu performance? i got the k size loop pack, and with elastic enabled (which it has to be to sync to tempo) just pressing ONE note, playing ONE loop, uses and ENTIRE core. Yep, a WHOLE core of an I7 for a single drum loop

It's a joke, and offensive, and one has to wonder at some point ,how these products even make it into the wild in this state

cyphersuit · Post by **cyphersuit** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 8:41 pm

Guess it all comes down to elastique being buggy. Really hoping for Engine 3.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:00 pm

Many non elastique patches spike.. but the crashes have zero to do with elastique. It's a bug in the mac version browser.

dven · Post by **dven** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:28 pm

I also have experienced performance issues with engine (not as bad as above, but enough that I have to bounce in place - and this is with plenty of headroom).

I've also got an unusual crash on quit in logic which is apparently related to the copy protection. No ETA on that particular issue, but at least Magix and BestService have continued to be in touch and so the support side seems to be much improved over the YT days.

My $.02,
Dorian

NoSoniX · Post by **NoSoniX** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 8:41 pm

Hey Guys,

would you all please send us an e-mail at support [at] bestservice.de with the following information:

1. Subject : Engine Issues

2. You're system specs/DAW/OS version

3. and a detailed error/issue report:

is it reproducible and how / when does it happen and so on.

We're want to adress the issues to find a solution for them asap with our development team.

Thank you all for your help & All the best

Martin

Best Service

KVR Audio

Incredibly poor Engine performance