KVR Audio

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Mon May 02, 2005 11:19 pm

I remember noticing an increase going from SX 1 to 2. My brother has an older computer, and he can run SX 1 no problem, but he can't do anything with SX 2, if that's any indication.

Jeez, it's been so long now I can barely remember what is new about SX 2...oh, the Plug-in Compensation delay is really important; the FX Channels are great, and with SX/Nuendo 3, the Audio Warp tools are indespensable for remixing and track adjusting. But I seem to have taken a hit in stability somewhere along the way, especially video-wise - an area where I think Steinberg has always suffered in.

TeeLangSun · Post by **TeeLangSun** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:03 am

bmanic wrote:Hmm.. any of you thought that maybe the new USB dongle copyprotection might be the reason for higher CPU usage compared to FL, orion and Sonar (none of them have a dongle). This could be the reason, no? If it is, it's a real shame but companies need to be able to protect their systems.

Cheers!
bManic

No dongle here. I have Cubase System 4 which is the Cubase SL 2/MI4 audio interface combo. It doesn't have a dongle as the audio interface serves as a dongle.

TeeLangSun · Post by **TeeLangSun** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:16 am

parky wrote:
TeeLangSun wrote:Richard Hoffman of Synapse has posted up some specs and screenshots showing the amount of system resources that a number of sequencers grabbed up, just to get themselves open but not sequencing or loading any plugins. Just open. I don't remember any numbers, but Orion and FL displayed very small resource requirements. Sonar was somewhat more and Cubase SX was off the chart. It's one of those things that you just know even without seeing the chart displaying it.

Strange, Cubase SX 2.2 on my old Athlon XP 1.6 w. 1 GB ram idles at 5% cpu load. I would hardly call that off the chart!

It idles on my current machine at less than that, but that's not really the point. The point was "system resources". CPU is only a part of the the resources your machine needs to run. The screen shots that Richard posted listed various items and Cubase needed vastly more than the other sequencers to get itself open. Today for example, I opened a Rewire project in Sonar 4 demo and Cubase SL 2. I looked at the Windows task manager and Cubase required 100 Megs of ram more to get this project open than Sonar 4. Furthermore, as soon as the Reason project was fully opened, Cubase freezes the entire computer for about 15 seconds. I can't do anything but move the mouse pointer during this time. Upon closing Cubase and the project, the same thing is repeated and difficulty closing projects in Cubase is typical. The larger the document, the longer it takes for Cubase to close itself. No such behavior in Sonar 4. Close Reason. Close Sonar. Both happen instantly.

parky · Post by **parky** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:35 am

TeeLangSun wrote:
It idles on my current machine at less than that, but that's not really the point.

Then why did you mention Hoffman's study and the fact that in your opinion
Cubase causes cpu useage to go off the charts. I was merely replying to that and mentioning that was NOT my experience. Live with it!

CPU is only a part of the the resources your machine needs to run.

You have a grasp of the blatently obvious.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Tue May 03, 2005 6:24 am

TeeLangSun wrote:...The larger the document, the longer it takes for Cubase to close itself. No such behavior in Sonar 4. Close Reason. Close Sonar. Both happen instantly.

Yeah, that is totally true. Cubase has always been brutal on opening and (especially) closing. Every time I close a decent-sized project, it's "Hail Mary" time. One of Cubase's weakest points, for sure.

But Sonar has a slight advantage; it's always been a native windows application. Cubase is kinda its own environment (I hear that before it was marketed for windows, after Atari, Cubase was supposed to be its own operating system for an HD recording package! that explains a few things...) and it HATES sharing with anything else, including Windows! All you Steinberg users know what I mean, right? It seems to get worse for me over time...right now, I can't use Reason with Cubase on one machine, and it used to run fine! Weird.

Sonar was great, cos I could open up a project and have a Flash project open as well, and go back and forth in real time with no disruption; a total joy for a multimedia guy. But still I was swayed by Cubase/Nuendo. I do wish Steinberg would sort this out, it's rather sloppy. And the high resource useage, please.

drinelli · Post by **drinelli** » Tue May 03, 2005 4:31 pm

Cubase uses less on my machine than the last sonar version I tried, Cubase Sx 3 uses less than Cubase SX 1/2 on ditto,

are you guys using the same bit depth or sample rate as you used to before ?

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Tue May 03, 2005 6:59 pm

Less! Really...amazing. I do use 24-bit more than I used to, but I can only use 16-bit on our Nuendo machine. That is a good point though, but I don't think I notice a big difference, either way. Does it really matter if all the DSP math is being done at 32-bit float anyway?

drinelli · Post by **drinelli** » Tue May 03, 2005 8:14 pm

I am not shure about the bit depth. But there is a lot difference between 44,1 khz and 96khz.

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:11 pm

There's a lot that can be said against SX, Nuendo and Steinberg in general, but you have to acknowledge it's by far the most complex host available for the PC. So a comparison with Orion etc. is not really fair.

To shatter some common myths spread here, SX 3.02 is running absolutely smooth and stable here, slightly less CPU load even than SX 2.2.0.39
.
P IV 3.06, 2 GB RAM, RME Digiface, 2 UADs, PoCo, only legal audio software including ( ! ) Kontakt 1.53, XP Pro SP 1, nothing non - audio related except LAN.

SX CPU load is close to zero with an empty project and only goes up marginally with Kontakt loaded ( for example ).

Now I'm the first to admit there are a lot of quirks and missing features in SX, screensets, mixer views, notation, controller support among others leave a lot to be desired, but nowhere near as shaky as Logic PC used to be (don't know about the newer Mac versions).

So to me the trick is to get the right hardware and software environment to run your host of choice, not so much trying to find out which one is "better", Orion, FL, Live or SX.
Everybody will come to different conclusions here ...

Begging to differ,
susiwong

drinelli · Post by **drinelli** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:20 pm

Do not be to hard to Orion, I can actually sometimes get really frustrated at Cubase Why It does not sound more like Orion using the same presets on the same Vsts. I am positively shure there is a big difference, so much that I considered going from Cubase To Orion just yesterday. but learning a nother way of working, was putting me off.

xsub · Post by **xsub** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:24 pm

wow, looks like i've started a good debate

.. it's nice to see your replies, i think the funniest point was when one guy pointed out how slow it is opening a project..- that is so true.

"susiwong" -- How much did that hardware cost you?..

As quite a few people have mentioned on using kontakt for their sampler machine, i'd like to ask if there's any others that are just as good (and hopefully less buggy)

pavvel · Post by **pavvel** » Tue May 03, 2005 9:38 pm

Michael Allan Cumming wrote:Are Tassman and Absynth usage hogs ??

™ wrote:yes, especially tassman ...

No Absynth is absolutely NOT a CPU Hogger!

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:06 pm

xsub,

the hardware didn't cost too much since I build my own machines, I reuse stuff as long as it does the job and I only buy PC parts when a new generation has arrived and the price for the older stuff has reached a reasonable level.

Audio hardware mostly from http://www.jrrshop.com , Uncle E always gives a good and fair deal.
In my experience it's cheaper to buy good stuff in the first place instead of constantly buying, trying and reselling cheaper alternatives that are "almost as good as the real thing" - you know the routine.
Example Digiface - not cheap, but I bought it when it first came out, zero troubles ever since and it will hopefully still be in my next machine.

What's really expensive is the sample based stuff - arrgh !
And then there is quite some good, professional freeware around nowadays - thanks to the KvR community and many generous developers.
susiwong

TOTAL · Post by **TOTAL** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:11 pm

drinelli

u say sx3 uses less resources than sx 1 or 2.

what is your daw?

on athlon2500 and 512 mb sx2 2 01 was said to be less predictable (peaks) than sx1.06

is that to say stainberg improved sx2 since then?

BTW are they still updating sx2?

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:45 pm

xsub wrote:wow, looks like i've started a good debate .. As quite a few people have mentioned on using kontakt for their sampler machine, i'd like to ask if there's any others that are just as good (and hopefully less buggy)

well, you can check out my other thread about this:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... highlight=

I too am not very happy with Kontakt. Right now, the closest contender is VSampler, as it actually supports Kontakt format. Still, I think I'm going to just wait and see where Kontakt 2 goes. They do have to fix some stuff before I can jump on board.

Susiwong: Good points. Lord knows I probably run too much stuff on my computer (at work, I have little choice)...but I swear it got worse since SX 1. Perhaps I need more than 1G RAM, sad that's not enough.

CPU usage with Cubase SX