KVR Audio

chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 2:53 am

I have a Q9450/3GB/XP-32 based DAW that I wanna replace, not 'cause it doesn't do everything I want, but more just 'cause I want to go mobile. So I'm looking at an i5 580m/8GB/Win7-64 laptop as a replacement. My question (w/o getting into any philosophical laptop/desktop daw debates) is what kind of performance should I expect running Sonar given all other things being equal? Should they be similar or close even given the older cpu is a quad and the newer only a dual core? Alternatively, if you haven't worked on both but have a similar i5 setup what kind of capacity are you seeing before you tend to max out the processor and get dropouts. etc.? I know it's an old question but googling I'm not really seeing a lot of direct real world performance answers in terms of num of tracks/vsti/vst instances. Thanks in advance to all that take the time to reply.... chris

PS - specifically I'm looking at an HP dm4t so any input on those appreciated.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:12 am

My stock answer is that off the shelf laptops are a gamble for realtime audio. The hardware isnt designed for it so low latency may not work well. Either get a laptop from the known audio specialists or stick with desktop. Have a look at this thread :

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

chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:22 am

UltraJv wrote:My stock answer is that off the shelf laptops are a gamble for realtime audio. The hardware isnt designed for it so low latency may not work well. Either get a laptop from the known audio specialists or stick with desktop. Have a look at this thread :

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

"w/o getting into any philosophical laptop/desktop daw debates"

Excluding firewire issues (which lots of people don't use)... at any given point in time peoples dream desktop daw setup from a few years previous will lose out badly to the average off the shelf laptop (assuming the same drive rpm's). That's just the nature of the technology, todays studio "best" will be downright embarrassing in a few years. Any daw can be made to fail given the proper load, I just wanna know roughly where on the curve an i5/580m might fall.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:35 am

chrisby wrote:
UltraJv wrote:My stock answer is that off the shelf laptops are a gamble for realtime audio. The hardware isnt designed for it so low latency may not work well. Either get a laptop from the known audio specialists or stick with desktop. Have a look at this thread :

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... highlight=
"w/o getting into any philosophical laptop/desktop daw debates"

Excluding firewire issues (which lots of people don't use)... at any given point in time peoples dream desktop daw setup from a few years previous will lose out badly to the average off the shelf laptop (assuming the same drive rpm's). That's just the nature of the technology, todays studio "best" will be downright embarrassing in a few years. Any daw can be made to fail given the proper load, I just wanna know roughly where on the curve an i5/580m might fall.

I pointed out that the HP dm4t probably isnt suitable for DAW usage. If you read the post I gave, youll see someone else has bought HP laptop recently and it wouldnt work for low latency. Not specific to Firewire but modern Laptop hardware in general. This debate isnt philosophical, its technical. Youre taking a risk buying off the shelf laptops for low latency audio.

chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:45 am

The acer aspire 1 netbook I'm typing this on will allow me to realtime record/monitor one instance of Amplitube (a major resource hog) in Reaper with acceptable latency. Add a few additional tracks and it starts to choke. My old centrino laptop will do lot's of tracks and a reasonable number of vsti's and vst effects before it chokes. I expect the i5 will do much, much better... I'm just trying to find out how much better. And again, this is exactly the debate I'd like to avoid. Some people don't like laptops for daws... some people do.

chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:45 am

ooops, double posted

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:47 am

chrisby wrote:The acer aspire 1 netbook I'm typing this on will allow me to realtime record/monitor one instance of Amplitube in Reaper with acceptable latency. Add a few additional tracks and it starts to choke. My old centrino laptop will do lot's of tracks and a reasonable number of vsti's and vst effects before it chokes. I expect the i5 will do much, much better... I'm just trying to find out how much better. And again, this is exactly the debate I'd like to avoid. Some people don't like laptops for daws... some people do.

Youre complely missing my point. I give up. I look forward to your next post where you cannot understand why your new laptop wont work for low latency audio without clicks and pops.

chrisby · Post by **chrisby** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:06 am

UltraJv wrote:
chrisby wrote:The acer aspire 1 netbook I'm typing this on will allow me to realtime record/monitor one instance of Amplitube in Reaper with acceptable latency. Add a few additional tracks and it starts to choke. My old centrino laptop will do lot's of tracks and a reasonable number of vsti's and vst effects before it chokes. I expect the i5 will do much, much better... I'm just trying to find out how much better. And again, this is exactly the debate I'd like to avoid. Some people don't like laptops for daws... some people do.
Youre complely missing my point. I give up. I look forward to your next post where you cannot understand why your new laptop wont work for low latency audio without clicks and pops.

And you're missing my point... these days with a moderate amount of tuning and a 7200rpm drive any average off the shelf laptop should be able to provide a decent daw experience using a usb interface. It's no longer a question of will it work, only how well it will work. And that's all I'm trying to find out, how well they (i5's) work.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:16 am

chrisby wrote:
UltraJv wrote:
chrisby wrote:The acer aspire 1 netbook I'm typing this on will allow me to realtime record/monitor one instance of Amplitube in Reaper with acceptable latency. Add a few additional tracks and it starts to choke. My old centrino laptop will do lot's of tracks and a reasonable number of vsti's and vst effects before it chokes. I expect the i5 will do much, much better... I'm just trying to find out how much better. And again, this is exactly the debate I'd like to avoid. Some people don't like laptops for daws... some people do.
Youre complely missing my point. I give up. I look forward to your next post where you cannot understand why your new laptop wont work for low latency audio without clicks and pops.
And you're missing my point... these days with a moderate amount of tuning and a 7200rpm drive any average off the shelf laptop should be able to provide a decent daw experience using a usb interface. It's no longer a question of will it work, only how well it will work. And that's all I'm trying to find out, how well they (i5's) work.

jcschild wrote:its not that simple with laptops.
most laptops will not work for firewire and about 1/2 will work well for USB.

all standard windows 7 tweaks apply.
turning off acpi battery and wifi. sometimes wifi has to be pyhsically removed.
there are so many issues plaguing laptops...

Scott
ADK

vata44 · Post by **vata44** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:43 am

dude, any laptop with a decent processor and onboard soundcard can do what you need in the digital domain (in the box). Once you get into recording and such you need a decent interface for the AD/DA converters.

People are doing it all the time... buy what you can afford and make it work the best it can. I have a Dell 1525, cheap by standards and my little intel core 2 duo CPU is abused like none other.

Just have fun mate.

jcschild · Post by **jcschild** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 2:21 pm

vaisnava wrote:dude, any laptop with a decent processor and onboard soundcard can do what you need in the digital domain (in the box). Once you get into recording and such you need a decent interface for the AD/DA converters.

People are doing it all the time... buy what you can afford and make it work the best it can. I have a Dell 1525, cheap by standards and my little intel core 2 duo CPU is abused like none other. Just have fun mate.

you keep thinking that... and when you cant tame the DPC latency issues and wonder why you are getting pops clicks every 5 seconds.. then you will understand.

and that applies to USB interfaces as well.

most laptops that you can buy today (NEW) have major issues. a 2 yr old laptop is far more likely to work
most of it due to all the green power saving crap..

Scott
ADK

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:30 am

"All questions answered, closing this thread."

Just kidding

So far no answers has been given. Im also interested in the answers of the questions asked in the first post. The questions are very specified, so no stock replies will work(!)
Maybe it's the cloud of text that made it too hard. Ill try to help!

--------------------
I have computer X, what will the performance gain be if i get computer Y? Im thinking of computer Y1, anyone have any experience of computer Y1?
--------------------

jcschild · Post by **jcschild** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:36 pm

a look at my benchmarks page will allow for exstrapolation..

http://www.adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm

the 580m is basically the same as a 620m 1 meg cache less big deal..

so @ 64 buffer the q9450 did 100 RXC compressers
the 620 did 53.
so basically 1/2
then add to it everything said about laptops... that 1/2 as good might be 0 as good...

Scott
ADK

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:51 pm

jcschild wrote:
vaisnava wrote: you keep thinking that... and when you cant tame the DPC latency issues and wonder why you are getting pops clicks every 5 seconds.. then you will understand.

Scott
ADK

I got those pops some time ago. It's only recently i went back to music using DAW's so i cant pinpoint exactly when or when i did exactly what (upgrading to win7, changing AV .. ).
While i tried disabling speedstep etc, it did have no effect, but setting reaper and reaper32 to real time in task manager removed all the pops.
Just thought i'd mention this

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:19 pm

I bought a new Toshiba Satellite i5 laptop last month, so I should probably chime in. I have tried multiple usb audio devices, and do indeed run into problems with clicks, soundcards suddenly giving bursts of noise or being unrecognized for a moment etc.

The other poster is right, and you are better off buying an audio laptop with firewire (runs smooth, makes audio run so much better as I've learned on my older desktop DAW), no headaches, and should make you happy.

That being said...

When it is running good, it works pretty well. I may be having some issues that are related to using esata too. I wanted two drives (programs drive, and audio samples vst drive etc.), so I've connected an extra 7200 drive (replaced laptop 5400 drive with a 7200 also), but sometimes my esata drive isn't recognized or playing a lot of audio tracks causes glitches etc.

I now realize having a professional laptop with firewire would have just ran well and made me happy, but they're almost 3 times the price of what I paid, so they weren't really an option. Anyway... if you do buy an regular i5, realize that it will probably have a few issues with the usb audio card, I would forgo using a second harddrive via esata, and would just upgrade the harddrive that comes with the laptop to a 7200 drive.

Anyway... so yeah, you may end up with a laptop that happens to work better and not have issues, but it's probably more likely you'll run into problems with clicks and pops and unrecognized audio device etc. from time to time.

i5 laptop's for a daw, how good?