Diva: Desktop... laptop... both?

[Scoox]

Hi fellow Diva users, I need help to decide whether to buy a) a powerful laptop for everything or b) a powerful desktop PC for the studio and a not-so-powerful laptop for DJing.

I recently bought Diva and Repro. Up until last month my main machine was a gaming-style laptop with an i7-4790K CPU, then I dropped a screw on the motherboard while upgrading my SSD (forgot to disconnect the battery...), and there was a spark. After that the laptop wouldn't even power on so, yep, lesson learnt. So far I've only tested Diva on my i7 Surface 4 Pro and it struggles even with just one instance, so I'm looking to buy a new computer for music production and I need advice from other Diva users regarding actual practical system requirements, because I think the minimum system requirements stated on u-he are really the bare minimum.

Gaming laptops pack a lot of performance but are too big and heavy to lug around. Yesterday I dropped by a local Xiaomi store (I'm in China) and checked out their "Mi Gaming Notebook". They only had last years model on display (same product but processor is i7-7700HQ instead of i7-8750H) but even with the 7th-gen chip CPU usage would gracefully sit at around 50% while running some of FL Studio's heaviest demo projects that would normally cause dropouts on my gaming laptop, all tested through an ASIO USB audio interface set to 96 kHz 128 samples. LatencyMon reported around 115µs latency and always in the green, which IMO is very good for a laptop.

Here's a screenshot of LatencyMon on the i7-7700HQ Mi Gaming Notebook:

Mi Gaming Notebook DPC latency.png

Since the Surface Pro 4 basically sucks for DJing becasue it's not very powerful and only has one USB port, I'm thinking maybe I could buy a nice laptop to do it all, but there are trade-offs, and this is where I need guidance. I'm pretty much sold on Xiaomi laptops because they are well built, performance is good, price is very affordable and customer service here in China is very good as it's a popular brand here.

So my options are:

1. Mi Gaming Notebook (i7-8750H model) for both DJing and music production

or...

2.Desktop PC (i7-8700K or i9-9900K) for music production and Mi Notebook Pro (i7-8550U) for DJing.

Option 1 pros:

• Music production away from the studio possible, same performance as in the studio
• Only one system to maintain
• Can test the complete system at the store before buying to ensure no DPC latency issues etc.
• Cheaper than desktop PC + Mi Notebook Pro
• Fewer external drives needed as the Mi Gaming Notebook would be the only computer accessing my data (it internally provides two M.2 slots and one 2.5" SATA drive bay)

Option 1 cons:

• Performance not as good as desktop, but better than Mi Notebook Pro—a happy trade-off?
• Both laptop and power brick heavier and larger than Mi Notebook Pro, not DJ-friendly
• I/O limited compared with desktop PC

Option 2 cons:

• Mi Notebook Pro can be used away from the studio, but performance will be lower than that of Mi Gaming Notebook.
• Two systems to maintain
• Desktop PC can only be tested after it's built, so there are no guarantees regarding DPC latency (this one's a biggie)
• Desktop PC + Mi Notebook Pro more expensive than single Mi gaming Notebook

Option 2 pros:

• Desktop PC gives better performance in the studio
• Mi Notebook Pro and power brick lighter and smaller than Mi Gaming Notebook, DJ-friendly.
• Desktop PC motherboard provides more I/O (not bothered about PCIi as I'd be using CPU on-board graphics)

It's not an easy decision because both options have compelling advantages, and yet neither option is ideal. And even if I bought both options, it'd still not be ideal. To help me decide, I want to call on other fellow Diva users (Windows 10 64-bit) to do a little test:

1. Enable performance mode in Windows 10 and set your ASIO audio interface to 44.1 kHz 128 samples.
2. Load Diva (64-bit unbridged) in your DAW
3. Select factory preset "xh POLY (keys) Bosch Bells", this is a resource-hungry preset
4. Sequence a 3-note chord sending to Diva and play it in a loop.
5. Add further instances of Diva, same preset, until you start getting dropouts.

I'm interested in knowing how many instances of Diva can run under the above test conditions without dropouts, on the following CPUs:

Intel i9-9900K
Intel i7-8700K
Intel i7-8750H

Thanks!

[Scoox]

The Xiaomi store I went to just called me to let me know there's another store elsewhere in town that have the latest and top-of-the-range Mi Gaming Notebook on display. Gonnal take FL and Diva and test the heck out of it.

[tony10000]

You should look at this chart when making your decision. The Intel "i" numbers are pretty meaningless, especially if you are comparing desktops to laptops. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

[Scoox]

You should look at this chart when making your decision. The Intel "i" numbers are pretty meaningless, especially if you are comparing desktops to laptops. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

Sure, and I did look. Obviously the i9-9900K is going to be able to run more instances of Diva than the i7-8750H, but those numbers don't tell me how many instances of Diva I'm going to be able to run. If I can run 15 instances of the above Diva preset and have the CPU at around 50% with the i7-8750H chip that would be good enough for me. The problem is I've never tested any of the processors I mentioned in my earlier post, so I need someone to give me a reference point.

I'm using Diva in this case becasue it's one of the most resource-hungry plugins I have. If Diva works, everything else is usually fine.

[tony10000]

True. But it would also depend on latency and other systemic factors as well. In a laptop, lack of effective cooling is also going to cause CPU throttling and that will effect performance. Also, the type of Diva patches will also make a difference (stacks use way more CPU) as well as polyphony.

[Scoox]

True. But it would also depend on latency and other systemic factors as well. In a laptop, lack of effective cooling is also going to cause CPU throttling and that will effect performance. Also, the type of Diva patches will also make a difference (stacks use way more CPU) as well as polyphony.

On the un-tweaked laptop with the "performance" power plan on latency was already pretty good for a laptop, I mean, sure, 115µs is not good compared to the 3-5µs I was getting on my desktop PC but I'm hoping I can at least half that figure after applying the usual tweaks. This is something I will be able to test once I'm at the store (raining cats and dogs today...).

There's also Clevo laptops such as the P7550TM1 which support the i9-9900K CPU but I've heard they are hit-and-miss as far as DPC latency goes and someone who also makes music had also reported issues on notebookreview.com. I've replied to his post, waiting for his reply now. Though these things are pretty bulky and I'm not sure I'll be willing to carry around such a heavy laptop. If it's too inconvenient, I probably will end up using it as a desktop PC and then I would have been better off just getting a mini ITX box.

[nevis]

Hi Scoox,

You did not explicitly ask for this test on my Mi Notebook Pro (i7-8550U), but maybe you find these results useful anyway: with 7 Diva instances, the RT CPU can go over 100% and audible glitches happen.

mi_pro.jpg

reaper_diva.png

[Scoox]

Hi Scoox,

You did not explicitly ask for this test on my Mi Notebook Pro (i7-8550U), but maybe you find these results useful anyway: with 7 Diva instances, the RT CPU can go over 100% and audible glitches happen.

mi_pro.jpg

reaper_diva.png

Is that with the patch I suggested? If so, it looks very promising. What's RT CPU? Thanks!

[Pictus]

Quick tweak for better latency.
CPU Core Parking & Performance Optimization

[nevis]

Is that with the patch I suggested? If so, it looks very promising. What's RT CPU?

The very same patch, Diva quality "great", multicore off.

Reaper's performance meter in my screenshot shows both CPU usage (white graph) and real time CPU usage (green graph).
The Reaper manual says about RT CPU: "The RT ("Real Time") CPU meter measures the amount of CPU time used by the audio thread servicing the sound device."
I was looping the 2 bars and after each loop duplicated a track containing Diva and the chord. That's how the graph continuosly grew over time in my screenshot, until the 7th instance put RT CPU over 100%.

Hope that helps.