Waveform pro 12.0.53 trial quick feedback running on Linux natively and with wineHQ

[yann-kaelig]

Hello,

It's a first time I'm running waveform pro 12 testing the DAW on an AMD Phenom II X2 with Gentoo Linux. I know that the waveform pro 12 is tested on Ubuntu 18.04 but I was curious to see if I can run it on my Gentoo distro. Unfortunately it doesn't start with the output: "illegal hardware instruction ./Waveform12". It would be nice to provide the software as an AppImage.
So, next I wanted to see if I could install and run the software with WineHQ and to my big surprise it's working. Thanks to pipewire and Qjackctl I have access to the audio and MIDI I/O. By testing the demo my CPU usage is around 16 to 30% which is pretty good. However for this version 12.0.53 (Built: 21 March 2022) (64-bit) tested with wine, the fonts are not very clean and in my opinion a little to small specifically in the folder preview but most important the French translation is incomplete which is for the price of the software unacceptable.

Pros:
An audio engine that seems to be really very well programmed.
A good default theming clean and well designed and visually relaxing.

Cons:
Ubuntu only.
Lack of Linux AppImage.
Incomplete French translation.

Overall it makes me want to continue going deeper in the software possibilities but it's not enough for me to buy the software right now and it's a shame.

[yann-kaelig]

Other remarks as I discover the software. I really do not like that I have to open the main menu each time I want to select or deselect an option in the view submenu, I would prefer to get a quick access from the main window to all of these "show" options. Another thing I'm surprised is the action bar, I was expected that this bar will be available from the main window. The need to open a new floating window clicking on the Quick action icon and leaving on top of the main window to get and operate on the action bars is not optimal and an issue with only one monitor.

EDIT: I don't know how I have missed the option to enable the action bar in the main window, from the menu and view submenu ...

[Kott]

illegal hardware instruction ./Waveform12

I think it needs at least AVX instruction set, which is absent in your CPU, AppImage won't help here (WF runs on every most recent distro)
wonder why it works for Windows (Wine)

[mikoatkvr]

@Kott The developers mustn't have set the requirements as strict on the windows build compare to Linux [ this was a change which happened around the time of the new Audio Engine if I remember correctly ] .

I remember requesting that it be lowered to run on my crappy celeron CPU. They did this on request, but I guess they can't test on these older machines to verify that everything is working .

[yann-kaelig]

Indeed it seems like the target arch instructions used during the compilation are not the same for windows and Linux. It may be a mistake done by the developers because AVX are extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and AMD but Waveform (not the version 12 in fact) is also available for RPi, so AVX should not be mandatory. Only developers are able to clarify the situation and could build two Linux binaries one with and the other without AVX.

viewtopic.php?t=579807

[mikoatkvr]

To be honest compiler code is out of my knowledge scope, tho I find this interesting.

Here is a link to my post from some time ago viewtopic.php?t=562851

Looks like I was getting confused with AVX and SSE instructions.

command lscpu yields all the relevant info of your machine.

[yann-kaelig]

Well, so after a week of testing Waveform pro 12 trial I have to say that this DAW is really good in all aspects. To be honest as I'm a composer it would be a perfect DAW if Waveform pro 12 had a Musical Notation like Reaper. It's a much faster way for me to write my song on a music score and then proceed to the musical arrangement ( musical dynamics, rhythmic, etc... )

Thx mikoatkvr, Look like that I'm not alone asking for a Phenom II support on Linux. Maybe a developer could clarify the situation.