KVR Audio

Peter999 · Post by **Peter999** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 1:11 pm

Just measured once more:

System: A cheap office PC, windows vista home premium, 2 GB ram, intel Core 2 Duo E2700 2,53 GHz, no soundcard (just onboard sound with asio4all @ 512 samples)

Total loading time (using stop-watch) of the session from double-clicking it until Reaper (3.7.2) was ready to play it: 32 seconds

Ram use: Before, no program open: 906 MB (system), session open: 1,72 GB, Reaper alone uses 285mb (no session loaded), so 529 MB for the session alone = 26,45 MB per instance

Playing the session the maximum peak on the Reaper Performance Meter was 57,3% (but average around 50%)

Maybe a 2,4 GHz athlon machine isn't exactly the right to play an 21 instances session. Intel seems to perform much better.

Peter999 · Post by **Peter999** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 2:13 pm

bill45 wrote:I almost got a rme 9632.But, how long will the pci slots be around?
Will it work with my Motherboard? Will I have IRQ issues?I'm gonna test with my delta 1010.
Peter, Did you do any limiting, when you rendered the session?
I'm getting +10dbfs on the master.

They also have an updated version for PCI Express:
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdspe_aio.php

I have installed both a HDSP9632 and a Delta 2496 in the same machine, no problems with IRQs, they work without a problem alongside.

Ah yes, the level may go over 0db sometimes. Just adjust the master fader to remain within 0db.

johnrule · Post by **johnrule** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 2:16 pm

Peter999 wrote:Total loading time (using stop-watch) of the session from double-clicking it until Reaper (3.7.2) was ready to play it: 32 seconds

Just to make sure it wasn't my system I loaded 21 instances of Minimonsta in about 10 seconds using only 200 meg of memory.

Please try this with Reaper 4.

[edit]

I am consistently seeing 44 meg per instance, and a long load time. This is with Windows XP 32 bit by the way. The performance isn't 80% all the time, that was just the max. On average, it is about 63% (or so). This may be a Synthedit/Reaper 4 issue because I am seeing this with other Synthedit products like Memorymoon and Messiah.

johnrule · Post by **johnrule** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 2:42 pm

By the way, I am not really complaining...just remarking. The memory hit and load time are a small price to pay for the OPX (and I wouldn't use more than 2 instances anyway). However, there may be an issue with Reaper 4.

Peter999 · Post by **Peter999** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:16 pm

Timfonie wrote:It's a little hard to get an average CPU consumption number since it fluctuates quite a bit. For instance @ 256 samples, it starts at about 7% and peaks around 13% in the second half of the song.

The numbers on my DAW:

Core i7 2600K @ 3.4 GHz, RME HDSP 9632, Cubase 5.5.3

@ 32 samples: 17-35 %
@ 64 samples: 12-25 %
@ 128 samples: 10-18 %
@ 256 samples: 7-13 %

(Edit: percentages above as seen in Task Manager)

Not bad for a complete song by only OP-X PRO-II's. Thanks to a fast machine and low CPU consumption for a quality vsti as OP-X PRO-II is.

The numbers are about the same here (same CPU, same soundcard), but @ 2,66 GHz. Maybe Hyperthreading accelerates it a bit (it's turned on here, however Live doesn't seem to use it, only Cubase).

Peter999 · Post by **Peter999** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:12 am

johnrule wrote: However, there may be an issue with Reaper 4.

Ok, just downloaded and installed the newest version of Reaper (4.2.2)

The system is the same, Core 2 Duo 2,53 GHz, onboard sound with Asio4all, windows vista

21 instances of OP-X PRO-II (version 1.1)

The session takes 35 seconds to load, average CPU use 50%, maximum peak around 60%

Note this is really a very crappy cheap last generation office PC not at all optimized for music, with running virus scanner and a lot of other background tasks running, windows vista. Coudn't see any issue with Reaper 4, the performance was about the same as with 3.7.2.

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MFXxx · Post by **MFXxx** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:46 pm

CPU i7 2.66ghz Factory Clock / 12GB Triple 1600mhz / SSD 120GB + WD Raptor

Cubase 6.5.1 x64 / Win7 x64

RME FF800 @ 128 Samples

Between 22% - 36% CPU peak -> 27-29% CPU Visual Average

Nice work.

DIdnt close a lot of other apps in the beground (being lazy today and just playing).

johnrule · Post by **johnrule** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:35 pm

Peter999 wrote:
johnrule wrote: However, there may be an issue with Reaper 4.
Ok, just downloaded and installed the newest version of Reaper (4.2.2)

The system is the same, Core 2 Duo 2,53 GHz, onboard sound with Asio4all, windows vista

21 instances of OP-X PRO-II (version 1.1)

The session takes 35 seconds to load, average CPU use 50%, maximum peak around 60%

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It's obviously not Reaper. I did a test with 21 instances of Arturia Moog Modular and that loaded in about 5 seconds, but another test with 21 instances of MemoryMoon (another current SynthEdit product) and it took over 5 minutes to load. It is something specific to SynthEdit and AMD processors IMO. I do have an Intel dual core laptop that I will try.

Are you running 64 or 32bit Vista?

Peter999 · Post by **Peter999** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:40 pm

The above example was in a 32bit vista home premium. I also could check how it performs in win7 64 with reaper x64. If at all you also should test with some of the newer plugins like Arturia SEM V, Diva, Saurus or alike. Minimonsta and Moog Modular are quite aged plugins already.

Also I don't think anyone still uses an AMD machine nowadays for music, that was 10 years ago.

johnrule · Post by **johnrule** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:51 pm

Peter999 wrote:The above example was in a 32bit vista home premium. I also could check how it performs in win7 64 with reaper x64. If at all you also should test with some of the newer plugins like Arturia SEM V, Diva, Saurus or alike. Minimonsta and Moog Modular are quite aged plugins already.

Also I don't think anyone still uses an AMD machine nowadays for music, that was 10 years ago.

Actually, my hardware from "10 years ago" is also running Windows 8 64 bit quite well thank you, and your project loads in 30 seconds in that environment...it is something else entirely. The cpu is also only 5 years old by the way....a 3ghz dual core still has some usefulness IMO.

I have Reaper 32 bit running in a 64 bit environment and your project loaded in 30 seconds and played with 50% cpu load. Each instance still took quite a bit of memory, but as I said, it is a small price to pay.

So the issue is an operating system that is 10 years old then? I don't seem to have this problem with anything else, so maybe it is an issue that needs to be looked at rather than just writing it off as a problem of "old" software/hardware.

johnrule · Post by **johnrule** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:00 pm

I forgot to add that I did try this on an Intel laptop that has a dual core with Windows XP SP3, and the load time was over 5 minutes as well. It does seem to be Windows XP for some reason.

No big deal since I don't use more than two instances of OPX (and I will be upgrading soon anyway)...it was just a bit odd that I was running into this contention.

Peter999 · Post by **Peter999** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:24 pm

That's a bit strange indeed, maybe XP is slower in ram handling than vista and 7. I only still run an XP with an old Pentium 4 CPU for test purpose and ram loading indeed is very much slower here than in a Core 2 Duo machine, but I always thought this mainly was because of the slower ram and bus speed.

So this could be another reason to recommend 7 clearly over XP these days, finally...

MFXxx · Post by **MFXxx** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 6:47 pm

MFXxx wrote:CPU i7 2.66ghz Factory Clock / 12GB Triple 1600mhz / SSD 120GB + WD Raptor

Cubase 6.5.1 x64 / Win7 x64

RME FF800 @ 128 Samples

Between 22% - 36% CPU peak -> 27-29% CPU Visual Average

Nice work.

DIdnt close a lot of other apps in the beground (being lazy today and just playing).

Reaper 4 .22 x64

Between 9% - 18% CPU peak -> 12-14% CPU Visual Average

Live 8.2.5 x32 14-22 CPU Peal -> 16-18% CPU Visual Average

johnrule · Post by **johnrule** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:44 pm

Peter999 wrote:So this could be another reason to recommend 7 clearly over XP these days, finally...

Windows 7, yes. Windows 8...meh. The Metro stuff gets in the way, but the performance seems to be very good. As far as Intel vs AMD, that is debatable. The Muse Receptor still uses an AMD cpu AFAIK, and the price/performance is always welcome, so I wouldn't rule them out.

I would still like to know what the problem was though. Is it SynthEdit? I'm not convinced it is a memory issue since I seem to be pushing memory around just fine using many other intensive products (using dual-channel of course). I agree that it is becoming a non-issue with hardware that is multiple times faster, but not necessarily non-relevant. I currently have a multiple OS boot setup and I don't think that is so uncommon to still have XP in there somewhere (especially since Vista was replaced with XP in many situations).

braj · Post by **braj** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:53 pm

I have memory issues with Synthedit plugins in general, this is with Studio One though not Reaper, but possibly it is something related.

OP-X PRO-II: 21 Instances performance demo session - video and free download - 50% load in Core2duo!