KVR Audio

Jono-60 · Post by **Jono-60** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:40 am

I have a P4 2.66Ghz desktop PC and bought a macbook a couple of months back which is a 2.0Ghz C2D (runing Windows XP via bootcamp), isn't it supposed to blow my desktop out the water?

In terms of CPU usage with soft synths they are pretty much the same!

However running CPU benchmark tests the C2D is indeed much faster. Can anyone explain? Is it due to the fact that it is a macbook and not a 'real' PC. People boast that bootcamp should be like any other PC. Or would it be that the host/soft synth requires real dual core support? I have tried FL Studio, Live 6 and Logic 5.5. I know FL and Live have dual core suport.

raikard233 · Post by **raikard233** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:49 am

Bootcamp is a beta software..perhaps the dual core support isn't well optimized.
My mbp smokes my old amd xp dualcore 3800 with 2.1 ghz...
FLStudio hasn't a well implemented dual core support.
Why don't use Ableton under Osx and check the differences?

Jono-60 · Post by **Jono-60** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:53 am

Yeah well Im eventually going to move to mac so Ableton might be the way, but still deciding between that and Logic. The latter seems completely alien to me though, but it must be popular for a reason.

Bernard Quatermass · Post by **Bernard Quatermass** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:58 am

Jono-60 wrote:but it must be popular for a reason.

Yeah, but not a good one.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:01 am

[DELETED]

Jono-60 · Post by **Jono-60** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:08 am

Erm no idea! Is it a setting I can change in Windows?

Muzik 4 Machines · Post by **Muzik 4 Machines** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 2:09 pm

bootcamp has nothing to do, it's a MAC soft that partiton the drive for you
running xp on a mac doesnt require botcamp, and almost all drivers are available from their respective manufacturer
bootcamp has nothing to do with performance

raikard233 · Post by **raikard233** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:40 pm

Muzik 4 Machines wrote:bootcamp has nothing to do, it's a MAC soft that partiton the drive for you
running xp on a mac doesnt require botcamp, and almost all drivers are available from their respective manufacturer
bootcamp has nothing to do with performance

On osx, with Bootcamp assistant, you do the drivers cd to use efficiently your machine peripherals with windows.
Apple sometimes releases an update of bootcamp....they update these drivers to obtain a better functionality.

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:02 pm

I can say that having migrated to a Macbook from a P4 3.2GHZ machine that the Macbook on XP using LIVE 6 absolutely smokes the pipe out of my old computer. I am probably seeing about a 50% increase in performance. Most likely due to the dual core processor, but the chip is faster as well. You really need to be using programs that take advantage of the dual core nature of the new intel chips.

Best,
AB

geoslake · Post by **geoslake** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:27 pm

Probably a speedstep thing indeed.
The benchmakr is probably ok as it pushes cpu to the max, so cpu autoswitches to fullspeed

Jono-60 · Post by **Jono-60** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:32 pm

anti-banausic wrote:I can say that having migrated to a Macbook from a P4 3.2GHZ machine that the Macbook on XP using LIVE 6 absolutely smokes the pipe out of my old computer. I am probably seeing about a 50% increase in performance. Most likely due to the dual core processor, but the chip is faster as well. You really need to be using programs that take advantage of the dual core nature of the new intel chips.

Best,
AB

Woah really? Hmm Im wondering if there is something wrong with my bootcamp or worse my macbook! As I said I tested Live 6. Then again it might not be a thorough test but I did notice it was a bit btter than FL7. Whats spec macbook do you have? And you couldn't do a test with the Crystal synth vsti could you? as that totally eats my CPU.

Is there anyway to control speedstep from the Window partition?

WilliamK · Post by **WilliamK** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:37 pm

Your VST Host needs to support multi-core processors, otherwise it won't do much help. But again, my wife is also using a mac-mini dual-core, and compared to her old computer, is super-fast.

Wk

Jono-60 · Post by **Jono-60** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:54 pm

But even if it is using a single core, shouldn't it still blow the pants off my P4 2.66Ghz?

stoolz · Post by **stoolz** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:55 pm

The macbook running a core duo at 2 gig will probably be a t7200 variant which should kick your old pcs ass. I have a laptop running xp with the same processor and it kicks my old desktop 3 gig back to the eighties. It sounds like you have a problem there to me. It wont be bootcame as this is simply a drive paritioning system so you can rule that out straight away. It may be a problem with your xp install. It could be a driver issue or it could be something in xp killing the usb tx rate as your daw will try and compensate for latency and slow everything down. Run some proper audio benmarks on both machines and see what you get. Make sure all drivers are up to date. Note even though some of your software is older and will only run one thread on the two cores your cpu is miles faster than your old one and so it should be much faster. However as Apple use different hardware in their laptops to other manufactorers you may find that the win drivers you are using arent optimised. Dont give up, something is definately wrong.

Jono-60 · Post by **Jono-60** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:22 pm

Thanks. How do I perform an audio benchmark?

Thing is XP seems pretty quick to me generally. Even the music app itself seems quick. But VSTis take about the same amount of CPU.

Disappointed with Core2Duo performance