Hello. I was wondering if anyone knows some real data on how much latency and CPU usage just the MXXX shell (i.e. no plugins loaded within) incurs. I have MXXX, I really like it, and I'm starting to want to use the individual plugins by themselves. But since I don't have each plugin license they have to be loaded inside MXXX and I'm curious if that overhead is enough to want to collect some of the plugins' individually.
I use Live which doesn't have very accurate or precise usage meters. Studio One I think does an amazing job in displaying both cpu usage and latency per plugin. Bitwig seems to at least show the latency per track. But I don't have either of those.
I looked around this forum and didn't see this exact question answered so apologies if I missed it.
MXXX shell latency and CPU usage
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MeldaProduction MeldaProduction https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=176122 - KVRAF
- 14339 posts since 15 Mar, 2008 from Czech republic
Well, there's certainly no latency. Please do NOT relate latency to CPU or any other performance metric. Latency is a delay required by an algorithm. Anyways as for CPU, it's very likely that using MXXX as a shell for multiple plugins will actually be beneficial performance-wise, because the whole communication between DAW and plugin is far less optimized than communication between MXXX and modules. If it is just for a single module (as single plugin), there will be some negligible penalty, but shouldn't be too relevant. The user experience is a bigger matter imho, since having this beast just to load a single plugin doesn't seem ideal.
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- KVRer
- 10 posts since 16 Nov, 2016
Ok thank you for that. No it's not ideal to use the "beast" for a single plugin but budgets will be budgets and all that. 
As for latency and CPU usage. I appreciate the warning. I'm not relating latency to computer performance. But increased latency does affect how you interact with your DAW--especially during the composing/tracking phase. When you're in rapid-fire creative mode, it's not a lot of fun if the project has 500ms of latency (which is not uncommon with a full mastering chain at the end, which is why I don't add mastering plugins until the end since Live doesn't fully deactivate them when you turn them "off"). I am NOT suggesting MXXX adds that much latency, just providing an extreme example of why latency is a concern. When I'm near the end of writing it's not uncommon to have 30-50+ tracks and with that many, small amounts of latency builds up.
Again, thank you for your answer, it is much appreciated.
As for latency and CPU usage. I appreciate the warning. I'm not relating latency to computer performance. But increased latency does affect how you interact with your DAW--especially during the composing/tracking phase. When you're in rapid-fire creative mode, it's not a lot of fun if the project has 500ms of latency (which is not uncommon with a full mastering chain at the end, which is why I don't add mastering plugins until the end since Live doesn't fully deactivate them when you turn them "off"). I am NOT suggesting MXXX adds that much latency, just providing an extreme example of why latency is a concern. When I'm near the end of writing it's not uncommon to have 30-50+ tracks and with that many, small amounts of latency builds up.
Again, thank you for your answer, it is much appreciated.
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MeldaProduction MeldaProduction https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=176122
- KVRAF
- 14339 posts since 15 Mar, 2008 from Czech republic
Hehe got it . Btw. unrelated tracks running in parallel don't add latency, the DAW will use the maximum of the latencies
. Btw. unrelated tracks running in parallel don't add latency, the DAW will use the maximum of the latencies -
- KVRAF
- 10375 posts since 2 Sep, 2003 from Surrey, UK
^^^^
I did not think that MXXX reports the latency (plug-in delay) to the DAW. At least I cannot get it to do it here. For example:
-- MLimiterX reports a PDC of 22ms,
-- MXXX with Limiter loaded reports a PDC of 0 ms.
I did not think that MXXX reports the latency (plug-in delay) to the DAW. At least I cannot get it to do it here. For example:
-- MLimiterX reports a PDC of 22ms,
-- MXXX with Limiter loaded reports a PDC of 0 ms.
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- KVRAF
- 10375 posts since 2 Sep, 2003 from Surrey, UK
I have that enabled in both. And MLimiterX does report it. but not MXXX.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 18 posts since 27 Dec, 2016
Totally fair point.MeldaProduction wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 8:13 pm Hehe got it
PS. Thank you for these plugins. They're pretty awesome.
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- KVRian
- 1282 posts since 3 Jan, 2020
You're right, the Limiter module doesn't report latency in MXXX. I was testing it with different modules.DarkStar wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 11:46 pm I have that enabled in both. And MLimiterX does report it. but not MXXX.
Have you tested if Limiter actually adds latency? In that case, it's probably a bug.
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MeldaProduction MeldaProduction https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=176122
- KVRAF
- 14339 posts since 15 Mar, 2008 from Czech republic
Just checked, works just fine, but I assume you have look-ahead 100% and attack 0ms, right?
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- KVRian
- 1282 posts since 3 Jan, 2020
You're right, it works. The problem was that I see the reported latency only after hitting play which I didn't do in my previous tests. Other modules like Morph update the reported PDC value immediately.
It all looks good now after hitting play.
It all looks good now after hitting play.
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MeldaProduction MeldaProduction https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=176122
- KVRAF
- 14339 posts since 15 Mar, 2008 from Czech republic
I think it just takes a few seconds - the reason is that you can continuously drag / change the parameter and if the plugin would report it on any change, half of the DAWs (or all?) would froze/die/scream in pain 