KVR Audio

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:30 pm

Hey I read an article awhile back in Computer Music magazine about the difference in plugin limits between a Mac and a PC.

They talked about being able to run 100's of plugins on a Mac (I think it was Pro Tools or Logic), but mentioned that even on the fastest (at the time) PC you would never have the CPU power to do something like that.

Has anyone noticed this ever actually happening?

Any Mac users out there who can even run 50 plugins at once?

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:36 pm

It depends on what the plugins are and what CPU the Mac or PC has.

So in other words; its a pointless comparison.

Mighty_Hero · Post by **Mighty_Hero** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:41 pm

R.A.M

mauseoleum · Post by **mauseoleum** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:44 pm

http://musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:19 pm

mauseoleum wrote:http://musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm

Very interesting specs. Almost hard to believe. I have a faster computer than those specs. Looks the real key is in how they tweaked the system.

I sure would love to know what tweaks they used to get those specs.

I've used the Tascam XP Tweak manual, but never got all that much of a performance increase in Windows XP Pro.

From the link:

MusicXPC Professional is made for audio professionals. It's not designed for organizing photos or playing back MP3s, this is a machine for professional audio recording, mixing, mastering and media creation. Out of the box, it's ready for production because we've tweaked it to the max. Windows XP services that are not needed are turned OFF and the ones needed are turned ON.

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:31 pm

digitaldoom wrote:
mauseoleum wrote:http://musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm
Very interesting specs. Almost hard to believe. I have a faster computer than those specs. Looks the real key is in how they tweaked the system.

I sure would love to know what tweaks they used to get those specs.

I've used the Tascam XP Tweak manual, but never got all that much of a performance increase in Windows XP Pro.

From the link:

MusicXPC Professional is made for audio professionals. It's not designed for organizing photos or playing back MP3s, this is a machine for professional audio recording, mixing, mastering and media creation. Out of the box, it's ready for production because we've tweaked it to the max. Windows XP services that are not needed are turned OFF and the ones needed are turned ON.

Anyone know how I could tweak my XP system to run like this?

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:39 pm

http://www.logicuser.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1890

It's in German, but quite interesting numbers...

Urs

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:43 pm

My PC runs more plugins than your PC...

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:46 pm

mauseoleum wrote:http://musicxpc.com/products/c2/c2_performance.htm

They've been using old G5s. Nowadays they should've taken Dual 2.5 Gigs, which means you gotta add 25-30% more to each number of instances.

Also, with a G5, you can still organize your photos and play back mp3s (Are they kidding? - A dedicated music machine that can't play back mp3s?)

Cheers,

Urs

Mighty_Hero · Post by **Mighty_Hero** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:50 pm

I have my pc tweaked out too. Only is using around 64megs in the OS, and all the rest free. Even sped my hard drive speed up with some registry tweaks. I would love to run a side by side comparison with an 'equal' equipped mac.
Digitaldoom:
www.tweakxp.com
www.musicxp.net

etc
etc

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:56 pm

Mighty_Hero wrote:I have my pc tweaked out too. Only is using around 64megs in the OS, and all the rest free. Even sped my hard drive speed up with some registry tweaks. I would love to run a side by side comparison with an 'equal' equipped mac.
Digitaldoom:
www.tweakxp.com
www.musicxp.net

etc
etc

Thanks for the links man...

Care to link to any of the specific tweak(s) where you noticed a considerable speed increase?

digitaldoom · Post by **digitaldoom** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:57 pm

S_A_P wrote:My PC runs more plugins than your PC...

I'm glad for you.

Mighty_Hero · Post by **Mighty_Hero** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:57 pm

Most of the services in XP do NOT need to be on. This can save you around 70 megs of ram!
Here is another link.
www.blackviper.com

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:04 pm

digitaldoom wrote: Anyone know how I could tweak my XP system to run like this?

First off: WAY more important than ANY tweak: Your system components. It's by far NOT only the CPU, amount of RAM and amount of fast harddisks you will need to tweak.
Most important thing for super-flawless performance still has got to be your mainboard and probably the controllers on it, especially when it comes to disk performance (which isn't all that unimportant when using RAM hungry plugins either, as your system will start to use the swap file).
Then it might be up to the quality of RAM as well, but personally I haven't noticed all that much of a difference between high end RAM and cheaper things (unless you buy no name, which *might* be more prone to faults).

Further, the grafic card might cause some issues as well, but then, I haven't heard of much problems lately, not even with all those cheap onboard solutions.

Anyways, then, the VERY most important thing apart from your mainboard has got to be: Your soundcard.
Forget about all the hype such as "Oh, I've downloaded some "hacked" drivers for my SBLive and now it's working like a pro soundcard". Bullshit, utter bullshit, period! It just won't run as reliable, offer such low latencies and a performance as good as a card with dedicated ASIO drivers. All those KX and ASIO4All and whatever drivers might be cool in case you start with PC audio, but they're nothing else but crap as soon as you start being serious about your stuff (let alone that all the SBLive and whatever ADDA converters just sound like utter shite).

Having said all that, the folks at musicxpc have TONS of components to try with. "Oh, this RAM won't work as well, lemme just try 2GB of these" - stuff like that. You usually can't do that for your private pleasures. The same goes for mainboards, HDD controllers, grafic and soundcards.

In addition, they can easily afford building 2 100% identical machines to compare their tweaks (both hard- and software tweaks). Obviously, it's WAY easier to nail down problems this way. Again something you just can't do with your private machine.

However, in case you really want to tweak your current machine to the max., start with www.musicxp.net and continue with, say tweakxp.com.
Then, if you really want to get every little bit out of your machine, google up "Black Viper Services". This dude has tried about anything it seems and it also seems to work for quite some other people (and even if I don't tweak my machines like that, it doesn't seem to be pure nonsense either).

Anyways, if you really want the best audio performance, expect to lose anything else on your machine. This includes games, net access (and therefor virus scanners and whatever) and any other fancy things. You want a dedicated audio machine, don't you?

Still, if I was about to build a kickass machine, I would start all the way from the scratch and only use the best components out there, especially regarding mainboard, CPU, RAM and audiocard.

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:06 pm

I can run 600 synthedit synths on my computer- a mac can run 0

Plugin Limit on Mac vs PC