# Dual core vs quad core vs 8 core for a slave/sampler machine



## gsilbers (Oct 12, 2009)

of these macs that are dual, quad and 8 core (intel) does it matter when streaming samples? 


if all where 2.66hz how much does the number of cores matter for using programs like kontak 3.5, vsl, Play, w or w/o bidule just to stream samples?

oh and the memory would be 16 or 32 gigs.


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## guayalex (Oct 17, 2009)

A very good question. I made the nightmarish experience last year that with a huge exs-Template (logic 8.0.2) filled up with about 10 GB of pure EXS Orchestra Samples the performance was about 20 % better when I DEACTIVATED the 7 cores !!!!!
This is still so and it shows that exs24 mulit-threading capabilities are more than bad in other words prä-hystoric. (I posted this in many forums and its easy to replicate) 

This little "shock" left me distrustful concerning to the benefits of multi cores to Sample Players using this technique of splitting the samples to various Sub-Programs (which at the moment avery sample player on OS X does until a real 64-Bit one like vsl's or like Kontakt 64 Bit for Vista comes out for the mac)

I suppose that VE Pro helps much in distributing Preformance in a much better way than exs does inside logic though. I could have good results with Kontaktsin VE Pro playing without crackles loaded up with 14 GB as long as I had a minimum buffer size of 256 (in Cubase on my 8 core Mac Pro). So I feel much calmer since having VE Pro! o-[][]-o 

Still the question remains how important Multicores are for streaming samples. I guess there importance increases disproportionate with the Ram usage. What i suspect much is that the multicores are by far not as crucial for sample streaming as the HD and I'm talking about SSD's (solid state drives) people are reporting having huge ram loads FINALLY without crackles and artefacts (besides loading blazingly faster) I therefore think that possibly even en old Mac Pro (maybe even the 2006 one) could load and play 32GB of Samples stable and fine when using SSD's this is my suspect. What do the other ones say about that ?


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## JohnG (Oct 17, 2009)

use DP? It uses all your cores.


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## clarkcontrol (Oct 19, 2009)

guayalex @ Sat Oct 17 said:


> performance was about 20 % better when I DEACTIVATED the 7 cores !!!!!



I was wondering if I should wait to buy the new towers (should come out in Jan or so) but this kind of changes things.

I run all-exs too so this is very valuble info.

So you CAN run 10 gigs comfortably with the one processor? 

Ive heard that things get gooey after 8.

Any more input would be appreciated. Are there other things that make a difference?

Apologies if I'm taking us OT. I'm desperately looking for the most stable config. As I want to get more into Kontact, I'm curious with gsilbers about other samplers performance as well.

Clark
Clark


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## Frederick Russ (Oct 19, 2009)

gsilbers @ Mon Oct 12 said:


> of these macs that are dual, quad and 8 core (intel) does it matter when streaming samples?
> 
> 
> if all where 2.66hz how much does the number of cores matter for using programs like kontak 3.5, vsl, Play, w or w/o bidule just to stream samples?
> ...



Its been a known bug regarding Logic's inefficiency in satisfactorily handling multi-core processing. But as John G pointed out, DP can. My feeling is you will need the extra CPU to run dozens of virtual instruments, soft synths, AU/VST effects, Kontakt, Play & VSL especially in a sequence within Bidule or VE Pro (since you probably wouldn't be running this on a remote Logic sequence (it won't let you anyway if you already have one Logic sequence running in a local LAN environment)). If you can, test bidule standalone and load it to max. Bring up an empty Logic sequence that only sends midi and open Activity Monitor to see how Bidule performs and how efficient it is across multiple cores.

That said, I would probably opt for another 2.26 or 2.66 MP w/8 cores and 16GB based on how things are going here at the studio.


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## gsilbers (Oct 19, 2009)

So I looked into getting a windows machine >8o 

And places like cpusolutions.com I can get an intel i7quad with a motherboard w max ram of 24 gb ecc and non ecc ram for 1200 or so .

I'd like to get another macpro but $$$$
the only thing is getting over windows . 
Maybe windows 7 will be ui friendly

is it easy to get windows 7 going with midioverlan, kontakt, vep, play and bidule?
Are those even compatible yet?


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## chimuelo (Oct 19, 2009)

I hate to offend anyone but here but the ECC RAM is totally unecessary. We aren't doing 3D Orbital Modelling or animation.
What are we Error checking.....samples?? Top shelf designs use ECC RAM for relocating RAM if a DIMM goes bad, providing we aren't maxxing out the DAW w/ 32GB's on a 32GB mobo. Other than it's just slow.
I'm a Solo Pianist a few nights a week and then a synth man 6 nights. I need high polyphony for the Pianos I use. DDR2-800 @ CL5 settings was barely cutting it, and when I added stacked Horn sections I could hear the voice stealing if the sustain pedal was still down. That was too close for comfort.
I just turned out the slow RAM to low latency 1333 RAM and OC'd the E8600 to 3.8GHz and I can do glissandos with the pedal down while using SISS if I want to.
Streamers need speed, it's that simple.
Personally I'd bypass the crappy Kontakt effects too,and get some real plugs or hardware.
I run 5 instances Kontakt live and 2 GVI's. I use a DSP rack for effects and mixing and synths, but the plugs the DSP rack doesn't have, I can use in VST. The Snalksiss and Algorhytmix plugs I use take more juice than the instance of RAMplers... >8o 

Xeon i7's are bad ass, but just better binned 1366LGA X58's.
For a streamer, RAM speed and cache latency/CPU IPS's are crucial.
Just ask any Pro DAW builder who builds and sells 64bit machines.
A 3 core AMD at a slower speed can run just as fast as the i7 965 using Kontakt. 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/moth ... /X8STi.cfm

Pack this sucker up with CL6 DDR3-1333MHz and use the i7 965 and you'll see more DFD/polyphony amounts and if Bidule is your host the i7's run stable enough for 24/7 live work.


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## guayalex (Oct 19, 2009)

clarkcontrol @ Mon Oct 19 said:


> So you CAN run 10 gigs comfortably with the one processor?



I made the experience that you can run 10 gigs but not preciseley comfortably, not with exs! Logic Multicore-capabilities for synths are excellent, but not for Kontakt and even worse for exs. I'm trying to get all converted to kontakt now and run it in Vienna Ensemble Pro which leads to much better results and as I love the Offline Bounce Option (which is crucial because you can get clicky and poppy tracks absoluteley clean with offline bounce, therefore being a life saver) I had to switch to Cubase as well. (With Logic and VE Pro acess to 128 Midi Channels or depending on real time bounce is no option for me)


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## gsilbers (Oct 19, 2009)

Well the ecc ram is because I haven't found non ecc ram of 4gb per stick .
I'd like to get 12gb at 1st and wait a bit to get the other 12gb

good to know about ecc rAm being slow. maybe I'll wait or get 3gb sticks and get 12gb until 4gb comes down in price


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## gsilbers (Oct 20, 2009)

So I can't find non ecc ram . 
Even ram for the new macpros in owc / macsales they don't have non ecc ram.
4gb sticks for mmac are ecc .
Are u sure it's slower?


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## clarkcontrol (Oct 20, 2009)

guayalex @ Mon Oct 19 said:


> clarkcontrol @ Mon Oct 19 said:
> 
> 
> > So you CAN run 10 gigs comfortably with the one processor?
> ...



Wow! thanks, good to know. Sad, I really like Logic.

And the windoze value per gig is pretty compelling.

Clark


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## Jack Weaver (Oct 20, 2009)

I haven't looked at them yet, but I would think that the new quad-core iMac with 16GB of RAM would be an interesting slave machine for VE Pro.

.


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## rgames (Oct 20, 2009)

A few thoughts on this thread because I've recently been looking at upgrades:

- The new low-price i7's (the i860/i870 - 1156 socket / P55 chipset) are, for 99% of applications, nearly as fast or faster than the other versions. The difference only appears in apps that use the multiple threads (which, AFAIK, doesn't include anything we use for music production). See this comparison: link. The 860 and 870 are the "cheap" i7's - the 920 and 975 are the expensive ones. Not much difference, especially when you consider that the 860 processor is $280 and the 975 is $1000.

- The difference between triple-channel (X58 chipset) and dual-channel (P55 chipset) is negligible in practical use. See this comparison: link.

- The new low-price i7's (i860/i870) use a LOT LESS POWER than the other core i7's. See this power consumption comparison: link. So, if you want to be environmentally friendly, don't buy the 8-core Mac 

- I believe the latest Mac's use only DDR3 1066 MHz RAM. That's pretty slow by most standards - most folks are now using 1600 MHz RAM. 2000 MHz is only a few bucks more. Memory bandwidth is primarily a function of memory bus speed - So CL 9 is plenty fast if you're using 1600 MHz or 2000 MHz. Note that latency is given in clock cycles, so CAS Latency 7 at 1033 MHz is actually 50% slower than CAS Latency 9 at 2000 MHz.

- The buffered vs. unbuffered debate is one I've never explored or seen explored on any computer enthusiast site. So I'm not sure what that's all about.

- Using VSL and VE, I have run up against processor limitations more frequently than disk streaming or RAM limitations. So my money goes to processor speed, not disk speed. I use 7200 RPM drives with SATA 3 Gb/s bandwidth and still run out of processor first.

- In terms of raw performance per dollar, you're still much better off using multiple computers. Running from a single machine is a grand goal, but I haven't seen anything that indicates better performance per dollar than the "farm" setup.

- If you have a case, power supply, crappy video card, and hard drives, for about $600 you can set up a PC slave machine that performs nearly as well or better than anything else out there.

- If you set up a PC slave with an i7 860/870 processor , most indications are that you can easily overclock it to beat anything Apple currently offers (which, I believe, can't be overclocked).

So, if you have money to burn, you like the logo, and you don't care about performance per dollar, buy the Apple product. But, for my money for a slave machine, the i7 860 with a $170 motherboard and DDR3 2000 MHz RAM under Windows is BY FAR the best value for the dollar. Take the money you save put it in the kids' college fund. OK screw that - buy another sample library 

rgames


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## guayalex (Oct 21, 2009)

rgames @ Tue Oct 20 said:


> for a slave machine, the i7 860 with a $170 motherboard and DDR3 2000 MHz RAM under Windows is BY FAR the best value for the dollar.



I'm a total newby regarding to PC's and the only thing which detains me from building up a cheep PC Slave is the fear to build up an unstable crap which doesn't work. If you could gave some raw ingredients it would be very much apreciated for me.

For example:

- i7 860 CPU
- Motherboard (?)
- 2000 MHz DDR3-RAM (which brand and how much of it?)
- Power Suply ?
- Cheepest Graphic Card on planet ?
- If necessary: Cheepest Sound Card Existing ? (Woring with VE Pro Software)

and it's better to get 2 8 GB PC's vs one 16 or even 24 GB PC Slave ? (I'd prefer the last alternative)

Again any help is much apreciated. (hope I'm not bothering to much


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## JohnG (Oct 21, 2009)

chimuelo @ 21st October 2009 said:


> At the OCZ site you can check out the OCZ 4GB DIMM's. 147 USD per 4GB.
> These are still faster on the PC's compared to the Mac's but the 64bit O.S. works twice as good using 8GB cheap slaves, and the 2GB 1333 CL5 DIMM's. The difference is night and day. 900-1000 USD w/ a 1U case is the cost of another 8GB PC Streamer slave.
> With Kontakt 3.5, those Dogs will hunt.
> Speed not power is what a slave for streaming needs. No sense having another powerful slow beast.



I can't quite understand this -- are you focused on the speed of the RAM chips or the processor? It looks like your main point but I can't quite grasp it.

and thanks to RGAmes for his helpful post.


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## Mahlon (Oct 21, 2009)

guayalex @ Wed Oct 21 said:


> I'm a total newby regarding to PC's and the only thing which detains me from building up a cheep PC Slave is the fear to build up an unstable crap which doesn't work. If you could gave some raw ingredients it would be very much apreciated for me.
> 
> For example:
> 
> ...



Guyalex,
The best way to start building a computer, once you've decided on your needs for processing speed and RAM, is to decide on a motherboard first -- kind of like starting to furnish a room with the rug first. Your motherboard specs will tell you exactly what processor and RAM to get. Also, you can check out which RAM to ge by visiting Crucial.com and putting in your motherboard name and number. It will give you the possibilities for RAM which they sell. You can compare the specs on this RAM to other brands if you'd rather have another brand. Just make sure it has all the same specs (for safety sake).

The only other two components for a slave are video card and power supply. Very often the motherboard itself has video built into it, so you may not even have to worry with that. The power supply is also fairly easy. You just need one with 450 and above (if that, and depending) from a descent maker.

Oh, I forgot hardrives. Good recommended hard drives are the WD Caviar Black 500 gigs. (Or now, 750 gigs for almost the same money).

If you're using VE or VE Pro, you won't need a sound card in the slave computer.

Assembling the parts into your Frankenstein monster is easy and straightforward. There are several websites devoted to walking you through the exact process.

If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them. I'll be building a new system in a couple of weeks so the little unexpected things that crop up will be fresh on my mind.

Bottom line is, don't be afraid to build a computer. It's really very easy and there's so much help on the internet (if you run into a problem) that you can usually have an answer to your problem in an hour or so.

I highly recommend self-builds for those who have a bit of the daring-do about them because they not only save you money (you get the best components for the same price as cheaper components from a builder), and you learn a lot about computers and Windows in the process. Thus, when you're computer goes down at 3:00 in the morning, you have a good chance of knowing exactly what's wrong with it and can fix it or know what part to order the next morning at 7:00. Building your own also allows you have clean and lean machine.

I'm not a super-duper expert, but I've built 12 or so computers in the last couple of years, and dealt with most of the major hurdles. So again, I'd be happy to help answer specific questions if you do decide to go that route.

Mahlon


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## gsilbers (Oct 21, 2009)

Mahlon @ Wed Oct 21 said:


> guayalex @ Wed Oct 21 said:
> 
> 
> > I'm a total newby regarding to PC's and the only thing which detains me from building up a cheep PC Slave is the fear to build up an unstable crap which doesn't work. If you could gave some raw ingredients it would be very much apreciated for me.
> ...




u know.. i checked in crucial.com for a motherboard and it said max memory of 4gb when in the manufactureres site said 32gb. and they dont have 4gb ram sticks,.. but almost no one has :(


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## chimuelo (Oct 21, 2009)

Yo' Guayalex Thanks For The Comps Brotha' Man,
But that's my youngest son. He's a poser. He's a tough little hockey playing Guitarist. I am trying to steer him away from Music for a living as I feel it is a dying breed.at least for live guys.
We have Sequencer boys all over town pretending and girls lip syncing, it's digusting. In 10-15 years there will be robots performing, so he will do something else hopefully... ~o)


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## guayalex (Oct 21, 2009)

chimuelo @ Wed Oct 21 said:


> ...
> But that's my youngest son.



Oh than give the compliments to him please though that might motivate him to step into his fathers shoes >8o :lol: 

Yeah I can understand what you mean. Typically Kids never do what papa tells them but they do what papa does :lol: 
So You can try to put him on another route, but if he just loves to be a musician than I'm sure he'll be a good one ... hmm

(I've a 5 year old doughter (should put a picture of her soon) who is not that much convinced by the crap papa is doing here :mrgreen: so I've the reverse problem as I'd love her to enjoy song writing or playing an instrument some day, at least as hobby, let's see)

cheers Bro!


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## guayalex (Oct 21, 2009)

Mahlon @ Wed Oct 21 said:


> So again, I'd be happy to help answer specific questions if you do decide to go that route.
> Mahlon




Hi Mahlon,

thank you so much for that deeeeeeeeeeetailed answer. You remind me of myself. I also like going to be that detailed =o 
It's very helpfull. My prob is living in germany and as I'd end up searching for components in german shops it would be the greatest to have some precise recomandations for components so that I can pick up those here. One could ask of course why I'm not in a german forum or ask the guys of the german stores and than again you may guess why? It's because the german Music Pros I know are not so crazy of building such huge Orchestra-Template-Multi-PC-Setups and people in shops react exactly as you descirbed it. They just want to sell me a good graphic card or the newset motherboard though it only can have 4 Gigs or whatever. But if I say I'd love to have a PC with a qucik CPU, quick and 24 GB Ram, in a 1U for Rackmount with no sound card and a cheep graphic card they look at me as if I come from another Planet and the phrases like "Sample Streaming for huge Orchestra Libraries or Slave PCs" are not even part of there vocabulary. The funny part is that even the music stores which build high end daws doesn't have a deal with Slave-PCs Stuff. They just sell VE Pro and don't know much about it. yeah.

In the end: YES I want to go the way and build up the 1st PC by myself as you do and if you build up a working one or have some good hints than post'em please. 

Take care and good luck with the builds!


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## guayalex (Oct 21, 2009)

gsilbers @ Wed Oct 21 said:


> hey guayalex
> 
> im in the same boat.



EXACTLY! We're in the same boat you name it. And it's good not being alone with this mixed feelings of Adventures Investigations and Just wanting to start makin' music. A great similarity is even our dealing with G5's etc. I could sell my G5 (just bought since a week) again for a good price and somehow would have loved to keep it but I'll need that money for the PC Slave. although my 8-core-Mac Pro is to good for using it just as Master it'd be my dream to keep this one as empty as possible and filling one or 2 PC Slaves with the Orchestra Stuff so that I could leave them on over night and don't have to reload the Orchestra everytime. Than again I'm not that rich to waste a Mac Pro's Power in such a way. Anyway I'd love to hear from you if you can figure out some good components and recomend them so that I can buy them in the great links (which I'll check) or get them form german sides here). Let's get the stuff together to finally start like Hans Zimmer soon o-[][]-o I'm just longing for the day where I can forget about getting the right components for a year, will it ever arrive ? :mrgreen:


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## gsilbers (Oct 21, 2009)

cool 

well ive been mostly on cpusolutions.com and newegg cross referencing stuff. 

and the same computer i could get custom built in cpusolutions wil cost the same if i bought it in parts in other places. mainly due to windows 7 omc and economy of scale (reduce prices if they buy the lot as suppose to the pieces)

i understand the point made earlier about building-it myself so i can learn more about pcs but i just dont wanna deal with it or deal more of it but at the same time i dont wanna spend a lot like a visiondaw.com so this is a happy medium. 

what i learnt so far is that triple channel 12gb memory is hella expensive; 800 bucks for the cheapest 12gb (4gb sticks_)\\

also i havent found a motherboard that is not triple channel memory for the i7.

seems 4gb ram sticks are less expensive if they are ECC than non ECC and some motherboards will not handle non ECC or ECC RAM. still trying to find out about if ECC ram memory is slower to non ECC . 

from cpusolutions.com the altec cases and brand in general are less noisy than others.

i will need windows 7 pro to be able to acess more than 16gb of ram 

and from what i read here in VI seems no none is running a stable system of more than 12gb 

btw , seems the motherboards where built to handle up to 24gb of memory but when i asked around; seems that they wont handled it . 

aslo when i asked around, the usual techy geeky know-it thinks a lot of ram is only if u work at nasa or pixar and its like telling a mechanic if u draw flames on the side of my car it will got faster :? theyll treat like .. "sure buddy.. whatever :roll: your wallet says"


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## chimuelo (Oct 22, 2009)

Hey guys in case you didn't read the part about the PCI-e 1X audio cards finally being able to work with X58/i7 mobo's from Gigabyte be forewarned.
I have been involved building for a long time and I always stay away from the new hardware for at least 6 months after released.
In the USA there are more quality control levels in place, but we don't even make motherboards anymore. Except for the Intels, they are 100% stable.
In Taiwan and more recently China these boards are mass produced and Apple sorts through them when they do their builds, and Vision DAW, Alienware, etc. But there's no guarentee that your apps will run on new platforms trouble free.
You will spend more time jerking off instead of making music if you buy too soon.
And also, perhaps a very talented systems integrater might get more than 16GB's to work in a DAW but I have watched several builds this year and 12GB's works O.K., but 8GB machines at least on the PC are fast and stable. Anything larger than that you better hope you only use one hand and do strings only.
I have seen the 4GB DIMM's fail earlier this year and the guy wasted 1800 bucks....
That was only a 16GB AMD board, but for passing through IPS it might work, but for large amounts of audio buffers..................fawgeddabowDITT.
If anyone here is getting large amounts of Polyphony with 16GB's of RAM, they should open their own business. 
I am looking at this from a live performers point of view where polyphony. speed, stability are considered. One handed string lines all night long might work, but I can say I haven't seen anything that could even be tryed live where polyphony of a Piano is needed. If it works live it will record fine, I still think recording in a single pass w/ polyphony is better than several takes using low poly.


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## guayalex (Oct 22, 2009)

Ok from what I see It's not a bad idea getting to 8 GB PC Slaves instead of one slave with more GB. And as far as I can see one can't save too much in building a PC instead of just buying an already built one. 

Again my Aim is to stream Orchestra Library stuff to a Mac Pro Master using VE Pro. 
I found 3 alternatives in a german PC-Online-Store:

1) Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q8400, 4× 2667 MHZ / 8 GB RAM for *645 $* (430 €)
2) AMD Athlon™ II X4 620, 4× 2600 MHz / 8 GB RAM for *525 $* (350 €)
3) AMD Athlon II X2 215, 2,7 Ghz / 8 GB RAM for *435 $* (290 €) 

All use DDR2 Ram which could be a downside affecting the latancy (?) As I see only Intel quad-core configs have 8 GB whereas the Intel dual core have only up to 4 GB RAM Options. On the other hand AMD can have 8GB though using only dual cores which is not bad if a dual core is enough (?) 
The AMD ones come with a crapy graphic card and the Intel one with a good graphics card unfortunateley. (The last AMD seems to be a dual core which should be enough for managing 8 GByte of Samples I thought. So if using AMD instead of Intel is no Prob for Audio Streaming with VE Pro (??) the AMD would be the better solution saving especially much if I buy 2 of'em? Am I right guys or are my plans of getting 2 cheep AMDs total rubish? :mrgreen:


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## guayalex (Oct 22, 2009)

The other alternative would be building just one 
cool Intel Core i7 PC with 16 or 24 GB Ram for the price of 2 cheep 8 GB units. Wow what to do. I'd love to have one cool machine instead of 2 cheep ones if that makes any sense but from what I read here it seems like the 2 cheep 8 GB units rule?


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## chimuelo (Oct 22, 2009)

The AMD's are also excellent choices, which I am also considering becuase the 785G AMD boards do not require an AUDIO/MIDI or Grpahics card due to the 128MB's of Sideport RAM, as long as a host like VE Pro can be used.
My app has 3D requirements as the DSP has so much power, the amount of modules, mixers, effects and synths need 3D graphics instead of 2D. 2D apps could use a mobo w/ 16MB's built in VGA RAM.
If you want more polyphony 8GB's is the way to go. Or as LASS Divisi seems to perform better when multi DAW's are used also.
The chart below shows there's no difference between the sub 100 $ CPU and the 800 $ CPU.
AMD's are great CPU's but the chipsets were always the problem until a couple years ago. NF3 was a great audio combo,and NF4 sucked butt crack, but was fixed later.
The 780/790 & 785G's all work well as I have seen recent builds. The 16GB design using 4GB DIMM's was pathetic though. 8GB's using Kontakt 3.5 was a fast high poly solution for 800 bucks, but that was with the best CPU and a 1U chassis too.
My needs are slightly different because of the 1U designs I need for mobility's sake.
If I were you I would go with the i7 920 w/ 12GB's of RAM and Windows 7. I have seen the 12GB's work fairly well using XP64. Windows 7 is suppose to be a much better OS for RAM, especially the Ultimate version. I have not seen it in action yet. I always stay a year behind w/ OS's too. I prefer performing as opposed to staring at a DAW's screen and tweaking around, etc. Most of bro's are studio engineers and tweakers, they drive me nuts.
By Christmas I will be sharing some build tips, but until the prices drop on the SSD's I am going to wait. My 1U DAW's are designed around the memory subsystem and storage. I need to see more tests w/ W7 before I commit.

Happy Hunting Though. Share your design when you are finsihed.


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## gsilbers (Oct 22, 2009)

Thnks for the info.

I think if i can't get what I was hoping for, which is a 
one slave machine with tons of ram and no poly problem .....
Dream on right? 

But I think I'll get my old pc out and team it up with my old g5
and wait till my dream machine comes true.

Can I have two slaves connected to my mac pro using 2 cross over cables?
Or do I really need a hub?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2009)

> Its been a known bug regarding Logic's inefficiency in satisfactorily handling multi-core processing



Whatcha talking about, Freddie?

Logic assigns successive tracks to successive cores. Where's the bug?


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## guayalex (Oct 22, 2009)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Oct 22 said:


> Logic assigns successive tracks to successive cores. Where's the bug?



Hey Nick,

if I understood it right he refered to the "bug" or drastic weeknes in EXS Multicore-Capabilities which didn't change in Logic 9.0.2. Its this fact that the EXS-Preformance increases by around 20 % if you DEACTIVATE 7 cores (just running them on one core). After having discovered this last year I can't mention this often enough not being really recovered of this unbelievable discoverment. Its a disaster still. So I don't know if the Term Bug names it right because it's kinda Hell of a Bug... Its paradigmatic for the bad usage of todays Hardware and for the stepmotherly developement Logic experienced after Apple bought Emagic.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 22, 2009)

Ah.

Well, I don't sneeze at the extended memory access, but other than that the EXS hasn't had any development for years. It also hasn't had much support. Kirk Hunter has a version for it, the Anthony Jackson Contrabass Library came out a couple of years ago...that's about it.

So it's sort of just floating. 

But I don't think I'd say the same thing about Logic overall. On the contrary.


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## guayalex (Oct 22, 2009)

Well as the EXS was and maybe still is the most performance efficient Sampler (one Instance only sucks 10 MB or so) and compared to Kontakt still is much better implemented because it can be used as 1-Instance-per-Channel Instrument it should have deserved better treatment. It was the heart-piece of logic in my eyes. 

Talking about Logic itself it's disgusting that with Logic 9.0.1 you can access even less Ram (previous exs and Kontakt templates had to be shrunken by many instances I had to delete) and 9.0.2 even less. In this sence the developement is going backwards imo. 

The lack of a more clever Cubase-like Intagration of Multi-Timbral Instruments doesn't preciseley compensate for the forgotten EXS. Its a joke that you can't just mute or solo single Instances of a Multitimbral Instrument. There are long threats about that were some former Cubase users are very surprised (and not in a positive way). 
There are no Folder Tracks and now the AU-Limit is a great downer which finally made me switch to Cubase to be able to acess all the ports and channels in VE-Pro with the much better developed VST3 (vs AU which hasn't been developed)

The hanging Note Issue fills the Logic Threats as well. Hmm Sorry I'm changing the topic here. There are too much emotions (frustrations) involucrated into Logics developement which lead me to switch to Cubase now (I've to build all from scratch). So never mind and just forget about that. What I just wanted to finally say Nick, is that I'm so DAMN relieved The Viennas VE-Pro (together with NI's Kontakt 3.5) and Cubase rescued me from Logic finally and to make me return I'd like to see huge changes in Logic. But lets get to the main topic again and sorry guys for drifting away that harshly :lol:


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## guayalex (Oct 26, 2009)

Ok (after having bought a g5 dual and selling it 2 weeks ago) I now bought a PC as Slave (Its my 1st PC since 15 years only using Macs):

It's a 

AMD Phenom II Quad 4x 3,4 Ghz with 8 GB (PC1333 DDR3 RAM)

and it's all an outcome of your tips and hints (= 
It'll take some time to set it up and report you back how good it is as I specially try to get a low latency. 

Unfortunately I heart in another threat that (besides the recomandation to spread it on 2 Pcs) LASS runs only good with 512 Buffer Setting in Bidule. I hope this doesn't apply to VE Pro because with its latancy compensation it would mean that all the stuff has to be run on this high latency setting in order to use LASS. If you can tell me anything about that it'd be cool. Otherwise I'll be the one to test it and report it but that'll take some good time you know as I don't even have that library yet.


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## guayalex (Oct 26, 2009)

Ok (after having bought a g5 dual and selling it 2 weeks ago) I now bought a PC as Slave (Its my 1st PC since 15 years only using Macs):

It's a 

AMD Phenom II Quad 4x 3,4 Ghz with 8 GB (PC1333 DDR3 RAM)

and it's all an outcome of your tips and hints (= 
It'll take some time to set it up and report you back how good it is as I specially try to get a low latency. 

Unfortunately I heart in another threat that (besides the recomandation to spread it on 2 Pcs) LASS runs only good with 512 Buffer Setting in Bidule. I hope this doesn't apply to VE Pro because with its latancy compensation it would mean that all the stuff has to be run on this high latency setting in order to use LASS. If you can tell me anything about that it'd be cool. Otherwise I'll be the one to test it and report it but that'll take some good time you know as I don't even have that library yet.


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## chimuelo (Oct 26, 2009)

Well I hope it works. AMD motherboards if made by Gigabyte or Asus should be fine.
DFI's are for the guys who OverClock with insanity.
Fast RAM and a fast CPU = A Fast Slave........ :mrgreen: 
I only know how well Kontakt streams with this. I am glad you are trying out all of the apps I want to use. I am interested in VE Pro using AMD/Intel slaves.
I do know Bidule will host very well w/ 100% stability.
I would try the new version of Bidule and see if Windows 7 will assign each core, that's what has me curious also.
Good luck.

BTW which Mobo and RAM...?
I can have those loaded at a local builder as he has 6 different boards and a dozen RAM DIMM's from 1GB/2GB to 4GB/8GB.


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## guayalex (Oct 26, 2009)

Oh OK here the precise Specs: 

Mobo: ASUS M4A77TD Pro with AMD 770/SB710 Chipset
CPU: AMD Phenom II Quad X4 965 with AM3 Socket, 4x 3,4 GHz
RAM: 4x 2 GB DDR3-Ram PC1333 (The board could hold max 16 GB) 

Lets see if it rocks =o 
(I'll use VE-Pro but can tets it with bidule as well)


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## guayalex (Oct 28, 2009)

I just changed the components a little to get it a little cheaper on the one hand (only 2 cores instead of 4 cores which I thought should be enough to manage 8 GB) instead I bought better quality ram (corsair). Don't know if it made much sense but this is my Config I finally got together:

Mobo: GIGABYTE MA790XT-UD4P with AMD 790X/SB750 Chipset
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550, 2x 3,1GHz
RAM: 4x 2 GB Corsair DDR3-RAM PC1333


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