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Dewdman42 said:
More Performance Test results with VEP7

This was mainly to compare Cubase vs LogicPro and DP, both with and without VEP7.

Test Configuration
  1. DP+VEP can do it at around 45% avg cpu, but I'm not sure if there is some config I can do to make it better.
Click to expand...
Thank you for all of this DEwdman. Very appreciated. With DP, are you using the special MAS VEP plugin, or AU?
 
Dewdman42 said:
no I don't think so, Logic performs very well on its own. That is lowest CPU scenario I have tried so far, but I'm still messing around with DP and I plan to run Reaper through the same tests at some point.

But keep in mind there are operational advantages to using VEP, despite that you need a little more CPU overall then if you just use LogicPro alone. And Cubase is crippled without VEP! DP looks like it might be also a bit crippled without VEP, but I'm still working through how to optimize it, I'm not that expert at using DP, but its doing some weird stuff, even while idle, spinning the CPU in "realTime" mode, way more then the other DAW's. There must be a setting to stop that from happening but I have not found it yet, but basically I can get the DP+VEP performance almost as low as Logic+VEP. But DP alone, is not doing very well either, but it might be something about MirPro and ViPro that is not happy with DP...more later.....
Click to expand...

Cool stuff, thanks! I'm very interested in your DP findings.
 
I have been using the MAS plugin in DP. I want to do more tests in DP because I think I don' have the settings right there now.
 
In light of this recent events, I wonder if Logic + VE pro could get better results using more instances with less in them.
 
I also wonder if the results are dependent on the actual sampler used. Dewdman, are you using only Vienna instruments or also Kontakt ?
 
rhye said:
In light of this recent events, I wonder if Logic + VE pro could get better results using more instances with less in them.
Click to expand...

its worth trying, but I'm burned out on testing right now. I don't want to work that way, so its not that interesting to me. I would expect performance to be slightly worse frankly, but it would be interesting to have as a comparison. It would take a lot of work for me to setup that test though, so might not happen.
 
rhye said:
I also wonder if the results are dependent on the actual sampler used. Dewdman, are you using only Vienna instruments or also Kontakt ?
Click to expand...

Of course you should not consider my results to be the same results that someone else might get using a different sampler or instruments, plugins, etc.. Its all relative. I used the same exact tracks with instruments in order to compare Logic vs Cubase vs DP and to compare with-VEP vs without. You could of course try to replicate the test using Kontakt instead of VIPro, but I would expect similar results, relatively speaking...but might be higher or lower CPU depending on the track count, which plugins, machine you're running on, etc. But still the relative differences between these hosts should be fairly consistent, but of course, no way to know without trying it. But I will leave that to someone else.
 
The driver for the card has existed in OSX since before High Sierra. works in Sierra too. However, the driver does NOT have to always be using Metal. The card is capable of Metal when asked by the operating system or apps. In Mojave, its now being asked by OSX to use Metal enough so that Apple decided to make it a requirement that a metal card is needed for Mojave.
 
Dewdman42 said:
The driver for the card has existed in OSX since before High Sierra
Click to expand...

That would make sense, since the RX460 works in earlier versions (I know because I had one briefly).

But I also know from reading reports of failed Mojave updates that you *must update your 5,1 to High Sierra with the original card installed* first. Apple spells that out very clearly on their site; there's something in there that it needs.

To me it makes sense that it's in the firmware, but you say no.
 
The main reason for needing your original vid card was because the RX vid cards still do not have a mac boot screen. Not then and not now. Once OSX loads, then the video drivers are there, but you can't get to the really low level boot screen with the RX video cards. You can get to recovery mode, which has access to OSX drivers and utilities of course. In any case, the older firmware updates required you to be able to get to a low level boot screen in order to apply the firmware update. So that is why you had to put in the old original video card that actually has the mac boot rom code in it to see that boot screen. Some other Nvidia cards had the ability to be custom flashed with a mac boot room, you an still find them and buy them, but the RX series currently does not have that capability.

In any case the High Sierra updater had some dependency on that old firmware updater, which required the boot screen. That's why you needed your old card to install High Sierra.

With Mojave, Apple made the firmware updater smarter in that it can apply the built in firmware update without requiring you to see the boot screen. You still do not see any mac boot screen...OSX has to load up enough first before you see the white screen with Apple on it..that is not the boot screen..that is OSX with OSX drivers. but its just that from Mojave forwards, Apple firmware updates are done better so that you don't actually NEED to see the mac boot screen...but its entirely possible at some point in the future there might be some need to get to that boot screen, so keep your old video card around just in case.

The link I posted above and many other sources on the internet have a lot more information on this topic.
 
I'm having another problem with VEP7.

If I put a note on the play cursor and I hit play I'll never hear that note, it doesn't play the first note. With some instruments like Infinite Brass the first note plays instead. Do you know what kind of problem should be?
 
Newbie question. I have VEPro 6 currently installed on one PC. I just bought VEPro 7. This is the first time to upgrade. Is installation as simple as running the installer? Does the installer automatically remove VEPro 6 from my PC? Is there some sort of guide somewhere? Sorry to butt into this very informative and technical thread with such a simple question but as a VSL newbie I'd appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.
 
jonesdip said:
Newbie question. I have VEPro 6 currently installed on one PC. I just bought VEPro 7. This is the first time to upgrade. Is installation as simple as running the installer? Does the installer automatically remove VEPro 6 from my PC? Is there some sort of guide somewhere? Sorry to butt into this very informative and technical thread with such a simple question but as a VSL newbie I'd appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

You can install VEP7 right over VEP6 without problems. Going from VEP7 back to VEP6, I would recommend uninstalling VEP7 first, then installing VEP6
 
Dewdman42 said:
More Performance Test results with VEP7

This was mainly to compare Cubase vs LogicPro and DP, both with and without VEP7.

Test Configuration
  1. MacPro 5,1 12 cores x 3.33ghz, 128gb ram, OSX 10.14.5 (Mojave), RX580 video
  2. LogicPro 10.4.4
  3. Cubase 10.0.20
  4. DP10.01
  5. VEP 7.0.826
  6. Audio Buffer at 1024
  7. Test was performed with both application windows showing at 4k native resolution (see image below)
  8. Test Project is E.T. Score tutorial originating from VSL website, it has been modified and runs on Cubase, Logic or DP with exactly same playback midi tracks feeding exactly the same VEP frame. ~100 tracks of VIPro instruments, MirPro and Miracle.
  9. Procedure was to measure total system average CPU usage % every 3 seconds over 3 minutes while playing the first 3 minutes of the score.
  10. Various combinations of Cubase ASIOGuard and LogicPro process buffer size were used to compare. Logic was testing with medium and Large Process Buffer size. DP was tested with low, medium, high audio priority.
Results

pubchart


Full Google Spreadsheet here:

Summary
  1. LogicPro alone: wins the CPU war using 25% average CPU usage.
  2. LogicPro+VEP: 34% avg cpu
  3. Cubase+VEP: 49% avg cpu
  4. DP9+VEP: 38% avg cpu
  5. DP9 alone: 35% avg cpu. Also tried DP10 which performed 5% worse.
  6. Cubase10 alone: can't complete the task, it will not play more than 15 seconds without crapping out. I did try all possible combinations of buffer size, ASIO Guard, etc. Will not play the project.
Notes
  1. I'm thrilled that VEP7 can be used to make up for the fact that Cubase10 on its own has horrible instrument performance on the Mac. And its not terribly worse then LogicPro+VEP and DP+VEP can do. I view VEP7 as essential to use with Cubase on Mac.
  2. LogicPro has some kind of odd PDC situation, which I will call a bug for right now, where if you select an empty track header for playback as is often customary to avoid core spiking issues, then audio is sounding more than one full second later then VEP is processing things, so the VEP meters are out of sync with audio, by at least 1sec. This is most likely a LogicPro bug of some kind, Cubase works normally and even LogicPro works normally if you select one of the instrument tracks into Live mode prior to playback, but other problems can come along with that.
  3. If you want to try to run your own test, you might be wondering how I gathered the CPU usage. I used the following unix terminal command:
    Code: 
    iostat -w 3 -I -c 60
    to gather avg cpu every 3 seconds for 3 minutes. Make sure you start it at exactly the same point of the cue as it plays back.
testscreen.jpg
Click to expand...


Just to clarify: in this screenshot you are showing both apps open at once, and you are also measuring total system CPU usage. This will of course increase the GUI CPU usage, but it should not impact the real-time thread performance. I think the values yo are seeing for VEP+Logic will go down quite a bit if you close the VEP GUI. Otherwise, it could be that you are just measuring the load created by the extra GUI activity on screen. iostat will not measure time critical threads only, which is what matters for actual audio performance.
 
azeteg said:
Just to clarify: in this screenshot you are showing both apps open at once, and you are also measuring total system CPU usage. This will of course increase the GUI CPU usage, but it should not impact the real-time thread performance. I think the values yo are seeing for VEP+Logic will go down quite a bit if you close the VEP GUI. Otherwise, it could be that you are just measuring the load created by the extra GUI activity on screen. iostat will not measure time critical threads only, which is what matters for actual audio performance.
Click to expand...

Under Mojave the hit you describe is less significant but it’s a good point I will try that tonight, though having both guis open is kind of important. Most people are going to be working with both guis open. The point of this test was not to isolate dsp performance but to simply compare a real world situation between the three daws with and without vep.

Cubase actually runs significantly better with vep then without. Dp is about the same either way. Logicpro alone is more efficient.

As I said there are still workflow advantages to using vep with Logic Pro, it’s not all about saving cpu cycles
 
Dewdman42 said:
Under Mojave the hit you describe is less significant but it’s a good point I will try that tonight, though having both guis open is kind of important. Most people are going to be working with both guis open. The point of this test was not to isolate dsp performance but to simply compare a real world situation between the three daws with and without vep.

Cubase actually runs significantly better with vep then without. Dp is about the same either way. Logicpro alone is more efficient.

As I said there are still workflow advantages to using vep with Logic Pro, it’s not all about saving cpu cycles
Click to expand...

I completely agree - except that the GUI will just get a bit slower if the audio threads need more juice. GUI performance might increase system CPU usage, but really shouldn't impact the audio performance.
 
Could someone tell me how much time it takes to visualize the GUI of the main VST3 plugin in his DAW?

I mean, you have to go on the main plugin track and click the button (or use the shortcut) to show the plugin GUI.

In Reaper it takes more than 8 seconds every time.

Thank you.
 
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