Before buying - can my older laptop handle Reaktor 6 blocs?

Hi, my first post here.

I've got an older HP Elite Book with 8G Ram (can expand to 16) )and i7 core processor.@250 Ghz and SSD drive in place of the original. OS = Windows 7.

So I've downloaded the demo and so far so good. No problems running three factory instruments with sequencers simultaneously in Cubase.

But here's my concern. I hear Blocs are far more resource intensive. As far as I can see the blocs aren't available in the demo version. I don't want to buy only to find out my laptop isn't capable of handling blocs.

Any insight / experiences would be much appreciated. Thanks for looking

 

Yes it can.
However, the more cpu you have, the more blocks you can use at a time. So you wont be able to run as many blocks in a structure as you could on a more powerful machine.
250Ghz should enable maybe 150 Blocks at a time... (although 2.5Ghz maybe not so many certainly enough to have lots of fun though).

 

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015, but extended support won't end until January 14, 2020.

the Above from the web, or unless you have an enterprise version of windows 7, which you clearly do not. i would suggest an off line role for your laptop...

if you want to load a studio software, your better off with sample based instruments ( like Maschine Expansions or Komplete Pianos, and such ) because laptops can tend to overheat with a few too many blocks or synths....a synth or two at a time is fine, but your going to want sample based instruments to fill in, so your running at a reasonable temperature.

 

Almost forgot - there's 'Blocks Wired' which is a set of three demo synths made from blocks that you could download and try out to check the cpu usage.
If you cant run these then... maybe blocks isn't going to be any good on your laptop.

Although it is VERY important to set up your OS correctly for this type of audio processing - NI have some help pages for Windows and MacOS

following the advice there really could make a big difference!

 

Thanks for the info and suggestions .Over the past 2 years I;ve really only used my DAW as a multitrack recorder and fx unit, rarely using VSTi s. I;m not intending to make productions entirely ITB with VSTs in Cubase. 2 or three instruments at a time would be enough. I also intend to run in standalone more slaved to external clock

When you say "offline role ",for my laptop, I always disconnect from networks when usinf music progs. But maybe mean connecting to the internet with Windows 7 can be damaging for 7?

 

A friend sent me a few ensembles to test in Demo version. One opened and played fine using cca 25-20% of cpu , one other opened but was shut down due to cpu overload. Others wouldn't open because they were created in an earlier version. Does the demo limit / degrade loading of samples from the user library? Or have I discovered my comp ain't up to bigger ensembles. ley alone blocks?

 

IMO the demo is version 6.2.1 - the actual version is 6.2.2
ensembles create with 6.2.2 you can't load in demo 6.2.1

 

It depends on the ensemble - most builders here can easily create ensembles that won't run on any PC - they generally choose not to
That's the nature of Reaktor. It's a development environment, and some people want to push the limits - their stuff will be inaccessible to anyone with a lower level system. There are even a few NI commercial releases that many cant use - there were plenty of complaints about polyplex and molecular because of the cpu requirements.

what was the ensemble that shut down due to cpu overload?
Did you work through those NI 'how to set up your PC/Mac for audio' help files?

 

You can set R6 to off and load the ensemble. After finishing set R6 to on.

 

arp_granpappy_assassin.ens

Paule, I tried your suggestion and no joy.

I ran Latency Mon and as soon as I launched the analysis, my system glitched out! I was running a Cubase project with 10 audio tracks, quite a ew fx plugins, but no Reaktor. The same project was using 20-30% of cpu previously.

nusb3xhc.sys showed up as the culpret. But, I think I may have inadvertently installed some crap along with daemon tools lite today! Going to uninstalll Daemon tools now.

 

I checked out that 'arp_granpappy_assassin.ens', and on my system it runs at ~14% cpu. That's at 44100Hz.
I'm on a i7 at 3.5 Ghz. Now fair enough your laptop cpu won't have quite the grunt of a desktop version, and there is 40% more GHz, but that can't even start to account for the difference between 14% and cpu overload.
Assuming you're getting overload with that ens @ 44.1Khz (and you haven't set the overload threshold at some strange value), then it's hard to see further than a setup issue. That or it's something else causing the problem.
Have you tried running Reaktor stand alone? is it the same? overload running arp_granpappy?

FWIW, I wouldn't be thinking about the latency - look at section 4.5 'energy options' and maybe 4.7 processor scheduling.

The energy options is the mains thing IMO. Windows by default (particularly on a laptop) is set up to save energy. It throttles back as much as possible. When high demand arises, it wakes up and boosts the cpu clocks etc.
Unfortunately it doesn't react quickly enough for the spike in processing demand that starting up an ensemble in Reaktor puts on the system. Part of this is probably(!) because Reaktor (for many good reasons) runs on a single core, so e.g. if you have a quad core system, even if Reaktor is maxing that core out, the system could still be at only 25%. The only way to fix this is to tell windows to leave it well alone - set everything to maximum and be done with it. That way when you do need maximum, it's there! It's not maybe going to be there in a few seconds if windows feels like it!
And don't worry too much about over stressing your system, With the clocks on full it still runs cool when idling, and Reaktor is only going to stress one core (in stand alone mode anyway)

If you start putting multiple Reaktor instances on different cores in a DAW, then it might start to warm up, but then winter is on the way so...

 

COib, thank you so much.

So with a fresh head this morning, I prioritised background services over programs, disabled a few more network services and it looks like it's done the trick, adjusted the powr options as advised. And the assasin arp thing now runs at around 20% cpu, so that looks pretty much as it should be with my comp's specs. Opening/playing two more insruments from the factory instruments is also no problem, no overheating after 20 mins. Now to test those blocs.