Best Intel Processors for Reaktor

I believe I have seen somewhere on this forum that Reaktor may not run well with multi core processors

As I am seeking to buy a processor with optimal performance of Reaktor I'm seeking advice as to the relative merits of P4's, dual core, and core 2 'quad' processors specifically with respect to their performance with Reaktor

Help

Please?

Julian Cafarella
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I just have found a thread started by Z. deScathach I beleive in 2006 which was devoted to the stability of smple based Reaktor ensembles when run by dual core processors

Could someone clarify this

Does the problem persist with the current version of Reaktor ( I have 5.1.5) aand is it better to have dual core or core 2 Quad processors

Any information on these matters and others relating to sytem performance with Reaktor and multi core processors would be greatly appreciated

 

Julian, my PC is over two years old with duo core intel 2,8 and there are no problems with Reaktor 5.1.5

 

Worth going toQWuad?

Thanks for your reply Paul. That much is I must say a bit of a relief, what with all the bad reports I've been unearthing

I suppose the rest of the question for me is whether it would be advisable to take it further than core duo and go to intel core 2 Quad

Anybody using Reaktor with one of them beasties?

Standalone or VST (Cubase 4)?

JulianC.
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Thanks for your reply Paul. That much is I must say a bit of a relief, what with all the bad reports I've been unearthing

I suppose the rest of the question for me is whether it would be advisable to take it further than core duo and go to intel core 2 Quad

Anybody using Reaktor with one of them beasties?

Standalone or VST (Cubase 4)?

JulianC. (
sorry for the double posting and for QWuad....sIC!)

 

I'm not sure that a single instance of R5 runs across multiple cores. If it only runs on one core, I guess it'd run fine on a 2.5GHz core 2 duo, because a 2.5GHz core is a bit like running R5 on a single-core 2.5GHz P4 chip.

But, if you had a 3.2GHz P4, and you change to a 2.4GHz dual-core... you might possibly see a performance decrease with R5 standalone. Possibly... I don't know.

There was a discussion here a while ago, where we talked about issues arising from software having to synchronise multiple cores - which I personally suspect would be quite difficult for Reaktor, since the processing required by one ensemble might be very different to that required by another.

Ableton Live works with multicore chips, apparently it assigns different aspects of processing to different cores, and the web page I found says that you can see a big performance increase with that, "depending on... the instrument/effect setup" (interesting caveat). Maybe if you load multiple Reaktor VST's into a multicore compatible host, you could get round any multicore limitation in R5 itself?

Maybe we could do a test? Take a couple of ensembles, EG an analog synth model and a weird CPU-hogging noise generator with polyphonic reverb, and see how much polyphony we get on different kinds of computer? I've got a 3GHz P4 here, I'd be really interested to know how much I stand to gain (or not) by buying a Core 2 Duo PC or a G5... Any takers?

Cheers

Dave

 

There are claims in the Cubase 4 forums that Intel core 2 QUAD processors (Specifically the Q6600 i think) enjoy pretty spectacular performance with cubase 4

Some of these claims incude passing references to running multiple instances of Reaktor 5 in Cubase 4 without encountering multicore processsing difficulties as you were just outlining I think, Dave.

I have read enough in the Reaktor forums to treat these latter claims though with a grain of salt. Although I cannot clearly see what is involved I would rather hear that kind of information from someone who thoiught of reaktor as more than 'another plugin' which is how it sort of sounded

Anyone running Reaktor with an Intel core 2 Quad with success as a VST?, in Cubase or whatever

Any takers? any answers?

Julian C.

 

I got a new pc in feb, intel dual core, makes no difference, which is disappointing. Maybe r^ will be able to take advantage of the extra power....

 

I had a core2duo e6600, and it ran R5 very well. Now I have an AMD Phenom 9500, which runs R5 MUCH better as a VST plugin in Cubase, and roughly the same in R5 standalone.

 

i used an amd with 1.8 ghz until march of this year and then i changed to an intel core2 quad Q6600. The performance in stand alone mode is a little bit better, but using reaktor as a plugin in cubase is just amazing. i recognized a huge increase of performance.

 

Thanks all for posting - Yersinia, is that with just one VSTi instance of Reaktor, or does the big increase happen when you use multiple instances? ...And any chance you could tell me which Cubase version you're using? I'm thinking about upgrading from SX2 but I don't want to waste money unless I get a big improvement in performance...

 

i use multiple instances. in my basic setup i use two fx instances for bass- and snaredrum and one instance for playing other drumsounds like hihats or cymbals. starting from that point i add more instances if i need effects on my hardware synths or on the guitar, and also if i need a softsynth/-sampler.
my old computer wasn't able to handle so many instances especially in realtime. on the new one it's no problem, i'm still far from using the full processing power.