cpu combos

hi

i have guitar rig, which is very OK, but i thought than using combos would be lighter on cpu (i use those mainly in real time - live - as plug-ins; and don't like crashing on stage!)

i was very surprised to notice than the combos (i tried the plexi and the twang) take as much if not slightly more cpu than guitar rig with more or less the same config - since on GR you have all the choices of speakers/mics + tape decks etc etc i thought it would be more

using maxmsp as host with nothing else than the plug-in (and adc-dac) the combo use 14% of cpu on a Pbook (Mac) 1.5, running osX 3 9

that's the same with GR

is that normal??

 

I would think so- I'm pretty sure the combos are using a modified GR shell. If you're using the same additional components, wouldn't it stand to reason that the CPU usage would be the same?

The same thing was seen with the free Carbon version vs the R4/RS version- the free version's CPU usage was the same if not higher because it still used the same shell.

ew

 

I had demoed all 3 combos in standalone mode, monitoring via Windows Task Manager, and the CPU load was incredibly high.
Between 30-50%, whereas Guitar Rig uses way less ressources on my PC (AMD 2200+, 1GB RAM, 4 HDD's on 4 IDE/ATA controllers).
Add to this the high noise floor with relatively high gain settings (guitar through DI->Mixer Bal. Out->Delta 1010LT on Bal. In's), it makes things still not very useable for me. Clean sounds, or slightly crunchy/saturated tones can be really awsome, but a good distortion is not possible without high amounts of noise. Sadly.

Regards
Raphael

 

The only way to make an A/B comparison of CPU load on Combos versus the full version is to load the exact same settings into Guitar Rig. Here's a handy trick: If you right-click (ctrl-click for Mac) on the preset list in any of the Combos, the pop-up menu offers a choice to export the bank in Guitar Rig format. Now you can open the exact patch in GR and see what components are loaded and their settings, and compare CPU load. I haven't done this but expect it should be nearly identical...

I found it educational to see how the expert settings on the Amp models were tweaked in each Combo design.

Brian