CPU Killer!

I've downloaded the demo and I'm not impressed with the CPU load on my machine. Most of presets hit 50% with one note and jump past %75 as soon as I hit a second note and that's in standalone mode!...I haven't tried the AU plugin in Logic yet.
This makes the plugin kind of useless on my computer...
Powermac G5 dual 2.0ghz , 3gb of RAM.
I can run a lot of Linplug Albino 2 instances and a ton of Logic builtin plugins. Why is native stuff never that efficient?
Will try on my Macbook Pro later.

 

...same as VSTi! HEAVY CPU load :-(
Steve

 

Turn down the quality (it's on the global page) until you're ready to render; that's how I do it.

ew

 

I have 20% with 1 to 4 notes on my 1.83 GHz Core Duo iMac, 40% with 5 to 8 notes. I find it totally okay for such a great-sounding synth.

 

Yes the CPU load is very high. Not only for Massive but for other new instruments as well.

Regarding to the problems NI has right now with all new plugins at the same time I would assume, that they began a kind of modular programming, which means, that some basic routines are programmed for ALL instruments.

That is a great advantage, because it makes the development much more efficient and it can reduce the errors, because the total number of code lines is reduced, but the consequence is, that the performance will decrease.

But honestly, these are only assumptions.

 

I dunno about that. From what I understand, Massive is based on reaktor's engine, but absynth and fm8 are still based on their predecessors, meaning the three have completely different code. I could be wrong though.

Btw, I've noticed while demoing fm8 that the fm7 patches use the same amount of cpu as on fm7, so it only uses more if it's taking advantage of the new features. I assume absynth is the same.

cheers,

Rob

 

I've found it to be that way, but I've also seen conflicting reports in the Absynth forum from some users.

http://www.nativeinstruments.de/forum_us/showthread.php?t=39638

ew

 

Massive was definitely a cpu killer on my old machine: P4 2.8gHz, 1GB of Ram, and XP Pro. Typically I'd see 60% cpu after only 3 notes.
When I went to my new machine: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4400+, 2GB of Ram, and XP Pro; I was able to get 10 to 15 note polyphony before I hit about 85% or so usuage. Even though the clock speed on the AMD isn't really too much faster than the P4 the FSB of 2000mHz on the AMD makes a huge difference, well that and doubling the ram and ram bus to 800mHz instead of 400mHz.
I'd be interested in seeing how well Massive is performing on a similar configuration, but with the Intel Core 2 Duo.

 

I run a P4 3.0 GHZ and 2 gigs of ram and I can hit 5 keys at 10MS and keep it under 50% CPU usage.

I have not tried the rendering options yet but I’m on the way in doing so.

 

djilimon, what version P4 do you have, one of the Prescotts, 500's or 600's?

 

I don't know, how can you tell?

 

If you get a copy of CPU-Z you can find out the exact specs of your cpu. More info is available on wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU-Z

 

So that’s the profile, can you tell from that?


http://www.wavkiller.com/CPU.jpg

 

You're probably noticing higher cpu usage than my old P4 since the Northwood core didn't support the SSE3 instruction set, not only that but as with Pentiums of that gen the frontside bus is only 800mHz. If you had a processor that was the same clock speed, but a faster bus you'd see an improvement just from that.

 

I’m looking in to getting a duo core set up soon, any recommendations?

 

Right now if you're going to go Intel the best options would be the Intel Core 2 Duo e6300 or e6400. With those, a good motherboard, and 800mHz ram you should be able to overclock them to see performances of around 3.0gHz per core. The other nice thing is that your ram will be able to be accessed twice as fast as your current system and your front side bus is about double in throughput.

I personally went with the AMD Athlon 64 x2 for now because there were better options for motherboards and ram available. The AMD also offers faster access around the motherboard with a 2000mHz front side bus and ram controller built into the cpu.

It will be interesting to see what is possible with quad core and beyond now showing up too, though I'll wait awhile before jumping on that boat.

 

At 6 voices I'm using around 70% CPU, but it jumps around a bit.

I'm running an old 1.7gig Intel P4 with 512Mb ram.

 

there must be something that I just don't get about this synth.

At Eco CPU quality it takes 18% of my CPU to play a single sine osc with everything else turned off.

I'm running a 2.16Ghz Macbook Pro.

That's just silly and it means that the synth has been very poorly optimized. How useful is it to run 5 notes poly on a synth in the fastest available hardware if you can't do anything else with it.

I can fit 16 notes poly of most FM8 patches in the same CPU as two in Massive. meh.

 

On most of the polyphonic presets I can play about 24-30 Voices on my Athlon XP3100+ (2.2Ghz)

 

I would like to point out what someone posted a while ago:

CPU consumption is not "linear": it seems to add a certain value for each next 4 notes you play. For example, play one note and it'll take 20% of CPU, but next 3 notes you add to the chord will not add up anything, it'll still eat 20%. But 5th note will give you 40% and that will not change until you press the 9th note.

On my 1.83 GHz Core Duo Mac I get about 16 voices with a built-in card. That is like 4-5 instances of Massive possible, which is quite nice. I agree it could have been better, but for this sound quality I'm okay with giving it this much of CPU.