Kontakt 2 v.s EXS bench mark on a Quad G5

Hello


I did some testing on my Quad G5 2.5 8 GB :

This test play the same 60 half notes on each midi channel, tempo is set to 40, 120, 240 and 360
Each instance of 60 notes are looped on 11 bars

Running EXS :
1) With VM
- I can play 480 simultaneous notes : 8 instances of 60
2) Without VM
- I can play 660 simultaneous notes : 11 instances of 60

Running K2 :
1) With VM
- To be reliable I can play one instance of 60 notes at tempo 360
2) Without VM
- To be reliable I can play one instance of 60 notes at tempo 360

At tempo 40 I can play 4 instances of 60 notes but K2 is not reliable, some times the 240 notes are playing sometimes no sound is coming from K2


Remarks :
- I have put only one multi for K2 and up to 11 instances of the EXS
- Putting the tempo to 120 it does not play with K2 ; the tempo has no incidence with the EXS I went to 360 tempo
- K2 seem to forget to switch off some note as the counter of notes are increasing
- Logic reports load only on one processor but Activity Monitor show load on the 4 processors ( I thought that K2 was multi processor !) (I have check that Multiproc was on)
- The first bar in the loop does not play with K2
- If I want the first bar to play I have to put K2 down to 60 notes
- The number of note played does not correspond to the number of voice that are displayed in the instrument

I also did a few test on K 1.53
- it report to play 120 note when you play 60 notes
- it is a little bit better than K2

Conclusions :

NI has all my tests under there hands ; I hope they are going to come with a good Christmass present where K2.1 will be reliable and powerfull

Best

Cyril

 

are you using stereo samples?

does the exs count 1 stereo sample as 2 voices or 1?

How much RAM does the exs use to stream these voice counts?

Which precise pre loads and voice buffer settings are you using?

What is the bandwidth of the samples?

I have seen voice counts of over 620 stereo 16 bit 44k voices with K2. (2 hard disks 7200rpm, 1 instance of K2)

And 512 simultanious voices from 1 hard disk, sustaining.

P4 3ghz

Thats 1240 mono voices.

K2 displays 1 stereo sample as 1 voice.

 

all samples used are stereo, i used the piano sound to be sure that I could play 60 notes at a time on one midi channel

I have test with and without DFD/VM

 

Cyril,
I noticed in your email that you're using a RAID setup. For streaming, JBOD (just a bunch of disks) will yield better performance than a RAID setup, as the latter retrieves data sequentially. Throughput on a RAID is great for video streams and the like, but for sample streaming, where there are hundreds of samples to be accessed at once, JBOD is better. I suspect you'll get more out of your system if you reconfigure to JBOD.

 

Hello
Thanks for your comment
I have been talking to a lot of people about raid and JBOD

What does the raid : spread across your drives your files at the segment level
If you have a JBOD you will have to do that manually !
if you put the brass on one disk the string on another ....
If in one piece you have more strings than brass in another more brass than string.... it's a non ended story

I have run Xbench 1.1.3* on a G5 2x2 3 GB here are the marks given by Xbench on different configuration (higher is better)

86 with Lacie 160 GB FW800
97 with Lacie 200 GB FW800
103 with Lacie 250 GB FW800
109 with my internal Sata
122 with a Maxtor 250 GB
156 with Western Digital Raptor 36 GB
158 with a raid 0 of 2 Sata using Apple raid software
160 with a raid 0 of 2 Sata using Softraid
184 with the Rocket raid card in slot 3 and 4 Raptor 10 000 (with 1024 KB segments)
198 with the Rocket raid card in slot 3 and 4 Raptor 10 000 (with 64 KB segments)
205 with the Rocket raid card in slot 3 and 4 Raptor 10 000 with Softraid driver optimize for digital audio
227 with the Rocket raid card in slot 4 and 2 Raptor 10 000 with Softraid driver optimize for digital audio
237 with the Rocket raid card in slot 4 and 4 Raptor 10 000 with Softraid driver optimize for digital audio
268 with the Rocket raid card in slot 4 and 6 Raptor 10 000 with Softraid driver optimize for digital audio
------------------


I dont know if I will move my raid to the quad I will have to make more test.

Buying the Quad i have decide to load a maximum in RAM.

Today there are big problems with Kontakt and this configuration.
Lately I have been doing many test that I have post to the person that is responsable for Kontakt at NI. They are working on K 2.1 and I just hope they are going to fix all the problems I have reported for Christmass.

This is there last chance !! if they dont fix the problems they are going to have BIG problems !

Best

Cyril

 

you have not said weather or not the exs displays
a stereo sample as 1 voice or two.

'the piano sound' - do you mean a K2 specific piano patch?
if so, is this a monolithic patch? (Have you tested to see if monolithic files perform as well as standard audio files in folders? Does the exs have a similar monolithic format to check with?)

If so I dont see how you could have used the same patch with the exs?

To perform an acurate test between both formats you ideally need to use the same samples in both sample players.

You have not stated the bandwidth of the samples you are playing back in Kontakt or the exs.

24 bit samples require more bandwidth than 16 bit etc...
48 k samples require more bandwidth than 44.1 etc...

VM - Virtual Memory?


What are the precise pre load and buffer settings you used for K2 and what are the comparable settings for the exs?

When checking the resources on your computer during playback of the samples, what is displayed in relation
to RAM usage and CPU usage for each sample player respectively?

You are not providing enough concise information to justify your claim that the exs performs better than K2.

It could be that the exs is using more RAM than K2.

You need to thoroughly examine the system resources used by each sample player when loaded and in action.

 

Hi Cyril,
Yes, I agree, that is one of the problems with JBOD -- you have to manually distribute your libraries and hope for the best. In my setup, I have 4 SATA drives, and so far things are working very well with the way I distributed the samples. I also did a ton of research on this too and was advised by many drive gurus that JBOD is the way to go. I'm not 100% sure this is true. Putting performance issues aside, RAID is a little risky in that when a single disk goes down, you lose everything (depending on which RAID configuration you have). Would like to get some data from NI on this issue, if they have run any tests with JBOD vs. RAID. It's so hard to get valid info on a subject that should have been covered a long time ago by software creators like NI, or at least by magazines like Keyboard or Virtual Instruments magazine.

 

to be really fare with the test I have used the Logic EXS bank instruments so Kontakt and the EXS are playing the same samples

1st test :

Condition
G5 Quad 2.5 8 GB
Logic pro 7.1
Setting : NO DFD
A loop of 13 Mesure of 60 half notes for each midi tracks
Tempo 360
One output
No effect added
EXS instrument used :
- Midi channel 1 = the grand piano on stage
- Midi channel 2 = grand piano punchy
- Midi channel 3 = Harpsichord

I have manage to play 2 midi tracks of 60 notes . : the grand piano on stage and grand piano punchy

Test done with the EXS show you could play 11 midi tracks of 60 notes

Remarks :

K 2 plays 2 notes for one played ! so instead of showing 60 voices used you get 120 voices used

I did the test to add 12 more notes of the "Harpsichord" , K2 is starting to play them the number of voices increase to maximum that I have set (220 voices) then you get crackels)

------
Second test :

Condition
G5 Quad 2.5 8 GB
Logic pro 7.1
Setting : NO DFD
A loop of 13 Mesure of 60 eighth notes x 8 for each midi tracks
Tempo 120
One output
No effect added
EXS instrument used :
- Midi channel 1 = the grand piano on stage
- Midi channel 2 = grand piano punchy
- Midi channel 3 = Harpsichord


I manage to play 1 midi track of 60 note

K2 goes crazy ; display up 360 voices uses instead of 60

If I add another midi track of a loop of 13 Mesure of 60 half notes some note are not played you get

If I add another midi track of a loop of 13 Mesure of 60 eighth notes x 8 ; in the Engine window note event used display 7/ 8192 note events used and only a few notes are playing


So this test give the same conclusion as the previous test : Kontakt 2 is very slow and not reliable when it get too busy

I hope NI will be able to fix this for Christmass

best

Cyril

 

I use a Raid 0 just for my libs (Kontakt 2 VSL and QLSO Platinum) and I have a backup on a FW800 disk !

it is very difficult to do a benchmark of JBOD v.s. RAID because it will depends of the product you will use !

Best

Cyril

 

I completly agree !!
And appreciate all the work you went through testing this.

 

In EXS 1 stereo sample = 1 voice.

Chris