Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

182,322 users have contributed to 42,218 threads and 254,754 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 2 new thread(s), 9 new post(s) and 51 new user(s).

  1. Home
  2. Software
  3. Vienna Instruments Pro
  4. Best VE PRO slave: 1 Mac Pro or 4 mac mini?

  • Best VE PRO slave: 1 Mac Pro or 4 mac mini?

    V
    V
    Hello! What case is better for performance: 1 Mac Pro (6-8 cores) or 3-4 mac mini with SSD inside? Best regards, Vadim
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC

    The problem is the memory limitation of the MacMini

    So it will depends of your setup

    I have heard there are new Mac mini on the shelve !!!

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • V
    V
    Memory? but mac mini (8gb) x 4 = mac Pro (32gb)
  • D
    D

    There are various options. Assuming that you want to stay with OSX (which won't give you the best VE Pro slave) then there are various things to consider:

    1. You will be able to load less with the 4 Minis, because you have the OS overhead on each computer to take into account.
    2. It depends what Virtual Instruments you are running as to whether or not you will get better performance with a Mac Pro.
    3. SSD will load your samples quicker, but is unlikely to improve performance. The exception would be if you wanted to run Kontakt (for example) at a lower pre-load buffer. However, be aware that SSD is not performing well on OSX for many people, so you may see little to no benefit.

    DG
  • V
    V
    last edited
    last edited

    @DG said:

    (which won't give you the best VE Pro slave)
    What difference between Mac and PC for use as slave? Latency?
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC
    last edited
    last edited

    @DG said:

     However, be aware that SSD is not performing well on OSX for many people, so you may see little to no benefit.

    DG

    just be a little bit patient !!!! 

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • M
    M

    In my opinion you get far more bang for your buck with a PC slave (rather than OSX). Why are you only looking at Macs?

    I use OSX and Logic on my master machine (just in case you thought I was biased). [;)]

    M
  • D
    D
    last edited
    last edited

    @DG said:

    (which won't give you the best VE Pro slave)
    What difference between Mac and PC for use as slave? Latency? 

    VE Pro runs more efficiently under Windows than under OSX.

    DG
  • D
    D
    last edited
    last edited

    @DG said:

     However, be aware that SSD is not performing well on OSX for many people, so you may see little to no benefit.

    DG

    just be a little bit patient !!!! 

     

    Cyril, I'm not sure that there is anything to be patient for. Apple seems to have had very little response to the many complaints about the lack of performance using SSD with OSX. Also, now that Thunderbolt is out, I'm not sure that there is much incentive to do anything about it. I suspect that the full potential of SSD with OSX will only be seen with an external drive connected via Thunderbolt.

    DG
  • D
    D
    last edited
    last edited

    @mosso said:

    In my opinion you get far more bang for your buck with a PC slave (rather than OSX). Why are you only looking at Macs?

    I use OSX and Logic on my master machine (just in case you thought I was biased).

    M

     

    I think you're right about that. However, some OSX users do worry about running a Windows machine, and I quite understand that if OSX is your home territory, anything else can be daunting. It's a bit like changing sequencer or notation program. Not for the faint of heart. [;)]

    DG
  • M
    M
    last edited
    last edited

    Personally, I'd go with a PC slave before getting any mac to use as a slave machine.  But my mac pro is handling everything I need, with my current setup it's plenty, I have no need for a slave machine.

    @DG said:

    Cyril, I'm not sure that there is anything to be patient for. Apple seems to have had very little response to the many complaints about the lack of performance using SSD with OSX. Also, now that Thunderbolt is out, I'm not sure that there is much incentive to do anything about it. I suspect that the full potential of SSD with OSX will only be seen with an external drive connected via Thunderbolt.

    Apple is improving SSD support.  Recently it was found that 10.7 has TRIM support, after that new MB air models included it for the latest version of 10.6 (in both cases, just for the apple SSDs but I expect that to get updated to support all).

    In terms of performance on mac, it seems more dependent on the software.  PLAY doesn't work well on SSD/Mac, and it sounds like the vienna stuff isn't really optimized for SSD on either platform.  But Kontakt has major gains on SSD, mac and PC.  That, along with major improvements on mac/ssd with other types of software, makes it seems like it's much more an issue for third party devs to fix than something on Apple's side.
  • M
    M

    A new update is currently in testing, which improves SSD loading performance. For one user with an SSD RAID on Mac, loading speed has increased from10-15MB/sec to roughly 480MB/sec. With this update - disk speed is the only limit to loading speed.
  • V
    V
    last edited
    last edited

    @MS said:

    A new update is currently in testing, which improves SSD loading performance. For one user with an SSD RAID on Mac, loading speed has increased from10-15MB/sec to roughly 480MB/sec. With this update - disk speed is the only limit to loading speed.

    New update of what? OsX or programm?
  • M
    M

    A new update of VI & VIPro. We have implemented a workaround to get around some of the pitfalls of the OSX kernel.
  • S
    S

    Hello,

    this increase of performance sound amazing. But what does RAID mean in this case and which SSD do you recommend for a Mac Pro. Should I wait till the faster ones come out end of April?

    Thanks

    Alfred
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC

    > But what does RAID mean in this case

    raid 0 is about 1.5 the speed per disk, more disk you have, faster is the loading

    the 490 mb/s test was done with a 11 GB template on a 4 x 64 gb crucial  raid on a Rocket raid sata III, a 11.83 GB template was loaded in 50 secs  using VE pro server and VI pro

    > which SSD do you recommend for a Mac Pro.

    Sata III if you can have a SATA III card in your MAC (like the Rocket Raid)

    > Should I wait till the faster ones come out end of April?

    up to you !

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • S
    S

    Thanks for your advice Cyril,

    I don´t know if my Mac Pro 12core takes the SATA III, but I hope so.  Do you win performance only when you load the instrument or does the SSD increase the performance during playing too?
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC

    loading and playing

    No problem to put a sata III card in your Mac

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • S
    S

    Crazy world - this morning I found out that my official mac-trader installed Western Caviar green HDs instead black ones on my new Mac. So maybe the exchange will bring me some gain of performance. We will see...

    What do you think about a Western raptor? Is this kind of HD out of time now? It´s no so expensive...
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC

    Raid 0 of HD is also a solution now, this as soon the fix is out

    If you leave in France in Paris I can sell you an 8 out Rocket raid PCI E with 6 raptors

    Best

    Cyril

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic