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  • Does a Windows bootcamp Mac outperform OSX with VEP?

    I saw on another thread that Windows machines are more effiecent than OSX at running VSL products. Is the same true for Macs running Windows in bootcamp? I have a copy of Windows lying around and am wondering if it's worthwhile to switch my slave Mac Pro to Windows.

    Thanks!

    MOH


  • Yes, Windows in general gives much better performance for audio than OSX, especially at lower latencies. A good comparison can be found here:

    http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-3.htm

    GUIs are also much snappier on Windows, this is also true for VSL products, especially VEPro.


  • it will be good to make a benchmark on this because it depends on how the sotware is developed

    Rencently Martin re-wrote some code of VEPRO for MAC, now it is night and day

     I play a full orchestral very complex piece (from the new World of Anton Dvorak) with all tremolo made with notes, with all instrument that I own loaded.  with L2 articulations loaded on my 12 core and I use 20-30 % of the CPU of my 12 core ( I do no use my second Macpro)


    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
  • It is true that the later versions of VIPro have vastly improved memory allocation routines - something where OSX is known to be slow. This is usually experienced by software becoming slower and slower the more RAM it has allocated. And in case of samplers with huge orchestral templates, it gets very apparent.

    But this is not the only issue. I have actually never experienced a software being snappier or better performing on OSX than on Windows (where both platforms are supported). As a developer there are definitely more hoops to jump through when developing for OSX, than for Windows.


  • the best is a bench mark with VI/VE Pro ;)


    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
  • I have seen that benchmark, it's full of holes.  If cubase is used, it's invalid. Cubase does not port to Core Audio directly.

    It's disturbing to see you follow that. I'm confident it's true that VE Pro works better on windows and this makes me wonder if some of it's because you are biased towards an OS. Logic is extremely efficient under OSX, as efficient as I think can be.

    The operating systems must be very different to work with, but an absolutist sort of assertion is quite suspect to me.


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    @civilization 3 said:

    I have seen that benchmark, it's full of holes.  If cubase is used, it's invalid. Cubase does not port to Core Audio directly.

    It's disturbing to see you follow that. I'm confident it's true that VE Pro works better on windows and this makes me wonder if some of it's because you are biased towards an OS. Logic is extremely efficient under OSX, as efficient as I think can be.

    The operating systems must be very different to work with, but an absolutist sort of assertion is quite suspect to me.

     

    The DawBench test uses Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools and Studio One, I think. Whether or not Logic is efficient or not is not really relevant, because Martin's point was about cross-platform applications. Similarly Sonar would be irrelevant to the discussion.

    DG


  • Cool. I use Digital Performer and I couldn't imagine VEP getting too much faster. I can do almost any complexity of arrangement with a low buffer. But VIPro could use some improvements. I use VIPro instruments that have many matrices. VIPro is quite slow switiching between them.


  • there was a time when logic was crossplatform and faster and more stable on mac. 

    as a normal user, working with both platforms, not music, development and business communication, although the PC at mt workdesk has more powerful hardware, the mac performs much more fluently.

    reaper, cubase etc are definitely PC first programs. Protools does not use standard mac ausio stuff as core audio for so long and they were never interested to let a native, competitive platform look competitive ( and in film business it seems that logic and digital performer on mac are the main competitors).

    Ram management on MacOSX is more complicated though ... sometimes seems irrational.

    personally i would not trade in a mac for a pc, no matter what some benchmarks say. for me, mac is the more fluent and nicer user experience overall


  • sorry for the typos ... but with my ipad that forum is only partly useable. 

    best


  • I don't intend to start a Mac vs PC bashing contest here. Those threads will never end. I was just saying that in general, audio software performs better on Windows (7) than on OSX (10.X). There might be exceptions to the rule, and I understand people having preferences of one over the other. We of course try to do our best to support both platforms as good as we can. But the fact remains, OSX is a more troublesome platform to develop for, there are also many more formats, architectures and frameworks that you have to support on OSX.

    So, returning to the beginning of the thread, I would still recommend you to run Windows 7 on your slave. It will perform better for your purposes, IE you will be able to run more instruments / more tracks before running into clicks and pops.


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    @DG said:

    The DawBench test uses Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools and Studio One, I think. Whether or not Logic is efficient or not is not really relevant, because Martin's point was about cross-platform applications. Similarly Sonar would be irrelevant to the discussion.

    DG

    the claim I address is that Windows 7 is per se the superior OS for audio software. It is NOT viable to use Cubase for a benchmark. I'll tell you why I assert this: benchmarks that I trust reveal Cubase, all things equal in terms of hardware and plugins, to be requiring 4x the latency of Logic on average. This is a matter of simple logic, no pun intended. The reason for that is that it is not coded for Core Audio per se, Cubase or Nuendo's audio is via 'CoreAudio2ASIO.bundle'. It is relevant pertinent to that claim.

    Now, if you can show this memory is slower, and I know that technically the machine I have has slower RAM by specification than for windows boxes potentially, using VI Pro/VE Pro, that is acceptable. This benchmark certainly is not. I have studied it and stand by my assertion. It shows confirmation bias in the extreme IME.


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    @civilization 3 said:

    the claim I address is that Windows 7 is per se the superior OS for audio software. 

    Well, lets stick to "Audio software and plugins running on both Windows and OSX". My bet is that in 99% of cases, the software performs better (snappier response, handles more processing load etc) on Windows7, compared to OSX (any furball version). That doesn't automatically make Windows a better choice for you. Your workflow, software preferences and experience plays a huge part as well. Besides, Macs look very nice, and are quiet and solid builds. And they also run Windows :)

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    @DG said:

    The DawBench test uses Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools and Studio One, I think. Whether or not Logic is efficient or not is not really relevant, because Martin's point was about cross-platform applications. Similarly Sonar would be irrelevant to the discussion.

    DG

    the claim I address is that Windows 7 is per se the superior OS for audio software. It is NOT viable to use Cubase for a benchmark. I'll tell you why I assert this: benchmarks that I trust reveal Cubase, all things equal in terms of hardware and plugins, to be requiring 4x the latency of Logic on average. This is a matter of simple logic, no pun intended. The reason for that is that it is not coded for Core Audio per se, Cubase or Nuendo's audio is via 'CoreAudio2ASIO.bundle'. It is relevant pertinent to that claim. 

     

    Not that you've shown any benchmarks to back up your claim, but as I pointed out, the tests also use Reaper, Pro Tools and Studio One.

    DG


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    @MS said:

    I don't intend to start a Mac vs PC bashing contest here. Those threads will never end. I was just saying that in general, audio software performs better on Windows (7) than on OSX (10.X). There might be exceptions to the rule, and I understand people having preferences of one over the other. We of course try to do our best to support both platforms as good as we can. But the fact remains, OSX is a more troublesome platform to develop for, there are also many more formats, architectures and frameworks that you have to support on OSX.

    So, returning to the beginning of the thread, I would still recommend you to run Windows 7 on your slave. It will perform better for your purposes, IE you will be able to run more instruments / more tracks before running into clicks and pops.

    This is what EastWest also believes.


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    MAKE A BENCH MARK ! 

    and even so all depends of the programer !

    I have been programming for 20 years in Hex, Cobol, Basic, Algol, Postscript, depending on how you write a program, it will go fast or slow

    The company I was working for, bought a Postscript program from a Canadian company. It was very slow. I complettly re-wrote it ; It was running 10 time faster, no wait for the user !

    I have post on the Core Audio develloper conference :

    On 07/10/2011, at 10:30 PM, Cyril Blanc wrote:

    @Another User said:

    Hello   xxxxxx
    Do you have a way to do a bench: ASIO v.s. Core audio on the same computer ?
    Answer :
    Short answer, not that I know of without using specialised gear like logic analysers to look at the exact timing.
    Long answer: You're measuring latency, i.e the time it takes for the source samples coming from memory buffers, via hard drives, Audio Units etc, to be copied to the render buffer, then to be DMA'ed in the kernel driver to the hardware DAC and ultimately your ears. Audio is real-time. If you put 512 samples into the render buffer at 44.1khz it will take 11ms for those samples to be processed plus the hardware delay of the DAC. It can't be any quicker and it can't be any slower. Unless you have an OS that cannot do real-time audio or a badly written driver that adds latency. Anything else is app specific hence why well written DAWs have things like PDC and other complex scheduling solutions.
    regards
    peter


    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
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    @DG said:

    The DawBench test uses Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools and Studio One, I think. Whether or not Logic is efficient or not is not really relevant, because Martin's point was about cross-platform applications. Similarly Sonar would be irrelevant to the discussion.

    DG

    the claim I address is that Windows 7 is per se the superior OS for audio software. It is NOT viable to use Cubase for a benchmark. I'll tell you why I assert this: benchmarks that I trust reveal Cubase, all things equal in terms of hardware and plugins, to be requiring 4x the latency of Logic on average. This is a matter of simple logic, no pun intended. The reason for that is that it is not coded for Core Audio per se, Cubase or Nuendo's audio is via 'CoreAudio2ASIO.bundle'. It is relevant pertinent to that claim. 

     

    Not that you've shown any benchmarks to back up your claim, but as I pointed out, the tests also use Reaper, Pro Tools and Studio One.

    DG

    what claim? that logic performs better than Cubase on a Mac? I know this is true, from using both. I prefer Cubase. I want Cubase to work better. I do not have any bias to confirm. If you're calling me out, and if I cared, I could produce that benchmark. I don't care. I don't expect to 'win' this fight. I am addressing specific claims which I find to be based in poor logic. Including this; is it impossible that these apps are CODED BETTER FOR WINDOWS? This is a matter of REALLY basic logic.


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    @civilization 3 said:

    what claim? that logic performs better than Cubase on a Mac? I know this is true, from using both. I prefer Cubase. I want Cubase to work better. I do not have any bias to confirm. If you're calling me out, and if I cared, I could produce that benchmark. I don't care. I don't expect to 'win' this fight. I am addressing specific claims which I find to be based in poor logic. Including this; is it impossible that these apps are CODED BETTER FOR WINDOWS? This is a matter of REALLY basic logic.

     

    I'm not saying that Logic doesn't perform better, but to quote figures without actually stating where you got them from doesn't really back up that claim. However, 4x better? I don't believe that for one moment. Are you sure that when you did that test you had all of the tracks in your Logic project in Live mode (to eliminate the process buffer)?

    Of course it is possible that all cross-platform applications are coded better for Windows. It's also possible that Windows is just a better operating system. No way of knowing, unless you see all of the source code for all existing cross-platform applications. [;)]

    There is no fight. Nothing to win. If you were interested solely in performance you wouldn't be using OSX at all. The fact that you are, means that there are other things that are more important to you, such as the way the OS handles for you and the sequencer you choose to use. Nothing wrong with that. For me I don't care what OS or machine that I use, as long as I can get the performance I need. OSX won't do that for me.

    DG


  • It is really disappointing to hear what I suspected long ago... that the VSL programmers are biased towards Windows. That benchmark link really is just so silly, I expect more form VSL. I would bet that none of those programs get as much attention and expertise on the Mac side as they do for the Windows side, and who knows what kind of clunky workarounds they implemented to get that software that was developed on PC to work on Mac OS. Perhaps none, perhaps several, but we don't really know do we?

    As for the programming being easier for Windows, well I work much quicker and efficiently in Logic than I do in Cubase. Does that make Logic better?

    Of course if you're preference is to develop on Windows and then you have to port to Mac out of necessity it's always going to appear that Windows is superior.

    DG, I really get tired of your Mac bashing on this forum. We all know by now you just love Windows so much and seem to hate Macs. You take any opportunity to tell us how much superiour a PC system is. This is just plain bollocks when you factor in the headaches you get from dealing with Windows, and then there's the whole good coding issue.


  • You are shooting the messenger. I am a long time Mac user and the author of 2 Logic Pro books but I am building a PC slave because East West, for whom I am aa part  time employee, has  told me exactly what VSL is telling you here, that it is very difficult to make the OSX 64 bit version of Play as efficient as the Windows 64 bit version. That is just the reality.