Macbook Air M2 and DP 11 Disappointing Performance

[stublito]

I recently took the plunge and got a new (Black, yay) Macbook Air M2 and upgraded to DP 11. The results are disappointing to say the least. Yes I have Live Performance checked.

I gig live and was hoping to take my modest project down to a buffer size of at least 64, and still have tons of CPU headroom to add some new plugs (MIDI Guitar 2 at least). Yet currently I am running 90% percent Audio performance at 128, which was what my old 2015 Macbook Air dual core i7 running the same project in DP9 could do.

AND when I open Mac's Activity monitor, I see that there is 75%(!!!) idle time. This is obviously the source of my displeasure.

Why won't DP access all of the potential power of the M2 processor? Sheesh!

[stubbsonic]

Your expectations and disappointment seem absolutely justified.

I went from a 2012 MBP to an M1 Max MBP and the performance has been ok, but still with some crashes and weirdness.

Maintaining some low expectations, you could reach out to MOTU support and see if there are some settings you could try to improve your performance- or at least to let them know that the performance you're seeing isn't proportional to the monster machine you're running.

[HCMarkus]

I recently took the plunge and got a new (Black, yay) Macbook Air M2 and upgraded to DP 11. The results are disappointing to say the least. Yes I have Live Performance checked.

I gig live and was hoping to take my modest project down to a buffer size of at least 64, and still have tons of CPU headroom to add some new plugs (MIDI Guitar 2 at least). Yet currently I am running 90% percent Audio performance at 128, which was what my old 2015 Macbook Air dual core i7 running the same project in DP9 could do.

AND when I open Mac's Activity monitor, I see that there is 75%(!!!) idle time. This is obviously the source of my displeasure.

Why won't DP access all of the potential power of the M2 processor? Sheesh!

The issue that is most problematic with the Apple Silicon machines is Single Thread performance. Although the AS SOC is amazing, it isn't extremely difficult to overload a single CPU core with low buffer and complex live signal path. And, IIRC, Live Performance Mode only hurts in that this mode disables DP's pre-rendering.

Not sure why you need to run in Live Mode; perhaps you can explain your setup and requirements in a bit more detail.

Based on some tests I've seen, 128 appears to be the buffer sweet spot for Apple Silicon. I find 128 is plenty responsive for me when using VIs, but I'm not trying to play audio thru DP in real time as I monitor analog sources via hardware while recording.

[Michael Canavan]

A couple things, first off are all your plug ins running natively or in Rosetta?

I 100% have the opposite experience, the M1 Air here has been great. I clocked some ridiculous amount of instances of Diva on it when I firs got it etc. There is not a single logical reason you're having this issue, it's not the M2, it's something else, period, there's not a single thing that the 2015 should compete with the M2 in.

[stublito]

I'm not sure. The Waves stuff is at the top of the plugin usage graph, around 40% (on the bar graph) per instance, and that's the newest available versions.

But that's really not the point. DP's audio processing graph is maxing out, but the MacOS Activity Monitor says that DP is only consuming 15% of the M2 processor's clock cycles, and 75% it's IDLE! The same project (also) barely runs on my 2015 11" i7 dual core Macbook Air (!) with a Geekbench rating of about 2,000.

The M2 is promoted as having obscene processing power (which it apparently does, Geekbench score is 9600) The problem is DP as a plugin host cannot access it.

I suppose that if I used a Waves Super Rack to host the plugs that would also work, but I shouldn't have to. Plus all that interapplication audio patching....

I've pretty much made up my mind to return the M2 and get a used 2020 Icy Lake i7 13" Macbook pro. It's Geekbench score is 4800, about 1/2 of the M2 score, but all those clock cycles are available to DP.

So much for the bleeding edge...

[mikehalloran]

There's too much that we don't know.

Are you using any VIs? If so, are you running them in one instance of a player or is each running in its own instance? Except for some VIs designed for multi-core performance, the OS (Mac and Win) assigns each instance to a core. This has been true going back 25 years or more.

I don't use our M1 MB Air for DP but I do test it now and then. I haven't been able to break it.

[stublito]

It's a cheezy bar single with half MIDI tracks and half stereo audio tracks. I run one instance of Roland Sound Canvas, 2 of Korg M1 and Apple's DLS player with a 32GB sound font. Romplers. My 2015 MBA i7 2 core (Geekbench 2000) has just enough ooomph to run the project at 128 buffer.

The CPU hogs are the real time audio stuff according to DP's plug in graph - Waves Tune and harmony (2 of those), Impulse loader, Waves Maserati GTR and Greg Wells vocal processor. And Guitar Rig 6.

I bought the M2 to future proof my act and to be able drop the buffer to 64 or less (from 128) to reduce latency in my in-ears. I just assumed it would apply all its Geekbench 9600 rating to DP. But no...

Thanks for all the comments.

[mikehalloran]

I'm not sure. The Waves stuff is at the top of the plugin usage graph, around 40% (on the bar graph) per instance, and that's the newest available versions.

But that's really not the point. DP's audio processing graph is maxing out, but the MacOS Activity Monitor says that DP is only consuming 15% of the M2 processor's clock cycles, and 75% it's IDLE! The same project (also) barely runs on my 2015 11" i7 dual core Macbook Air (!) with a Geekbench rating of about 2,000.

The M2 is promoted as having obscene processing power (which it apparently does, Geekbench score is 9600) The problem is DP as a plugin host cannot access it.

…

Of course it can.

Geekbench scores, by themselves. don't mean a thing when it comes to individual apps.

You don't know the answer to this but it's important:

first off are all your plug ins running natively or in Rosetta?

Have you updated to DP 11.22? If not, do so. Are you running the latest versions of your plug-ins and VIs?

Then there's this:

you could reach out to MOTU support and see if there are some settings you could try to improve your performance- or at least to let them know that the performance you're seeing isn't proportional to the monster machine you're running.

Try it and let us know what happens.

[stublito]

I bought DP 11 10 days ago why would I not get the latest version (he said naively)?

I did reach out to support and was told only to increase the buffer size and check "live performance." My (two) followup questions about only being able to utilize 15% of the M2 have not been answered.

Anyway all is moot, I returned the M2 (all praise to Best Buy Plus.) I'm going to buy a refurb 2018 13", which will seamlessly import all my apps and plugs and give me 2x the horsepower of my previously barely competent 2015 Macbook Air. This will solve my latency problem, which is all I NEED right now.

I'll give this another go in a couple of years. The bleeding edge is no place for an old fart.

Mahalo (I'm in Hawaii) for all of your support.

[bayswater]

I'll give this another go in a couple of years. The bleeding edge is no place for an old fart.

Not a good place for anyone. The change to Silicon (with it’s apparent weakness), the appearance of macOS 13 (with Apple’s QA decline) and the long ramp up from software developers, makes it a difficult place as we see in the many threads on these topics.

A couple of years is just fine with me. Maybe we’ll get back to “just works”.

[HCMarkus]

DP's audio processing graph is maxing out, but the MacOS Activity Monitor says that DP is only consuming 15% of the M2 processor's clock cycles, and 75% it's IDLE!

This tells me that you are almost certainly hitting the limit of a single core.

Multi-track audio processing can be extremely parallelized, but a single track with multiple plugins must, be definition, be processed linearly; Each plugin in a chain can only do its math once the preceding plugins have done their work.

Sorry it didn't work out for you.

Back to loving the amazing performance my M1 Studio provides.

[Michael Canavan]

Another thing, OP is going to be really really disappointed with an Intel Mac if he uses Live Performance Mode. That is specifically meant to smooth out issues with glitches in the audio stream, and it sucks more CPU. It absolutely will not help CPU issues.

No offense to OP, but this sort of buckshot, I've already come to a conclusion I'm just here to vent, and no I don't want to learn anything posts are pretty annoying. I have absolutely no doubt that the issue is user error, and could have been resolved but instead we all waste time trying to help someone who didn't actually want any help.

[stublito]

Last word from me on this.

I just moved the project back to my 2015 11" (!!!) MBA 2 core 2.6 i7 (I love it because it' so tiny.) At a 64 buffer, processor idle is about 40, and 90ish when a track is running (with the odd red peak.) I'l prolly just keep it at 128 for gigs.

I'm an IT admin, database programmer, a synth programmer since the 80s, and performing musician, and have been running live tracks in DP since version 7.

As far as user error, when I got the M2, all I did was buy and install DP 11, D/L all the newest installers for the Waves, Roland and Korg stuff, plugged in my (class compliant) USB 2x2, and load the chunks from the old project. And waited for DP to analyze the chunks...

I just can't imagine being so incompetent that I can somehow make a project that runs fine on my 8 year old laptop max out DP's audio engine on a brand new computer. Unless the software and hardware are not talking to each other...

The M2 is hard limiting DP's processor access to 15% of the M2's processing power, according to Activity Monitor.) I had NOTHING to do with that.

[James Steele]

Disappointing. I see you already returned it. It would have been interesting to try to re-create the project in another DAW, like Logic perhaps, and see if you noticed a big difference. Might be there's some quirk with the M2 that DP doesn't like? Sorry it didn't work out. Perhaps something is going on with DP and M2 processors? I'm having a pretty decent experience with the M1 Max in my Mac Studio.

Where in Hawaii? I grew up on Oahu. Dad currently lives on Maui.

[stublito]

I live downtown Bishop and Beretania. Moved here in 88, a touring musician. Played the Wave Waikiki and met a local haole gal (a singer.) We were here for 6 months, when it was time to fly back to Canada, we decided to get married.

Lotsa Canadian bands played the Wave back then, and many lost members to local gals, most were just flings tho. The booking agent used to call Waikiki "the Bermuda Triangle for bands."

Aloha nui,

Peter