DP rebuild?

[toodamnhip]

Given the fact that DP6 now supports Cocoa plugins means they have changed quite a bit. However, the fact remains that in pure coding issues, Cocoa is NOT as efficient as Carbon. Objective-C has overhead associated with how it's message system works, and because of that, there can be *some* performance hits depending on how things are coded. Is this a big deal? No, as plenty of Cocoa applications SCREAM (and it's easier to code in) but let's be clear, Carbon is not causing slow down.

Will 64-bit require a complete rewrite? No. But it will take a lot of work going through and making it selectable between say 32-bit and 64-bit because I cannot imagine them make it fixed to one value for performance reasons alone. Not only that, if you've already finished a song in 32-bit, you might want to keep it there as you've already *mixed* with regard to any affect of using 32-bit to begin with.

I am not saying that DP doesn't need to be a bit more efficient, and it is clear Motu is trying to find ways to do this, but saying it needs to be rewritten is an absolute waste of time. Seriously. DP is based around a specific *environment* that people use and love. To change the basics of DP for speed purposes could and more likely will change the features that DP has. The reason DP works at the speed it does is more likely the freedom DP has in how it has been made. Compared to the likes of Logic, there are a LOT of things in DP that work better but clearly at the expense of speed.

Instead, I'd rather see Motu take the code they already have and figure out how to make it faster. Which, is what they are doing. Taking away features is just going to piss people off and that's what would happen with a complete rewrite because the architecture would be different more than likely and not behave exactly the same. I mean really, DP is VERY complex internally in terms of real time processing.

I look forward to see how DP6 works.

I was hoping to hear from you dude..

You are the most knowledgeable around here when it comes to code and programming and it is nice to see you seem to agree that a bottom up re write is un necessary,,,
but really my point is that no one should recommend exact strategies when completely in the dark about all of this.

[David Helpling]

I've been working with Access Music to get the Virus TI to work in DP (it still doesn't as of now) but in my last conversation they stated that "what's going on at the core level of DP6 will already do what we need for it to work with the TI". The Access guys spoke with Jim Cooper at NAMM and it appears that the core change will completely support the TI engine...where the current way DP is addressing Audio, AU plug-ins and ADC does not. To me that is great news for what DP6 may bring...(regardless of who thinks DP needs to be re-written or not...it works great for me with everything else)

[pounce]

How much "better" would 64-bit apps sound? You can't qualify everything based on whether it's 64-bit. That's like saying that a convertor sounds great because the specs say it's 24bit/192khz. Specs alone don't determine whether the software sounds good.

you are misunderstanding what a 64 bit app is.

[grimepoch]

1) That is GOOD news on the TI front. Very good news. I wonder if the difference in AU processing on DP and Logic are due to the same issue in current versions.

2) 64-bit has 2 connotations:

a) A 64-bit app will run faster on Intel machines because in 64-bit mode, the program has access to many more internal registers and other optimizations that 32-bit cannot use. For PPC, those extra registers are already available to 32-bit programs. These benefits outweigh the overhead of moving larger pointers around on the Intel side and benchmarking has shown at least an average of 2% faster from my research. Not a lot but still good. Also, when in 64-bit mode, ALL of your plugins will have to be compiled as a 64-bit executable or they cannot be used as they run IN the host. This has soley to do with address and data bus sizes. From a MUSICAL standpoint there is no gain with this 64-bit enhancement. Only performance of the CPU and the ability to access more memory in the application.

b) 64-bit representation of audio is a different story. So much so that 32-bit apps are already using 64-bit for their processing, like iZotope Ozone3. The problem of course is that if you are using 32-bit, it takes twice as long to move data around. Once moved to 64-bit processes, those operations will take the same as their 32-bit counterparts did (taking out the difference in serial operations like reading from a SATA drive). This is the SOUND enhancement that people talk about.

Toodamnhip, got your email! I will get back to you, hold on. And by the way, LOVED the trailer for SUNSHINE. I own the movie as well, good work!

[Fibes]

When is motu going to rebuild DP from the ground up, instead of just adding and modifying what exists on this unstable framework!??

.

This sentence appears to be provocative and a "pot stirrer."

Just in case you were wondering.

[tyronehowe]

I've been working with Access Music to get the Virus TI to work in DP (it still doesn't as of now) but in my last conversation they stated that "what's going on at the core level of DP6 will already do what we need for it to work with the TI". The Access guys spoke with Jim Cooper at NAMM and it appears that the core change will completely support the TI engine...where the current way DP is addressing Audio, AU plug-ins and ADC does not. To me that is great news for what DP6 may bring...(regardless of who thinks DP needs to be re-written or not...it works great for me with everything else)

Hello David
Sorry to butt in on your thread - but I am very interested in your information about using a Virus TI with DP. I purchased DP5 last week after asking a lot of questions on this forum. My specific questions about Virus TI was answered by Shooshie and he pointed me to this thread ••“ which seems very encouraging.

However, I emailed Access earlier today and their response was not so good. They included a quote from their Product Manager which essentially said that talks between Motu and Access had come to a standstill and that there would be no support for DP in the foreseeable future.

Aarggh! Hopefully I have just been sent an old statement? Does this ring any bells with you?

Thanks in advance