Upgrading My DAW Computer - Looking For Advice

[Stuartfox]

Don't know if I'm in the right section as my post is about mac / pc and DP optimisation so I thought it best to put it here.

I'm currently running DP 8 on a 2010 2.93 12 core Mac Pro with 48GB Ram, 3 x 1TB Velocoraptors and 1 x 1TB SSD internally.

The mac struggles with even my smaller templates, increasingly as libraries get more script heavy so I use a windows 7 i7 machine running SSD's to take most of the load now (via Vienna Ensemble Pro).

My Mac Pro has had tech issues - Apple have replaced some parts and have stress tested it for 4 or 5 days and it's passing 100% so the hardware is now rock solid according to Apple, so we'll see what it's like when it comes back, however I'm still considering an upgrade and I'm completely torn.

I use an UA Apollo Quad. Firewire800 on the mac pro ins limiting (It is thunderbolt compatible but the mac pro isn't) so I'd want a main machine with Thunderbolt sometime in the future.

Script heavy libraries like Cinestrings, and Samplemodling libraries like 'The Trumpet' seem to have trouble playing back even on their own with cracks and issues on the note transitions (CPU issues). They run rock solid on the rendering PC so I just let that handle them.

What I want:

I would love to have one machine running my whole extended template without any tech worries, GUI slow downs, other issues that get in the way of creativity.

My options are a new Mac Pro or a custom DAW PC.

The 12 core New Mac Pro worries me, it's only a single CPU and would cost a huge amount once I purchased the thunderbolt drive bays and memory upgrades.

A 20 core dual xeon PC built by a DAW specialist with full support comes in at almost half the price.

My Business head tells me to go to windows, my heart loves OSX and Mac.

I don't want to start a Mac VS PC debate. I use both and I'm well aware of the pros and cons, I just want to know if anyone else has any practical experience, maybe someone has already been through this decision making process and has some experiences to share.

Very conflicted.

Thanks

[Splinter]

Honestly, Stuart, something here doesn't sound right. Call me mad, but a 12-core system like you have should eat this stuff for lunch. Is it an i7 processor? What's the speed of the frontside bus? What are your buffer settings? Have you tried your VI's with a different DAW on your system? I don't think updating your computer is the problem, unless it's guff.

[Stuartfox]

[Edit: to answer the questions: Its a mid 2010 Mac Pro: Xeon 2.93 westmere 12 core system.

Issues replicated mainly in DP and VEP - but also in Kontakt stand alone running just one single instrument with various settings including a freshly formatted drive with a fresh OSX install.]

I know it's not right - but I've been through so much troubleshooting because I was sure there was something wrong and I can't take any more. New HDD's, stripping out all non essential hardware etc... fresh installs of multiple OS's, different RAM...

I tested a basic template that wouldn't run on my current mac pro with a new 4 core demo mac pro in the Apple store and it ran perfectly, although DP's GUI still slows down when the RAM usage gets high.

Right now, since my Mac's still with Apple, I'm testing DP8 on an AMD 6 core machine I put togeather as a test and, although windows feels horrible compared to OSX, everything seems snappier, and more stable. None of the issues at all.

I know my current Mac pro has issues, but I've taken 2 months out and turned away some smaller jobs just to try and get it sorted, Apple have now got involved and are replacing boards... so we'll see how it goes, but ultimately, I dont' think this machine will ever reach my holy grail of a template laid out in front of me with no technical repercussions. Maybe the new mac pro will - I'm not sure as it seems pretty under-powered for the price, but I know the 20 core Carillon system will as I've seen it working with a template double the size of mine!

[mikehalloran]

Your current setup shouldn't be giving you such grief. There are threads on how to spread the VI load among your 12 cores. If you aren't doing that, it may be part or all of the problem.

The new Mac Pro has ThunderBolt, of course. You can throw those three spinners into an external RAID which will speed them up.

OTOH, if you are balancing your load correctly, the easiest and least expensive solution will be to replace your spinners with 1T SSDs. That can be done for around a thousand bucks -- a bit more for the 10 year 850 Pro. Still a lot less than either of your other choices.

[Shooshie]

Stuart, do you have MenuMeters? That's what I use to keep track of how my loads are balancing across 12 cores. If you run a lot of VIs, and if you see that one or two cores are maxing out, but the others are barely moving, then you need to shift the balance. One thread can only run on one core — or so I'm told. I don't exactly believe that, but I guess it depends on how things are programmed to work, and apparently that's how they work at this point in time. Magic Dave, from MOTU, explained this to us. Each instance of a VI will run within one thread. I would have hoped that each OUTPUT of a VI would run one thread, but apparently it's each instance. So, let's assume that it's each instance until we know otherwise.

So, to balance your load across multiple cores, you need to create multiple instance of VIs. If you have an instance of Kontakt, for example, which runs 20 instruments, split it into, say, 5 instances running 4 instruments, or 4 of 5, or whatever works for you. In doing so you will allow the Mac to break it down into more threads and distribute it across more cores.

If that doesn't help, well, maybe you'll figure something else out by studying MenuMeters. I learn a lot about my system, staying constantly informed of what's going on, especially network traffic that I didn't initiate. iCloud drives me crazy, btw, thinking that someone has hacked into my system. I study logs, and have recently learned about an app called Charles Proxy, which promises to help me figure out where that traffic is originating or destined. I'll post about that if it works for me. But in the meantime, MM will help you know what's going on with your system, if you don't already have it.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

Shooshie makes a great point. It's hard to know how to fix the problem if you don't really know what it is.

I don't have Menu Meters but I do have TechTool Pro. V 7.2 or later has accurate meters that show the loads on your cores.

[Shooshie]

The cool thing about MenuMeters is that they are always there, at a glance, and it becomes habitual to glance up and see what's going on. It's helped me out of a lot of binds, as well as satisfying plain old curiosity.

Incidentally, I mentioned an internet utility, Charles Proxy, above. I'm trying it right now. It looks VERY promising, though it's obviously more than I would ever use, myself. It will show you every request or send from your internet connection, in plain English, with times, speeds, durations, latency, etc. all listed for easy determination of what's coming and going. It's also got heavy-duty tools for programmers testing their apps, but I don't need those. I think it costs $50, but I'm using the 30-day free trial. I intend to post about it in the off-topic forum.

I mention it here, because unwanted internet traffic (especially viruses, trojan horses) can clog up your CPU. It's good to know what's going on.

Shoosh

[monkey man]

I agree with Shoosh.

Swear by MenuMeters.

[bayswater]

Like everyone else I think it's your setup and not the age or power of your Mac. You seemed to have covered hardware in the Mac itself. I've seen what looks like CPU overload from plugins not being properly distributed across processors, from timing errors in an interface and from drives that can't deliver samples sample data quickly enough or from not loading enough of the samples into RAM.

If it comes to getting a new computer, I wouldn't shy away from a PC. If I look at it objectively, my preference for a Mac is mostly notalgia. I'm less than thrilled with where Apple has been going recently. I did the 30 day demo of DP on a PC with Windows 7 and it was fine. Once you're in DP the OS you're using is not that apparent, if you can get past those big thick ugly blue menu bars.

If you see a PC with twice the power for half the price put together specifically to work as a DAW it might not be such a bad thing.

[Stuartfox]

Thanks a lot for your thoughts - When I get my Mac Pro back from apple I'll look closely into whats going on when it's not performing as I'd expect. It's worth noting that it can't run a single instrument from Cinestrings in a single stand alone Kontakt at 512 though.

I haven't got MenuMeters so I'll defiantly grab that.

Thanks guys!

[Shooshie]

It's worth noting that it can't run a single instrument from Cinestrings in a single stand alone Kontakt at 512 though.

Ok... I'm starting to think maybe it's hardware. I've seen some effed up operating systems, and Macs so stuffed with terrible shareware (probably some malware) that they crashed all the time, but I don't think I've seen one that couldn't run a single instrument at 512.

Of course, maybe those Cinestrings guys have been over-packing the samples in those strings. They're always trying to sound better than other VI libraries. (joking; those guys post here periodically.)

Shoosh

[Stuartfox]

Script heavy instruments don't work at all without issues, other instruments work at first but stop working if left loaded for a while... example here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a2n6zkn6cqciu ... o.zip?dl=0

But Apple looked into this - agreed something wasn't right but couldn't work out what - so they have replaced the Logic board and processor board to eliminate hardware. I've tried two different sets of RAM and 3 OS drives, 10.8 and 10.10.

It's nice to have reassurance that this isn't normal - but I'm running out of energy and patience with it - I'm not going to list every bit of trouble shooting I've done both on my own and at Apples request - but I took 4 weeks break to concentrate only on this at the end of last year - and I was on it almost full time.

Ideally - Id like to get the mac pro back and get it working enough so that I don't need to think abotu an upgrade until I'm ready....

[mikehalloran]

Sometimes, the source of the hang up is completely unexpected.

After I installed the Finale 2012 demo, my system slowed to a crawl. It turned out that the culprit was Finale 2009 Help files. I found this out by opening Console to see that the library was trying to load when I did anything. As I was using Finale 2011, trashing the culprit restored my system performance.

[pencilina]

Hi Stuart,

Your system's specs are insanely good and it should shred if working properly.

I watched your video. Is there any reason you're using kontakt memory server (KMS)?
This was designed to overcome the memory limit of 32bit hosts. Turn that off in kontakt's prefs and make sure your running everything including DP in 64 bit.

Also what are your buffer settings?
Is your interface's clock set properly?
Have you opened activity monitor while your sys is glitching to see what's using so much processor or disk?

Do you have any DAW expert pals who could come in and check out your setup?

Good luck.
Best,

B

[HCMarkus]

+1 to the all of the above. My hex Mac Pro is not much more than half yours, and runs tons of VIs under buffer 128 like butta' in DP.