Please get RTAS up to snuff!!

[michael c]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

I've had the opposite experience as all of you. I'm running a PPC dual 2.5GHz G5 Mac with 8GB of RAM, PTHD3 Accel running 7.4cs5 on OS10.4.11. I don't have any problems running VI's in protools at all, and I do music for Movies, TV shows and Movie Trailers. 90 to 150 tracks in a session is common for me. I have Mach5 2, Atmosphere/StylusRMX/Trilogy, NI Komplete, EWQLSO PlatinumProXP, Symphonic Choirs, Storm Drums, and so on and so forth...

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I used to be able to run sessions with these plug-ins with my G5 (we now are on the latest Mac 8 core) but the problem was I only could use 1 or 2 Atmos, 1 Trilogy and just a few instruments in 1 instance of EWQLSO before I would crash. This was with 8 gigs of RAM and SATA disks. Composers I know would be able to run MUCH more instances of these plugs with AU or VST. I also do music for Film and TV and it is a drag trying to make short deadlines and run VIs in ProTools.....

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by michael c

I used to be able to run sessions with these plug-ins with my G5 (we now are on the latest Mac 8 core) but the problem was I only could use 1 or 2 Atmos, 1 Trilogy and just a few instruments in 1 instance of EWQLSO before I would crash. This was with 8 gigs of RAM and SATA disks. Composers I know would be able to run MUCH more instances of these plugs with AU or VST. I also do music for Film and TV and it is a drag trying to make short deadlines and run VIs in ProTools.....

weird... I commonly have about 3 or 4 atmos, one trilogy, one mach 5, two EWQLSO Strings, one EWQLSO Brass, One EWQLSO Perc, one EWQLSO Woodwind, EZ Drummer or Addictive Drums, one Virus TI, One Mach 5 v2, one Hybrid and sometimes an FM8. I don't have any problems. Were you using LE or HD?

[AG]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

weird... I commonly have about 3 or 4 atmos, one trilogy, one mach 5, two EWQLSO Strings, one EWQLSO Brass, One EWQLSO Perc, one EWQLSO Woodwind, EZ Drummer or Addictive Drums, one Virus TI, One Mach 5 v2, one Hybrid and sometimes an FM8. I don't have any problems. Were you using LE or HD?

Is that just 16 patches/tracks? Or, for example, when you say "two EWQLSO Strings", do you mean 2 banks of articulations, which could mean 16 patches/tracks just for strings? Also are you talking about solo instruments or ensemble? How many and what kind of patches are you able to play back at the same time? In your above example, if each instance is only playing back one patch/track, that isn't very much.

In order to determine rtas results, you really have to figure out how big each sample is that you're using. I mean if you have 100 tracks, each triggering a 5mb sample (500mb's of samples)) it's going to give you much better performance than if each sample is 50mb's (5000 mb's of samples). This is the only way to accurately compare the results we're getting.

Curious, for the EWQLSO samples are you using Kompakt, Kontakt or Play? Did you get a chance to compare the results between them?

I'd be interested to see you guys do a comparison test. Load up the same EWQLSO patch, multiple times and playing back identical polyphony, with the same buffer setting, sampler, etc, O.G. Killa on the G5 and michael c on the Mac 8 core to see how much difference there really is between these two machines using rtas. Without identical ram, OS's, etc, this wouldn't be a perfect test, but might still be interesting.

Guys? Or anybody?

[michael c]

Since we switched over to an 8 core, I can't tell if we have any more power or not because I don't feel ProTools/Leopard runs as smoothly as our G5/ProTools/Tiger set up. (This is an HD2 Accel set up)

We had issues with RTAS with our G5 set up as far as lack of power and the usual Kontakt issues, but the new 8 core/Leopard set up is a bit buggy for us and we crash or have freezes for the 1st time. We currently aren't running any NI software or any Spectrasonics software (except RMX). So by being forced to move to the latest 8 core machine (our G5 died) we have less tools to work with as well as a less stable environment.....

[fasttraxx]

Originally Posted by michael c

Since we switched over to an 8 core, I can't tell if we have any more power or not because I don't feel ProTools/Leopard runs as smoothly as our G5/ProTools/Tiger set up. (This is an HD2 Accel set up)

We had issues with RTAS with our G5 set up as far as lack of power and the usual Kontakt issues, but the new 8 core/Leopard set up is a bit buggy for us and we crash or have freezes for the 1st time. We currently aren't running any NI software or any Spectrasonics software (except RMX). So by being forced to move to the latest 8 core machine (our G5 died) we have less tools to work with as well as a less stable environment.....

All I know is since I started using PT 7.4 I have had many crashes that I did not use to have prior.
I am currently running OS 10.4.11 and PT 7.4 cs6. I think PT 7.4cs2 was more stable for me. And that wasn't that stable. I don't know what's going on with PT 7.4, but something is different. I have been trying several different things to try resolve each issues, but new ones keeping popping up.

[burningbusch]

I'm not seeing huge differences between RTAS and AU. I created a test file in PT with the following VIs : Stylus RMX (3 tracks), GForce Minimonsta, Absynth4, Massive, B4II, TruePianos, and FM8.

On my Macbook (black) 2.4Ghz CoreDuo, 4GBRAM, 250GB HD, Leopard. I tried the file in PT LE 7.4.2 (MBox2 micro); Logic Studio and Live 7. In all cases buffer was set to 512. Logic and Live ran off a TC Electronic Konnekt 24. With PT the RTAS meter showed ~30%; Live at 33% on average. With Logic the bottom meter was hitting 50% regularly and the top jumping between 20% and 40%.

On my G5 Dual 2.0Ghz 4GB RAM; OSX 10.4.11 I tried the test file on PT 7.4 HD (Accel 2.5 system) and found RTAS usage at ~50%. With Live it read 50% on average. The bottom meter in Logic was peaking in the red on occasion with the top jumping up to 50%. It's hard to judge the Logic meters as they tend to be jumpier. Again, in all cases the buffer size was 512.

My conclusion is there isn't a major difference between RTAS and AU on my two systems using the VIs I chose (I have a limited set of plugins on my laptop as I use it in live performance and don't want it loaded with unnecessary stuff). I am contemplating an 8-core to replace the G5. Maybe Logic will show advantage as it purportedly makes better use of all the procs.

Busch.

[tripit]

Originally Posted by michael c

Since we switched over to an 8 core, I can't tell if we have any more power or not because I don't feel ProTools/Leopard runs as smoothly as our G5/ProTools/Tiger set up. (This is an HD2 Accel set up)

We had issues with RTAS with our G5 set up as far as lack of power and the usual Kontakt issues, but the new 8 core/Leopard set up is a bit buggy for us and we crash or have freezes for the 1st time. We currently aren't running any NI software or any Spectrasonics software (except RMX). So by being forced to move to the latest 8 core machine (our G5 died) we have less tools to work with as well as a less stable environment.....

I found the main issue was the 8 core with Leopard. The same 8 core with Tiger works pretty well. Leopard / Protools and VI are not working well at all. I can bring it down with one VI plug and nothing else - the dreaded RTAS CPU usage error pops up as soon as you start putting even a small load on just about any VI.

[AG]

Hey Busch, thanks for taking the time to do the tests.

I'm a little bit suprised that you were only able to see a 20% improvement from the G5 dual 2.0 to the MacBook 2.4Ghz CoreDuo.

On my Macbook 2.4Ghz CoreDuo....RTAS meter showed ~30%

On my G5 Dual 2.0Ghz......RTAS usage at ~50%

Also a little surprised that RTAS kept up with Logic.

My conclusion is there isn't a major difference between RTAS and AU on my two systems.

I was going to keep ProTools on a G5 and get an 8 core just for Logic, but will wait it out a little bit longer.

[JohnO]

I also use PT (LE on MBox 2 Pro) and Logic 8 and have to say I find little or no difference, esp using 3rd party plug-ins like Amplitube 2, Kontakt, Reaktor, etc.

Logic has some issues that drove me right back to PT. Using 3rd party plug-ins in Logic can cause all kinds of little annoyances like the buffer playing out after hitting stop/play. Screen redraw sometimes way off from what's playing back. First MIDI note not playing without starting a few ms back. Same with automation. That coupled with no settable pre-roll drove me nuts.

These things never happen in PT with RTAS, whatever it's flaws. I LIKE it that Digi has a firm control over the RTAS protocol. Keeps things working.

Of course I'd like RTAS to be more efficient, but I use it every day and get 'er done!