Will dual CPU's make life easier (finally)?

[LEV]

My system is based on a PIII@700MHz with 512 MB of RAM.
I have the digi001 and a Pulsar2 (connected via ADAT). I also use Acid Pro 3.0 for creating drumtracks.
When I launch these three programs, I have to be pasient and not push my system to hard.

If PTLE 5.2 is going to support WinXP (ASIO would be nice too [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]), wouldn't that mean that we could have one CPU that's reserved for digi001/PTLE, and the other taking care of the rest?

How about this:
Asus A7M266-D Socket A Dual MP AMD760MPX, ATA100, ATX 266MHz FSB, 1GB+++ RAM and two Palaminos at high rate...

Or is this just a dream?

Thanks,

Lars

[Ultraslide]

My guess is that only XP home edition will be supported by digi001. Which means , no dual cpu. Sorry to say but this is just a guess. I hope I'm wrong.

L8R

[yavuzj]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Ultraslide:
My guess is that only XP home edition will be supported by digi001<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I do not think this is possible. Meaning, if you have a working XP driver it will WORK in XP Pro.

[Ultraslide]

Not as far as dual CPU support goes. The app has to support dual cpus. This has been a split between Digidesign Pro and Home versions so far, even on the MAC OS . I dont see hey it wouldn't continue.

[yavuzj]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Ultraslide:
Not as far as dual CPU support goes. The app has to support dual cpus. This has been a split between Digidesign Pro and Home versions so far, even on the MAC OS . I dont see hey it wouldn't continue.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

To answer that I will quote from to seperate posts of David Summick who is a Digi Programmer...

"The cool thing about dual processor support on the PC is that it is inherent to the OS. Unlike the Mac, no special programming is needed to take advantage of it. Bonus"

"Anyway, here is the MP claification. When I said inherent, I was referring to the OS that we were discussing on this thread, which is XP. I did not mean to infer any other OS than that. I stand by my statement that if you get MP support for free on XP. Why? Because the OS knows how to allocate threads on different processors. While PT does the majority of its work in a single thread, and therefore, on a single processor, the OS will offload other processes onto the second processor like video routines and general OS functions, so you will notice an improvement in performance. It won't be of the 2x more plugins variety that I am sure all of you are hoping for, but an improvement nonetheless with zero development time."


Now, Cubase has Advanced Multi Processor Supprt which can give you 70 to 80 % increase in Plugin Power. However, Even the Native XP MP Supprt should give you 30-40 % increase in power. Most Importantly you should be able to run a Stable PT LE even when your CPU is around 90% where before you would start to get errors over 70-80 %.

[peteri]

Sorry not strictly true - in the case of a o/s like Win XP pro that is designed with dual processors in mind.

Because of this XP automatically handles the thread management, i.e. allocating the tasks to whichever processor is suitable, not the application.

What the application has to do to take real advantage is to use multiple threads - meaning start small 'sub-processes' for each activity.

Case in point - I tried Cubase on my dual XP Pro machine last night - just to compare it to my TDM power (getting there I have to say) - now the CPU meter in Cubase reports 100% usage, whereas the performance meter in Windows showed the first processor fully used, the second about 25% (hence what Cubase was reporting), and the machine was working perfectly.

This would be the same with Os X on the Mac.

Contrast this with the function of (say) Logic on a dual processor mac running os 9.x. Here the o/s is not true dual processor/multi-threaded, so the application has to manage the processor load and threading - therefore Logic on dual 9.1 is far less powerful than the same machine under OS x - because the model Emagic used was quite coarse - one processor for midi, one for audio - obviously an uneven slant.

Same thing for Cubase funnily enough.

Hope this helps

Pete

[yavuzj]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by peteri:
now the CPU meter in Cubase reports 100% usage, whereas the performance meter in Windows showed the first processor fully used, the second about 25% (hence what Cubase was reporting), and the machine was working perfectly.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, if you check the "Advanced Multi Processor Supprt" option you should be able to seel that both Processors are almost running in parallel. I have seen this. Cubase meter fluctuates a lot more when you check "Advanced Multi Processor Supprt".

I had a Dual P3 850 and i was running Cubase on my Win2K Partition with an RME Digi96/8 PST Last year. I loved the Dual Processor. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Ultraslide]

Thanks for the clarity Yavuz ... You da man.

[yavuzj]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Ultraslide:
You da man.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wish that was true. We would have all the wanted features and XP Support. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[GP]

I had a Dual P3 850 and i was running Cubase on my Win2K Partition with an RME Digi96/8 PST Last year. I loved the Dual Processor.
Cubase 3.7r worked in win2k with dual support? You did say last year..... [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]