Pro Tools 2023 Apple Silicon Native - Video Engine/Vi Performance

[resonatee]

Hello,
so now the AS Native version is out, what are your experiences with Avid Video Engine and Virtual Instruments? Did they change anything benefitting composers under the hood? Or it is the same code just recompiled for the AS?

I am asking especially composers and post production mixers about:

1) Video Engine reliability (prone to errors) and performance
2) VI Instruments low latency performance and CPU hit, especially when using a larger, disabled template

Any reports welcome.....

[gives]

Originally Posted by resonatee

Hello,
so now the AS Native version is out, what are your experiences with Avid Video Engine and Virtual Instruments? Did they change anything benefitting composers under the hood? Or it is the same code just recompiled for the AS?

I am asking especially composers and post production mixers about:

1) Video Engine reliability (prone to errors) and performance
2) VI Instruments low latency performance and CPU hit, especially when using a larger, disabled template

Any reports welcome.....

This may help as I see you are on an unsupported OS as shown on your signature. I have had no issues on Monterey here, but will do more testing.
System Requirements

macOS:
- macOS Catalina 10.15.7 - Ventura 13.2.0
- M2, M1 or Intel Dual Core i5 or faster
For more information on supported computer models, please click here.

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...rating-Systems

[basharar1]

It seems more stable than under rosseta for sure, but I still can’t bounce a movie more than one time without restarting, otherwise Protools would lock and spin…

[ejsongs]

Originally Posted by resonatee

Hello,
so now the AS Native version is out, what are your experiences with Avid Video Engine and Virtual Instruments? Did they change anything benefitting composers under the hood? Or it is the same code just recompiled for the AS?

I am asking especially composers and post production mixers about:

1) Video Engine reliability (prone to errors) and performance
2) VI Instruments low latency performance and CPU hit, especially when using a larger, disabled template

Any reports welcome.....

I upgraded my cMP to run Monterey. Vi performance seems slightly better. I Will see today if i still get vi drop outs. My system is sluggish instaciating vi’s but I’m able to get through full productions and mixes

[Eric Lambert]

I haven't used PT Native w/ video enough to judge but I'll keep an eye on it now that I'm in Native more often. There have been MANY "video engine stopped unexpectedly" in the past so I also hope that they've ironed this out.

I've not had any VI issues w/ PT 2022.12 that were attributable to PT itself, but I've had plenty of issues with individual VIs where I'd have to put the blame on the plugin developers. In other words, PT is a decent enough platform for VIs.

But could it improve? Probably. Kicking Rosetta out of bed can't hurt.

[Rectifried]

As somebody who has used VIs
I tried for the better part of two decades to get Protools to just work where I can go forward without always juggling resources… Five years ago I just needed a second DAW so I could create without this knife edge…

Using an old license from ableton live I updated it and realized I could just go forward pretty quickly doing whatever I needed to and if I had a limit I would get a little crackling…
As opposed to One day Protools I could run a couple of things next day even one contact instance would go Into a tailspin
This was the same version of kontact on either DAW
one could run many reliably, one PT was so erratic that I could not rely on it… So let’s get back to the subject at hand
but I just wanted to point out the same plug-ins that work fine… And I mean fine- in other DAW’s
all of a sudden a problem for ProTools
Even after us waiting through years of their transition out of TDM to a X etc. it seems to be some sort of garbage pit of zeros and ones that quagmire they create

[gives]

I'll report when I can, but I have been running Rosetta 2 for months and never really tried to use the Beta Native, simply because in my world I could not afford to not have access to plugins I used constantly. I will run some tests here and get back to folks on this, but with all that has changed in the last year in my room, I am just happy to have a new Mac Studio operational and am on Monterey by choice for work. Saw no need to update to Ventura at all even though it's approved. I felt it was not ready for prime time for my use.

Excited about the Native ProTools, but am guessing for me I am not sure it's really necessary at this point, but welcome it when it is even more solid. I just upgraded to the new version last night at 9pm and have not run a session other than to get things all setup. Had to install the Hardware Driver twice for some reason, but it's fine now.

THE MOVIE Bounce is I feel an Apple related issue, but hope they get it sorted out. It seems to come and go with crashes, but not really had any lately in the prior 2022.12 or even earlier. One day it happened all the time after a couple of movie bounces, but then either logged out or restarted made it perform normally.
It always seems to happen when I need it quick. Hah.

G

[Eric Lambert]

The only issue I have is with Arcade which has can get caught in a loop when too many instances of Arcade are present. Hit stop and the samples keep playing. This has been a problem for years and Output can't seem to fix it. Coworkers who use Logic say that they don't get the same issue. But this is simply a matter of the plugin not receiving "off" messages.

On a well-configured system there shouldn't be any PT-specific VI issues that I'm aware of. Kontakt's issues aren't exclusive to PT, and V7 seems to have fixed many things. It's certainly working well here.

[massivekerry]

I don't run video in Pro Tools (unless I'm doing an audio-only layback mix against VO/SFX), and that has been a big help. I keep the video in NLA's Video Sync. As a reminder, always make your vids ProRes or DNxHD, and don't load MP4s in your DAW or Video Sync. That will help a lot.

I haven't had many problems with Vis in PT since I offloaded the video 7 years ago. I run a lot of VIs of different sorts, and learned to manage it pretty well on my old Mac Pro 5,1. It would protest at times if I was mixing and had a load of active VI tracks, with a lot of ML-powered plugins (Soothe2, Gullfoss, Ozone, etc). Since I replaced it with a Mac Studio 4 months ago, I've had ZERO VI problems. I mean running sessions with 2 drum VIs, a suite of orchestral percussion, full sections of orchestra, vocals, a few synth parts... It's been great. My template is made up of a ton of disabled tracks (and disabled plugins on audio/aux tracks). I've fiddled a bit with the AS native version, but since I'd have to convert all of my Kontakt instances to Kontakt 7 instances MANUALLY, I haven't fully dived in. But it does seem like the VIs that have been adapted to Silicon in my template all seem to work really smoothly.

FWIW, I do work in stereo at 48k, so I can't speak ti pushing it to 5.1 at 96k, etc...

[Dizaineris]

Been running PT in Native with Video, ProRes, DNxHD all weekend.
Mixing a relatively small sized Atmos Session(300 voices) with latest Dolby DAR.5.0
Lots of Cinematic Rooms, Seventh Heaven, Echo-Boy
Halo Upmix w/3D
Elixir Limiters, FabFilter eq/comp/de-ess

No issues. Snappy and solid performance.




Pro Tools 2023.3
Ventura 13.2.1


just need Stratus 3D to go native