Horrible VI performance when recording in 2019.10!

[TNM]

WOW.. I am completely shocked.. I only installed 2019.10 on the laptop today.. I am thankful I haven't installed on the imac pro yet.. I am still on the final version of PT12 on the imac pro, yes, even with OS 10.13.6 (i work at 128 buffer so the issue doesn't happen anyway). I am planning on putting Mojave o tomorrow and upgrading to PT 2019.10..
.. but now, I am literally scared to install it on my imac pro...!

As some of you know.. I have done extensive DSP tests vs various DAWs.. and pro tools was always the worst when it came to arming tracks at 32 or 64 buffer.. However, at 128 buffer, I was getting more VI instances vs logic/S1/Reaper/Cubase.

Now, PT is actually a tad worse than S1!

I tested 5 different VI's in the last 3 hours. Let's take some example results.

When tracks are NOT armed, and Pro tools has placed the VI's on the hybrid buffer, performance is excellent as expected.. On par with all the other DAWs that use hybrid buffers.

When tracks are armed, if Logic can say do 8 of a particular VI at 128 buffer (and 2 at 32 and 4 at 64 buffer), Pro tools can only do 1 or 2 at 128 buffer! Zero at 32 or 64.
Sample rate is just 44.1K for this test.
S1 can do 2 reliably.
They are the only 3 DAWS I tested between at present and I will not be going further as I don't need to.

Pro tools used to beat Logic.. THRASH it, at 128 buffer for amount of tracks record armed.. The reason was simple.. Logic puts "live tracks" on only half the available cores.. whereas PT uses all of them.
So now, the performance is basically 5 times WORSE than Logic rather than almost twice as good!

And all this talk about low buffer optimisations etc...

Now, does anyone think this could be because the laptop is only on sierra, and i'll be safe on Mojave with 2019.10 and get the good performance I am used to?

I am quite shocked.. no exaggeration.. I can't believe how poorly it's performing. I am about to do some tests at 256 buffer to see if that's any better, but that's way too high to play VI's when at 44K.

Anyone have similar or different experiences?

Cheers

[TNM]

Ok.. even at 256 buffer/44.1 K, i can only get 4 of the VI armed...
I'll try sylenth which is super well optimised and see how that goes next.

So there is something seriously wrong here...

Not only that, when I reloaded my project, one of the tracks needed it's midi output routed back to the VI.

I really thought this would be fixed in 2019. I am really shocked.. This was supposed to be fixed AGES ago... Why the F did I just buy another year of support?

What FOR? What do they actually DO over there?

[Southsidemusic]

Well works GREAT here on both our trashcans and on my MBP 2019 so something is wrong somewhere. If this was widespread we wouldn’t have zero posts a out it. I can arm and record many VI at onge but why would I? One or two at the same time is plenty. Also what you describe about bad at 128 etc etc we run at 64 buffer and works perfect. As we live off this we would have noticed if there was a problem and 64 buffer size on 2 of the Apollo X8P’s and X16 Apollo.

Ine trashcan on High sierra and one on Mojave. My MBP came with Mojave but I tried on my older MBP 2017 and it was the same steady rolling with Sierra 10.12.6.

All Macs have Pro Tools Ultimate (HD 2019.10) ...

[TNM]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Well works GREAT here on both our trashcans and on my MBP 2019 so something is wrong somewhere. If this was widespread we wouldn’t have zero posts a out it. I can arm and record many VI at onge but why would I? One or two at the same time is plenty. Also what you describe about bad at 128 etc etc we run at 64 buffer and works perfect. As we live off this we would have noticed if there was a problem and 64 buffer size on 2 of the Apollo X8P’s and X16 Apollo.

Ine trashcan on High sierra and one on Mojave. My MBP came with Mojave but I tried on my older MBP 2017 and it was the same steady rolling with Sierra 10.12.6.

All Macs have Pro Tools Ultimate (HD 2019.10) ...

Well it could be that PT doesn't like the inbuilt core audio driver of the macbook audio out.. who knows..
The previous problem I had was completely confirmed by support.. so...it was supposed to be fixed..
As I said, previously to 2019.10, with pro tools 12.8.4, on the same macbook, I could run 5x the amount of armed VI's than I can now.. 128 buffer was GREAT..

Only 32 and 64 was a problem.

In 4 years though I have never been able to play Vi's in pro tools at 32 or 64 buffer.. including not on my imac pro.. Even with one Vi armed all cores get loaded when only one core should be loaded.. this was what was supposed to be fixed recently..
All the others I have spoken to say they can do it on windows but have a lot of trouble on mac, like me. I guess you are lucky. I am envious!

As far as why? It's a representative test that applies to audio tracks as well. Pro tools can not handle live audio tracks (well at least not for me) with effects if they are at ultra low buffer.. Of course I like to have the maximum 32 inputs armed at once so I can record all outboard in one pass. This is why I went to UAD, cause Logic could do all 32 inputs at *32 buffer* but PT had to be set to 128 which is way too high for external input monitoring.
Arming multiple VI tracks is a very good way to test how the system reacts at low buffers and how well it multithreads.

Also, I noticed that if the project is a bit busy, even arming just one track can send it over the edge... where as logic is happily chugging along.. S1 is the same.. even arming one track it goes crazy.. Cubase is more well behaved in this regards as is reaper.

I was hoping it was a sierra problem but if you are telling me you use 2019.10 with sierra and no issues, well, what can I say.

I am buying a new laptop soon, 8 core, 64gb ram, so will see how we go then.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by TNM

I am buying a new laptop soon, 8 core, 64gb ram, so will see how we go then.

Good for you. This is the new 16" model, right? You are aware that it ships with Catalina and cannot be downgraded, aren't you? PT is not even launching on Catalina as of now, will have to wait for the supported release.

[capt kirk]

No Catalina! Wow, I cant wait for the next operating system so I can go thru this every 18 months ......

[albee1952]

Blame Apple for the OS debacle. Back to the VI's, it might help to actually mention WHICH VI plugins you are using(so others with those can give more detailed replies) Also, have you considered off-loading VI's with Vienna? I haven't used it, but many swear by it.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Good for you. This is the new 16" model, right? You are aware that it ships with Catalina and cannot be downgraded, aren't you? PT is not even launching on Catalina as of now, will have to wait for the supported release.

Actually no.. I wanted it but purely because of Catalina I have either 1) decided to buy a 2019 refurb 15 which can max out at 32Gb ram and can use MowJayv (jk), 2) or a 17" windows laptop with 9980HK that I can put 64GB ram in and basically it's as fast as my imac pro and even faster single core (good for VI).
Very good laptop with great latencymon results and 3 drive slots.. I have configured one with 64Gb ram, 5TB worth of SSD's via the 3 bays, the 9980HK and the RTX 2070 for the same price as an 8 core, 32gb ram, 2TB ssd, Vega 20 refurb. The performance will spank the mac as this is able to sustain 4ghz on all cores without tweaks, vs 2.8 ish ghz under load on the macbook pros! Huge difference. With some undervolting you can get the maximum 4.2 all core turbo that the cpu is capable of.
If I go this route I'll eventually sell the imac pro and have one computer for everything.. I have been using bootcamp a lot the last 6 months and planning to migrate to windows for some time.. The Catalina shenanigans was pretty much the final straw. Only good news about Catalina is that Apple have done so much to break backward compatibility that once apps are Catalina compatible they might be OK for the next couple OS lol cause there's not much more Apple can do to break things. I am not interested in any mac that has to run Catalina, which is why the mac pro and 16" macbook are not an option. Cheers.

[JFreak]

I also like my trusty old Commodore 64 because it is 8bit and cannot even access more than 64kB of memory so everything is maxed out, and the sound chip is incredible. Oh wait, that was early 80's and the "USB sticks" (called floppy disks at the time) were size of a book and held a whopping 360kB per side.

Sarcasm aside; Apple is doing us a favor here by forcing 64bit. Of course nobody needs to run Catalina from day one but eventually it will be good. Having to say goodbye to some old software is a welcome change for me, but with that said I can see myself using Mojave for quite some time.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Blame Apple for the OS debacle. Back to the VI's, it might help to actually mention WHICH VI plugins you are using(so others with those can give more detailed replies) Also, have you considered off-loading VI's with Vienna? I haven't used it, but many swear by it.

I have thoroughly tested vienna ensemble pro on my imac pro, a 14 core imac pro, a 10 core trashcan (OWC refurb with the unique 10 core option) and my lowly macbook pro.. In all cases it added latency and drastically reduced the number of VI's I could run on the one machine. It's only useful for multiple computers as DAW multithreading is so advanced these days, that VE Pro is a hindrance to use on the same machine as DAW. The only possible use I can think of is cause of templates and big orchestral sessions, it could be a better workflow option for those doing big orchestral projects (for example) But to help performance? No, it doesn't, not in any way shape or form.

Sure.. Breaktweaker, Sylenth, String Studio, Fab Filter Twin 2, Kontakt 5(Kontakt's own multi threading disabled).
These are the ones I have always used in my DSP testing the last 2 years.. because it allows me to get useful results by comparing the same VI's in various PT and other DAW versions. This is why I didn't mention them (sorry) because I didn't think it mattered cause the same ones on the same computer provided drastically more instances at the same buffer settings in 12.8.4.

If anyone has one in particular they want me to test, I'll be happy to.