Pro Tools has improved a lot over the last 2 years, but...

[audiolex1]

Originally Posted by cmbourget

I worked on a Mac for a while, first with a cheesy Mac Pro rape, then with an iMAc 5K. I liked the Mac Pro, beautiful and solid, but I didn't like the iMac (except for the superb screen), whose hybrid disk, finally placed between your two eyes, made as much noise as a hair dryer, which is not recommended for mixing classical music... Then I learned to love Magix's Samplitude, which is only available on PC. After two or three years, I switched to a big AMD. That was a mistake. I should at least have stayed with Intel. But my decision to go for a PC was taken in view of the incessant changes in MACs, chips, O/S, models and so on. A 2-3 year mess. But it looks like things are stabilizing. I'm waiting until early 2024, and I'll be back to Mac with a powerful Mac Studio. We'll see what Apple offers in 2024. I'll probably come back to Pro Tools too. For the moment, because of Atmos, I had chosen Nuendo, which has its own renderer, as Pro Tools will soon have. Nuendo has undeniable great qualities, and its memory management (for virtual instruments) is superior to PT, but I learned with PT and it stays in my memory.

I did the "buy" older models with MAC for compatibility sticking with the 5,1 cheese grater and just updating it. Its a work horse.
However, when the silicone came out I knew staying in the past was going to bite me, so I first got a MBpro 10 core with32 gigs of Ram.

Sat in the box for 6 months. But when things started working it was great. But a lot still doesn't work with it.
It mostly sits unused as I have to make major changed in my studio to implement it as it is my mobile rig, so I'm waiting for the strikes to end so work comes back over the hill.

Several outboard products to buys, PCIe chassis, hubs etc which are going to cost a few extra k's
Every OS that comes out on a new machine is a 6 month wait. Buy eventually everything Weill be there. Even if investing forward is a brick in the back in a box, it will work going forward.
Its the weirdest thing forward thinking. Future proof.

[elangab]

Originally Posted by CygnusX-1Bk2

Just another of a myriad of reasons to avoid Windows....I mean, the main drive is still labeled as "C" because A and B were reserved for floppy drives.

Each OS has it's cons and pros, but this time OP's issue is Avid's fault. The Windows version of PT started as a lazy port, Avid can and should make it excel on modern PCs. This is a basic feature, which many apps supports. Avid recodes PT for every Apple change, as it did with the M1 CPUs, so no reason to take some time to re-code PT on PC as a modern app.

As for the "C", I don't understand why does it matter? A user can hide the letters of the drives from view, and it's there for backwards compatibility, which is one of Windows' biggest strengths.

This is not to say Windows is "better", as for each his own and the workflow that they prefer.

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by Sardi

I’ve seen them called many things before, but never a ‘cheesy Mac Pro rape’!!


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It's the translation! I was talking about the cheese grater. A 5.1. with updated processor and graphics card (as far as possible...).

[sw rec]

“Just another of a myriad of reasons to avoid Windows....I mean, the main drive is still labeled as "C" because A and B were reserved for floppy drives.“

Ooh, glad you said something!!! I’ll recall over 15 years of thousands of successful projects completed on my Pro Tools Windows systems (the latest which is still in use in my dub room, running INTRO.) I had plausible reasons for going MAC Studio, but reliability was not one of them. I’ve always gotten my stuff done on both platforms. And agreed, who cares what the drive letter is?

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by cmbourget

It's the translation! I was talking about the cheese grater. A 5.1. with updated processor and graphics card (as far as possible...).

Cheese graters are still great. I myself would have updated 2009 Nehalem to latest spec but there is no point as HD cards can not move forward software wise. Cheese graters can also take Thunderbolt card !!!

With that said current Mac Mini is more powerful in all ways you can imagine. But we are talking about 15 year difference here.

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Cheese graters are still great. I myself would have updated 2009 Nehalem to latest spec but there is no point as HD cards can not move forward software wise. Cheese graters can also take Thunderbolt card !!!

With that said current Mac Mini is more powerful in all ways you can imagine. But we are talking about 15 year difference here.

Do you think it's a good buy? I have no idea how it will perform in, say, an Atmos session with 300 tracks (which I'm currently doing on my PC). I'm inclined to go for a Mac Pro M2, or at least a MAc Studio. But you say that the Mini is surprising (if I understand correctly)? Can you expand on your comment?

[JFreak]

Mini M1 is much much more powerful than my 2009 Nehalem Mac Pro with HD3 cards. Even though the Mini only has 16GB memory vs. 48GB in the cheese grater. Everything is snappier.

The power of cheese grater lies in the HD cards it can hold. You get the same performance as with every other computer eating HD cards. But that's it. If you need to go native, cheese grater feels weak now.

[resonatee]

I would not be so sure about Mini M1 being so powerful vs the old Cheesegrater. Check this comparison video of a post production session
with Mac Mini M1 vs. Mac Pro 5.1 vs. Mac Pro 7.1:

https://youtu.be/yCgXHWzOIsI

"We even tried out different operating systems to see if this played a role in CPU performance, which it didn't, and the RAM configuration for the Mac Pro 5.1 and Mac Mini was 16GB, while the minimum configuration for the Mac Pro 7.1 was 32GB. With more RAM in the two workstations the difference becomes even bigger, but we didn't want a performance comparison of different RAM configurations but a CPU comparison that is as reliable as possible. Newer processors will follow as soon as they are supported by Pro Tools or at least run stable."

This was surely done with Rosetta on M1. Anyone care to download the session and post the result? I would not bet much on the M1 though...

[LDS]

Originally Posted by resonatee

I would not be so sure about Mini M1 being so powerful vs the old Cheesegrater. Check this comparison video of a post production session
with Mac Mini M1 vs. Mac Pro 5.1 vs. Mac Pro 7.1:

https://youtu.be/yCgXHWzOIsI

"We even tried out different operating systems to see if this played a role in CPU performance, which it didn't, and the RAM configuration for the Mac Pro 5.1 and Mac Mini was 16GB, while the minimum configuration for the Mac Pro 7.1 was 32GB. With more RAM in the two workstations the difference becomes even bigger, but we didn't want a performance comparison of different RAM configurations but a CPU comparison that is as reliable as possible. Newer processors will follow as soon as they are supported by Pro Tools or at least run stable."

This was surely done with Rosetta on M1. Anyone care to download the session and post the result? I would not bet much on the M1 though...

I would expect any modern native system to beat a HD3 rig. Those old TDM systems drastically limited the amount of native system power accessible to Pro Tools. It is when they were ultimately turfed and HDX came along.

With that said, I’ve never had a compact computer that lives up to its CPU benchmarks. Mac minis, MacBooks, Macbooks Pros, etc. With very similar system specs the workstations always win with flying colours. It is probably just the reality of jamming so much into such small spaces. There must be compromises in doing that.

The big caveat with the old 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros is the peripheral stuff outside of CPU and RAM. With only SATA2 connectivity, USB2 and three PCIe slots, most people inevitably suffer through some really lacklustre performance compared to moderb systems in one way or another.

[resonatee]

Originally Posted by LDS

I would expect any modern native system to beat a HD3 rig.

These are all native rigs. No HD cards inside. A mac mini M1 is overloaded while the same session ~300 tracks plays back with 30-40% cpu usage on a cMP. The same amount of memory.