Hello Everyone
Just wanted to share the results of my recent experiments with VE Pro (version 4.1.6853). I am very happy with my results.
My main machine is a Mac Pro 2.8Ghz 8 core, 20Gb memory.
Network test machine 1 – MacBook Pro C2D 2.66Ghz, 4Gb memory.
Network test machine 2 – Mac Mini C2D 1.83Ghz, 2Gb memory.
Network test machine 3 – Dell Dimension E520, C2D 1.83Ghz, 3Gb memory.
As you can see, I have deliberately chosen network machines that are not very high specification.
I wanted to see just how much overhead VE Pro incurred when being used over a network.
My first test file uses a single instance of VE Pro containing 16 Vienna Instruments (each with single patches from the Special Edition).
When running both Logic and the VE Pro server on my main machine Logic was using about 40% CPU, and VE Pro about 125%. I say “about” because I am taking the readings from Activity Monitor, and they are not constant.
For all the remaining tests, I still used Logic as the master from my main machine, and moved the server to each of my Network test machines. First thing of interest is that the Logic usage dropped to about 35% when running the server on a remote machine – a nice little bonus. The MacBook Pro ran at about 120%, Mac Mini at 140% and the PC at 88%. The processor in the MacBook Pro is later and faster than that of the Mac Mini so these good results are what I expected.
The second test was with a similar project, except that each of the 16 instances of VI returned on their own audio channel (and consequently mixed in Logic and not in VE Pro). I wanted to see how much difference this extra traffic would make. The interesting thing is that there was virtually no difference in CPU usage. A few percent more, but that’s about it.
My final test was using a full laden 2.5Gb version of the server, with multiple articulations loaded and used. I couldn’t run this test on the Mac Mini or PC due to lack of memory, but on the MacBook Pro it again worked well, and only pushed the server CPU up by a few percent.
So I am very happy with performance and look forward to purchasing a more worthy server machine soon.
Incidentally, the reason I went through all these tests is because I originally did the same thing with the Vienna SE Demo – and although it worked ok on my main machine, the Logic CPU usage skyrocketed to about 300%-400% when running the server on a network machine. I still don’t know why, but one day I’ll have a proper look inside that demo project.
I’d be very interested to hear anyone else’s performance results.
All the best