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  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC

    good to hear everything works flawless with your 8-core, jbm - its just that several reports reached my desk that USB gets lost unexpectedly.

    i've been under the impression the new macPro is using the E5472 XEON with an intel 5000 family chipset and here i'm considering the processor bus to be too small for 8 cores (or better: for what 8 cores could process in the sampling world)

    christian

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • J
    J
    Hey Christian.

    Yeah, it's a 5400 of some kind... I'm not sure exactly which one (you're probably right about 5472). I actually did have my mouse disappear when I first booted the machine, but I updated to the latest Logitech drivers, and it's been fine since - so I assumed it was a driver issue. I'll be interested to see if it continues to stay put now. But my m-Audio keyboard (class-compliant USB, thank god - no need to rely on m-Audio _writing_ a driver) has been totally fine. What do you care about USB anyway! ;-)

    Interesting about the bus - I wasn't aware of that potential bottleneck. Mind you, it doesn't seem like much of anything in the software world is even close to managing "what 8 cores could process" anyway, at this point. I'm curious to see how much improvement I see over the coming year, or so, as apps get proper Leopard updates, and start to take advantage of all 8 cores - not to mention SSE4. Should be interesting. I remember some pretty astonishing performance boosts, in my PPC days, when altivec first started showing up in apps. I had a G3, and upgraded it to a G4 with only a slightly higher clock speed. But the performance gains were astonishing. Some apps which were almost useless without altivec were dramatically improved once optimized to take advantage of it. Mind you, I'm kind of new to the Intel world, so I'm not absolutely clear on how comparable SSE is to Altivec. It also doesn't seem certain that many developers are even going to bother with it. Do the VIs take advantage of SSE4? Will they? Is there any point in VSL implementing it, or does it have to be done at a lower level? I'm genuinely curious about all this...

    J.
  • J
    J
    oh yeah... and ALL of my Vienna Keys have stay put! They worked right from first install, and are happily reporting licenses every day!!!

    And the really big thing for me?... 16GB of RAM!!! It's a dream come true! Bliss, really. Though, of course, a 64-bit VE for Mac would be the icing on the cake. Some day soon, I hope. ;-)

    J.
  • S
    S
    Although, "Hah, Hah!" I throughly enjoy sarcasm directed at me, my actual question remains unanswered. I can't help observing, from my own direct experience, that the G5 machine has somewhat limited capabilities in comparison the the Intel MacPro machines. I was asking if there were reasons beyond this that make it unsuitable as a slave when used wit VE 3.Obviously, if my intent is to use it as a slave I would not expect it to run a tremendous number of samples. But, would I be better off selling it replacing it with two MacBooks each with 4GB of RAM? Or with something else? Perhaps someone would be gracious enough to forgo the sarcasm and answer this question. Thanks, Stephen
  • T
    T

    I'd personally go and sell, but only as Apple's focus will be on Intel so at least you'll have a good base to move forward on.  I can see a point not too far in the future when PPC code is no more and apps developers will focus on Intel only.

    You do raise an interesting point though around buying Macbooks - I've never really considered buying a laptop as a slave as I always saw the cost as too high when you can buy 2 minis or an iMac for the same price.  Why not buy 4 x 2GB mini's and control them with leopard's screen sharing?

    And I do wish VSL would lift the veil of silence on all this - or at least give us a countdown on the front page.....
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
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    @stevesong said:

    Perhaps someone would be gracious enough to forgo the sarcasm and answer this question

    sorry if it came over that way ...

    we just noticed a significantly higher CPU load with PPC and the strange thing is, it puts also higher load on the (intel-)host.

     

    our test setup was the special edition demo #1 (24 tracks IIRC) and this has been too much ....

    christian 

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • S
    S

     Christian:

    Thanks for the answer.

    Tim:

    I thought of the MacBooks because they are relatively inexpensive and accomodate 4GB of RAM whereas the current Mac Mini is limited to 2GB of RAM. So the two Macbooks might double as mobile system as well being slaves in the studio. First thing is to obtain a MacPro and see what can be done with it - - I'm waiting a bit until some of the kinks are worked out with firmware updates and OS 10.5.2. Perhaps by then there will be new Mac Minis or some other solution.  
  • S
    S
    Hi Christian,

    How would a Mac Mini cope with being a VE 3.0 slave? I was thinking of purchasing 2 mac minis, upgrading the hard disk and upgrading the RAM to 3GB.

    Would these upgraded minis suffice?

    Thanks
  • T
    T

    Simsy,

    Mini's can only take 2GB AFAIK.  I'm using 3 so far and also want further information on how good the performance will be.  They all have 1000T ports so that's ok, plus I've upgraded the internal disks to 7200RPM and use Lacie LittleBig 200GB 7200RPM Firewire drives. 

    Hopefully we'll get either i) further info from VSL or ii) VE3 released on Friday (wishful thinking that though)

    Best

    Tim
  • F
    F
    Sorry to break your Mac discussion, but I didn´t really find an answer for the original question: When can we buy VE3 (directly after NAMM?) and how much will it cost?
  • S
    S
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    @timkiel said:

    Simsy,

     

    Mini's can only take 2GB AFAIK.  I'm using 3 so far and also want further information on how good the performance will be.  They all have 1000T ports so that's ok, plus I've upgraded the internal disks to 7200RPM and use Lacie LittleBig 200GB 7200RPM Firewire drives. 

     

    Hopefully we'll get either i) further info from VSL or ii) VE3 released on Friday (wishful thinking that though)

     

    Best

     

    Tim

     

    Hi

    If you go to macsales.com and click on memory and mac mini, they now sell 3GB memory that will work in the mac mini for $70! Awesome!! If mac minis work for you then I am sure it would be fine to get some. Just out of curiosity what processor speed do you have in yours? Just the slightly slower processors sell for a lot less on ebay and if I knew they would work fine I would maybe go for them!
  • fritzflotowF
    fritzflotowF
    Yes, I really would like to understand, why you're still so fascinated by those mac minis. I'm a mac user myself, but for the price of two mac minis I get a audio store optimized and silenced PC with 8 Gb, that should perform better with VI and can load at least 2 Gigs of samples more, than two minis. In addition I keep reading about more problems with mac OS, than Windows. This is not meant to start one of those MAC vs. PC discussions (I am Pro-Choice : ). I just want to know, if I'm missing something there ...
  • V
    V

    You forget 2 obvious factors, size and noise.[:)]

    As for the OS, I wouldn't agree on that (Im using both of them fyi). And in the end you can just install XP on your Mini if that's what you prefer. 
  • F
    F
    Just to avoid, my question getting lost: Anyone here knowing about the release and cost of VE3?
  • T
    T
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    @Another User said:

    Hi

    If you go to macsales.com and click on memory and mac mini, they now sell 3GB memory that will work in the mac mini for $70! Awesome!! If mac minis work for you then I am sure it would be fine to get some. Just out of curiosity what processor speed do you have in yours? Just the slightly slower processors sell for a lot less on ebay and if I knew they would work fine I would maybe go for them!

    I'd not seen that I must go and have a look.  I have the earlier 1.6 and a 1.8 both seem fine with memory being the bottle neck rather than CPU - and that's running at 128ms on the internal mac soundcard.
  • T
    T

    Felix - No but I wish I did, I'm not sure why they're being so tight lipped.  Herb must be sunning himself in California still...[8o|]
  • T
    T
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    @timkiel said:

    Felix - No but I wish I did, I'm not sure why they're being so tight lipped.  Herb must be sunning himself in California still...

    No sun here...it's been rainy and cold.
  • D
    D
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    @vagnluv_20721 said:

    You forget 2 obvious factors, size and noise.

    Size could be a factor I agree, but noise certainly isn't. In fact I would guess that the only noise you're going to hear from a properly specced PC is the hard drive, if that. Mac users who come to my studio are often surprised by how quiet it is, so it makes me wonder what they are used to. I'm told the Mac Pros are very quiet, but my last Mac (a Dual G5) lasted less than an hour, and one of the reasons that I sent it back was noise.

    DG
  • D
    D
    Not all Mac Minis will hold 3 gigs only the latest Core 2 Duo's (not the Core Duos.)
  • S
    S
    Before committing to the Mac Mini take a look at the RAM and hard drive installation videos available at Other World Computing. Not, I think, for the faint of heart.