The MacPro will not be doing the CPU load if you put it on the G5, the G5 will be doing the load.

Whatever machine you host VE Pro from, you will be loading the samples there.  Therefore it will be the machine that will take the load.  It will then pipe all the audio over it's ethernet port to the DAW machine.  But the actual processing is done AT the machine that is hosting the samples.

Did you watch the VE3 demo?  It will clear this up for you.  However I re-read your post and it seems like all you want to do is sample your older libraries from that G5 using VE3 Pro.

What I would consider doing is the idea of making your G5 your Logic machine (or whatever DAW you use) and then have the MacPro be your VE3 machine since it will be the one that needs all the horsepower.

I have a macbookpro with only 2GB's of ram.  I can run an entire orchestra from my Vista 64-bit VE3 machine.  Since it is a power house and does all the processing, my macbookpro takes almost zero beating at all.  And my 64-bit machine has lots of head room left.  And I mean lots.

Maestro2be

@cgernaey said:

What I would consider doing is the idea of making your G5 your Logic machine (or whatever DAW you use) and then have the MacPro be your VE3 machine since it will be the one that needs all the horsepower.

By all means test this theory, but I personally disagree in the idea of using the G5 as the main Logic machine & the MacPro as the sample slave. Playing sample libraries like VSL does require some CPU, but the actual bottleneck for streaming samples is not CPU, rather RAM & Disk speed. The VI player is VERY efficient, and so is VE. In fact, I am ALMOST able to stream an entire orchestra from my Dual 2.5GHZ G5 alone! However, 2 instances of Amplitube (guitar amp FX plugin) brings my G5's CPU to its knees. If you plan on running MIR or any other high processor reverbs, you will only be able to do this on a MacPro. The G5 processor just cant handle it (MIR) and/or the algorithms are not being coded for PPC (see the new vienna reverb in VS, which unfortunately is intel only!) BTW, I use a dual 2.0 Intel mac mini as a VE slave, and VE is running at 25% CPU, yet my poor FW400 external disk & 2GB RAM are maxing out, further confirming that my bottleneck is not CPU, rather disk speed/RAM. <br><br>

Thus I personally recommend using the G5 as a sample slave (max out RAM & add additional disks via SATA card), route the separated audio signals into Logic via aux tracks, and use the Mac Pro as your CPU machine for reverb/FX. At least this is my plan. 

Try both and see what works for you.  I don't run my plugs on my macbookpro, I host them also in the VE3 instances on my external super machine.  So therefore so could he.  It makes for an incredibly easy setup but maybe it's not best for all scenerios.  It works for mine though.  The only thing I do run on my DAW is Sound Designer, but that's going to go away with VSuite Reverb anyway.  Again simplifying it even more for me and taking even more load off my DAW.

This simplifies my dongles and licenses and keep them all on the slave machine with the exception of my DAW.  That way I don't have to have multiple keys etc forgetting which one has what on it or losing them.  You might find you like having them split up on different machines load balancing the efforts.  I used to run Kontakt and Pianoteq on my DAW machine but not anymore.  I do everything on the slave machine now.  It keeps my DAW from ever popping and clicking and I never get audio overloads anymore.

Your G5 is more powerful then my macbookpro though so you're DAW machine is already a more powerful utility then I have to work with.  Sounds like you have some playing around to do to figure out which method works for you the best.

One last thing to keep in mind with two system setups.  Have a backup plan ready.  If one goes down, you're dead in the water until it's revived.  I lost my slave machine for 6-8 weeks due to hardware issues and needing motherboard and powersupply replacements.  Covered under warranty but it don't matter.  It still forced me to have to freeze tracks and spend hours of time doing work arounds until it's up and running again.  But at least you will be somewhat ready for it should disaster strike you.

Maestro2be

Most people run very cpu intensive things like Altiverb on their DAW. I have a Dual 2.7 G5 and it just can't handle all that processing so it's time for a MacPro.

i am just wondering what the requirements for VE Pro will be for OSX. 

Why I ask is that I would like to use it on my G5 PowerMac running OSX10.4 (Tiger)... why you ask? Well I want to run my synth plugins from there (and, to be specific my Neuron VS plugin which is PPC/Tiger compliant only). Will this be possible?

My other option would be to use a PC with XP, but then the question is, would VE Pro on that platform support a plugin which was only VST 2.1 compliant?

 i don't have the latest infos available but would strongly suggest to no longer support PPC (for hosting third party instruments) on the slave side - this is a dead end currently and doubles the need for code, development and maintenance.

VST is basically backwards compatible, though details are often surprisingly different between the specification and the real world ...

christian

@cm said:

 i don't have the latest infos available but would strongly suggest to no longer support PPC (for hosting third party instruments) on the slave side - this is a dead end currently and doubles the need for code, development and maintenance.

VST is basically backwards compatible, though details are often surprisingly different between the specification and the real world ...

christian

WOW! Selfish much? I'm sure if you were actually USING a PPC as a slave this wouldn't be your opinion! I dont see why both platforms cant be included. If you want yours faster, develop for the intel first.  I have not problem with that. But it doesn't mean you have to drop PPC. Heck, VSL develops for both XP & Vista, why not PPC and Intel? There are plenty of people using PPC computers, especially as slaves, and forcing them to look elsewhere for solutions could potentially hurt the customer base. 

 Hello ,

so If I understand : gigastudio can also be played in a slave computer..can you confirm?!! if yes you will have another buyer!

best regards

dup

 selfish or not ... please note i stated: as a slave. you certainly know there is a basic difference how PPC and x86/x64 processors and operating systems handle data (big vs. little endian, different calculation units, ect)

since a long time no PPC computers are produced, so we can't expect them to become more or more powerful - PPC are often not even powerful enough for Vienna Instruments only, they are definately not powerful enough for the Vienna Suite convolution reverb.

forget G4s completely ... you can use them for browsing, emailing and your homework, possibly some very basic and low level musical work (in the sence of performance requirements).

you could still use a G5 as master (many PT users are so to speak locked to this platform) and PPC plugins.

XP, VISTA, Windows7 (and to some extent even windows 2000) does not require different development, only for AMD processors a few additions have to be made ... so nothing needed to be doubled here.

sorry, but we have to face reality - would apple have decided to continue producing computers with the G6 processors it would be another story.

christian

 we didn't have GigaStudio installed since a long time now and it does not work as a plugin.

AFAIK we never had installed GVI (which works as plugin) and i'm not sure we even have ever received a license ... so this has not yet been tested, but it should work as it is at least VST 2.1 if i remember correctly

christian

Hey guys,

I would like to get Vienna Ensemble Pro when it gets released to run VST plug-ins on my laptop slave.  Problem is my laptop only has 100 megabits.  Would thsi be enough?

 you would be able to run a few things, but basically gigabit is a system requirement.

christian

@cm said:

 PPC are often not even powerful enough for Vienna Instruments only, they are definately not powerful enough for the Vienna Suite convolution reverb.

Thank you for further explaining your position, but I must once again disagree with the statement above. As a Dual 2.5 Ghz PPC G5 user, I just finished 6 full orchestral mockups using VSL and it worked GREAT! I ran combination of Opus 1, VSL SE & VSL VI Solo strings, chamber stings, and Appassionata strings between 38 EXS instruments, a full VE (15 instances with an average of 3 patches each) and 6 additional VSL VI's in Logic 8.0.2, all with directional mixer and most with EQ. Granted I'm running close to capacity, but to say a G5 can barley run VSL VI is 100% FALSE! I do it everyday, and can post links to some mp3's if you'd like. Granted this is not "as a slave" but rather on my main DAW, but I would think a slave would use even LESS resources, as you dont have to run your DAW as well. 

I think my playcount above would be extremely valuable as a slave, dont you? And there are plenty of others out there who run happily still run PPC G5's. Obviously in the future PPC numbers will diminish, but why cut out this customer base right now?

http://www.bigbluelounge.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46125

http://www.logic-users-group.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5644

http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=40118&highlight=ppc+show+numbers

http://vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12278&highlight

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?p=618477#post618477

p.s. anyone know why the line breaks in my posts dont work anymore? They use to work fine...hmmm they worked after my edit. Odd. 

set editor mode to advanced in your profile to get linebreaks with safari (and more options)

 i don't generally disagree with your reply and if used in a disciplined manner you can get far with a G5 (and you are probably still on 10.4)

on one hand a slave might need a litle bit less resources if used over network (audio output) but on the other hand we add network load and third party plugins would strenghten the multitasking capabilities even more ...

we can't expect groundbreaking development or new machines for PPC, so adding new stuff 2 years after this platform has been retired is a waste of resources IMO. not even apple touches the kernel functions for PPC anymore ...

christian

Thanks for the info.  Would I be able to run 1 instance of altiverb on 100 mbits ethernet?

 sorry i don't understand - altiverb over ethernet - how should that work?

Well once Vienna ensemble pro comes I heard it can host VST plugins.  So would it be possible to host Altiverb on a slave PC?

you could insert altiverb into VE computing some audio signal also generated on the slave,

you could not run altiverb via VE to just take the load from your host for a track on your host,

third party support in VE means primary you will be able to load instrument players into VE (eg. kontakt)

christian

Thanks Christian,

I had no idea I wouldn't be able to load vst plugins on my slave using vienna Enemble Pro.  So is FX teleport my only option to do this if I don't want to purchse an audio card for the laptop?

maybe i've not been clear - you cannot simply offload effects from your host, but you could insert it into a slot within VE3.

but to insert it you would need something to be inserted into ... from the host comes midi, returned is audio - whatever you insert then on the slave, there must be any instrument playing (producing sound) on which effects can be applied.

christian