Evaluating Power House

[vanceen]

I'm trying out the Power House demo, and I'm a little surprised at the results I'm getting.

My CPU is an i7-13700KF, and my graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1160 SUPER (6GB VRAM).

I created a project in Reaper using 54 Synchron instruments simultaneously in VE Pro 7, with MIR Pro 3D 24 on each instrument. MIDI was playing on all 54 tracks, so that convolution was going on in real time.

My CPU usage was about 30%. After switching on GPU processing, it went to about 20%.

OK, that's impressive in its own right, but it doesn't look like a big practical difference to me. It's difficult to imagine that I will ever use a bigger set of instruments simultaneously, so I'm asking myself if it's worth it to claw back the difference between 30% and 20% CPU utilization.

Now, it could happen that I could max out my CPU with lots of virtual instruments in addition to a large number of VE Pro instruments. I suppose in that case Power House could get me back about 10% of CPU usage, going from, say a rocky 95% usage to a more doable 85% usage.

My questions for the experts here are:

1. Am I looking at this the wrong way somehow?
2. Was my test of the CPU using 54 Synchron instruments not actually a realistic test of high CPU usage?
3. Are there any other details about how Power House works that might better inform a decision about whether it's worth the price considering my equipment?

Thanks!

[winknotes_282]

How are you using MIR Pro 3D 24 on 54 instruments? I thought the 24 was a hard limit?

[Sasha T]

@vanceen said:

I'm trying out the Power House demo, and I'm a little surprised at the results I'm getting.

My CPU is an i7-13700KF, and my graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1160 SUPER (6GB VRAM).

I created a project in Reaper using 54 Synchron instruments simultaneously in VE Pro 7, with MIR Pro 3D 24 on each instrument. MIDI was playing on all 54 tracks, so that convolution was going on in real time.

My CPU usage was about 30%. After switching on GPU processing, it went to about 20%.

OK, that's impressive in its own right, but it doesn't look like a big practical difference to me. It's difficult to imagine that I will ever use a bigger set of instruments simultaneously, so I'm asking myself if it's worth it to claw back the difference between 30% and 20% CPU utilization.

Now, it could happen that I could max out my CPU with lots of virtual instruments in addition to a large number of VE Pro instruments. I suppose in that case Power House could get me back about 10% of CPU usage, going from, say a rocky 95% usage to a more doable 85% usage.

My questions for the experts here are:

1. Am I looking at this the wrong way somehow?

1. Was my test of the CPU using 54 Synchron instruments not actually a realistic test of high CPU usage?

1. Are there any other details about how Power House works that might better inform a decision about whether it's worth the price considering my equipment?

Thanks!

Hi vanceen,

I guess your GPU is 1660 Super, so the short answer is: 1) no 2) yes 3) see below:

The general guideline to get more CPU usage offloaded is, to either add more instruments (the more you load, the more you offload) or better - mix in multichannel format, such as Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 - with this setup you can easily have bottlenecking 90% CPU usage going down to 10% or something along those numbers.

[Sasha T]

@winknotes_282 said:

How are you using MIR Pro 3D 24 on 54 instruments? I thought the 24 was a hard limit?

Hi wiknotes, I guess you refer to the MIR Pro 3D (24) version. There is a full version with no such limitation, and this is where the Power House potential could be fully unleashed. Find out more about different versions of MIR Pro 3D here.

[winknotes_282]

@Sasha-T said:

@winknotes_282 said:

How are you using MIR Pro 3D 24 on 54 instruments? I thought the 24 was a hard limit?

Hi wiknotes, I guess you refer to the MIR Pro 3D (24) version. There is a full version with no such limitation, and this is where the Power House potential could be fully unleashed. Find out more about different versions of MIR Pro 3D here.

I realize that. I also have MIR Pro 3D 24. I just wondered how the OP was using that on all 54 instruments?

[vanceen]

@winknotes_282 said:

How are you using MIR Pro 3D 24 on 54 instruments? I thought the 24 was a hard limit?

It's not 24, I misspoke. It's MIR Pro 3D.

[vanceen]

@Sasha-T said:

@vanceen said:

I'm trying out the Power House demo, and I'm a little surprised at the results I'm getting.

My CPU is an i7-13700KF, and my graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1160 SUPER (6GB VRAM).

I created a project in Reaper using 54 Synchron instruments simultaneously in VE Pro 7, with MIR Pro 3D 24 on each instrument. MIDI was playing on all 54 tracks, so that convolution was going on in real time.

My CPU usage was about 30%. After switching on GPU processing, it went to about 20%.

OK, that's impressive in its own right, but it doesn't look like a big practical difference to me. It's difficult to imagine that I will ever use a bigger set of instruments simultaneously, so I'm asking myself if it's worth it to claw back the difference between 30% and 20% CPU utilization.

Now, it could happen that I could max out my CPU with lots of virtual instruments in addition to a large number of VE Pro instruments. I suppose in that case Power House could get me back about 10% of CPU usage, going from, say a rocky 95% usage to a more doable 85% usage.

My questions for the experts here are:

1. Am I looking at this the wrong way somehow?

1. Was my test of the CPU using 54 Synchron instruments not actually a realistic test of high CPU usage?

1. Are there any other details about how Power House works that might better inform a decision about whether it's worth the price considering my equipment?

Thanks!

Hi vanceen,

I guess your GPU is 1660 Super, so the short answer is: 1) no 2) yes 3) see below:

The general guideline to get more CPU usage offloaded is, to either add more instruments (the more you load, the more you offload) or better - mix in multichannel format, such as Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 - with this setup you can easily have bottlenecking 90% CPU usage going down to 10% or something along those numbers.

Thanks!

I suppose the real question I'm asking myself is whether Power House is something I need. I know I can only answer that myself, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't running an unrealistic test.

I don't anticipate ever working in Atmos, nor using much more than 54 instruments with MIR Pro 3D. So I'm having trouble being sure there is much benefit to me in offloading to the GPU.

I'll probably end up buying it anyway, I'm just curious whether anyone could point out an error in my analysis so far.

[Louis C]

I use Universal Audio's plugins and run a couple of Satellites to do this, at the moment UA are transitioning to all their plugins being Native rather than requiring DSP and there's alot of talk about their DSP becoming redundant.

For me personally it's about stability and creative freedom.

I have a bunch of things (effects etc) that I like to use on most things and I have peace of mind that these elements have no impact on my work flow when it comes to instrument choices as the CPU headroom is kept free of the more mundane processing tasks and is at my disposal to run any of the Virtual Instruments I own at any point without having to start Freezing tracks etc.

The other thing, and this for me is the main atraction, is LATENCY.

Knowing that there are sub 2 millisecond latency values available for tracking with UA effects, or Sub 2 millisecong latency in MIR Pro with GPU POWER enabled is the end of that continual battle with swing / feel.

How many times have you played something, and then listened backto the part and wondered where the Groove went .... irrespective of the Genre. I wasted/invested too much time over the years chasing this holy grail and anything that can deliver consistency and remove itself from being/becoming a 'random' element when CPU throttling and processing bottlenecks build up is something I'll pay for and brings real value to the creative table.

[Sasha T]

@Louis-C said:

I use Universal Audio's plugins and run a couple of Satellites to do this, at the moment UA are transitioning to all their plugins being Native rather than requiring DSP and there's alot of talk about their DSP becoming redundant.

For me personally it's about stability and creative freedom.

I have a bunch of things (effects etc) that I like to use on most things and I have peace of mind that these elements have no impact on my work flow when it comes to instrument choices as the CPU headroom is kept free of the more mundane processing tasks and is at my disposal to run any of the Virtual Instruments I own at any point without having to start Freezing tracks etc.

The other thing, and this for me is the main atraction, is LATENCY.

Knowing that there are sub 2 millisecond latency values available for tracking with UA effects, or Sub 2 millisecong latency in MIR Pro with GPU POWER enabled is the end of that continual battle with swing / feel.

How many times have you played something, and then listened backto the part and wondered where the Groove went .... irrespective of the Genre. I wasted/invested too much time over the years chasing this holy grail and anything that can deliver consistency and remove itself from being/becoming a 'random' element when CPU throttling and processing bottlenecks build up is something I'll pay for and brings real value to the creative table.

Low latencies are definitely possible (that is one of the goals of the entire collaboration), here are the screenshots of 64 ridicilously duplicated copied tracks (I am lazy to even change placements of the instruments) 🤠, stereo, 64 samples at 48 kHz times 2 because the double buffering enabled by default makes it. 2.666(6)7 ms of round trip latency (of the processing, the rest of the 4.6 of the 7.2 of total is taken by the audio kernel and driver) on my passively cooled Macbook M2 Air, with no charging cable attached...