Realistic system requirements? Reaper seems to be a HOG

[adouglas]

I love Reaper in a big way, and have been waiting anxiously for the official Mac release.

Unfortunately Reaper Mac isn't proving to be of much use to me, at least in its present form.

I have a low-end Dell PC laptop at work (Inspiron 1300, which must have cost all of, oh, $400 or so) and Reaper seems to run just fine on it. The demo Brad Sucks project cranks along happily, no problem.

But my home laptop, a G4 Powerbook (aluminum), 1 GHz, with maxed-out memory (2 gig), can't even play 15 seconds of the demo project without crackling. That's with all the meters shut off entirely, and only the track window showing. And my Airport card shut off. And nothing else running. I'm using the latest 10.4 software.

This seems absurd to me. I'm no programmer, but surely this machine (which even four or five years old, has more resale value than that Dell cost new) has enough horsepower and RAM to play eight tracks of audio cleanly when I cripple everything I can think of. Especially seeing as how the free Cubase LE that came with my interface runs really happily under similar circumstances, even with other apps running concurrently and all the bells and whistles turned on.

What gives? Is there a memory leak or something?

I'm about to buy a MacBook Pro, and I was really hoping to be able to use this Powerbook as a recording platform. But Reaper Mac seems to be such a vast CPU and/or memory hog that it's unusable unless you've got something much more capable than this machine.

So, can somebody give me some insight into either

a) the real-world system requirements for the Mac version, or
b) some way of getting this thing to run acceptably on a "mere" 1 GHz machine with 2 gig of RAM?

Thanks....

PS: I'm still a Reaper fan despite this frustration. I'm not criticizing...I'm just looking for a useful tool. And once it arrives, I'll happily pony up the license fee.

[ieso]

Well, I don't know. I use it on a first gen macbook pro and have no problems. runs great.

[adouglas]

The thing that frustrates me is not really that Reaper doesn't run well on my machine.

It's that other, similar products run so much better.

This indicates to me that it's not the machine so much as something inherent with the Mac implementation of Reaper. If Steinberg and Apple (Garage Band) can do something as simple as playing a relatively small and uncomplicated set of audio tracks, then why does Reaper break down so easily?

Again, I'm no programmer. But this seems to be something really fundamental and rooted in the differences between Windows programming and Mac programming. It's not about VST functionality, AU compatibility, etc. etc. There must be something at the very heart of the application that's causing it to use way, WAY more resources on the Mac platform than it does on the PC platform to do anything at all, even something as basic as playing back a not-that-complex project.

If this were not true, then why would it run so much better on a low-end PC than it does on a much more capable Mac machine?

I'm really, REALLY hoping for a killer Mac version of Reaper.

[Justin]

Yeah I'm quite disappointed with GCC on OS X, for whatever reason. Maybe it's more of OS X than gcc.

At any rate, at this time, we'd recommend for you to use an Intel mac. mileage on PPC macs may vary (and we'll do our best to try to get it working faster on them, but I can't promise much).

I'd be interested to hear how a G5 does, though...

Oh, also, if you're playing the demo project, remember that it is all OGG files, which take a fair amount of CPU to decompress on their own..

[adouglas]

Okay, that helps. Maybe I'm comparing Apples to oranges here.

I'm thinking of the last recording I did in Cubase LE, which didn't use OGG files, obviously. It was ten tracks.

A related and important (to me) question: Does the program use less CPU when recording? In other words, can I depend on this machine's ability to record several tracks cleanly even if it doesn't play back well?

I can always use that el cheapo PC to process the recordings once they're made. But I need to use my Powerbook to capture them....the office PC stays at the office.

This is more than an idle concern to me. I need to do some recording this weekend, and I don't have time to fart around trying to troubleshoot. I'm recording a session with a dear friend who's going in for cancer surgery on his neck a week from today. Surgery that is going to alter his voice forever. This is my only chance to get a good recording.

I want to use Reaper because it is what I will be using in the future, without doubt. I don't want to have to use Cubase LE. I can't use an Intel Mac because I don't own one yet. I'm stuck with my trusty Powerbook.

If I MUST use a different program I will, but I really don't want to.

Can you throw me a bone, here?

[schwa]

Reaper is awesome and all, but if you really need to capture a once in a lifetime recording, it's probably best to use something that's actually released software (Reaper OSX is just a preview build, it isn't even beta, yet).

[adouglas]

Yeah, sensible.

One can always hope.

Thanks for responding.

I await further development and improvement in the product with great anticipation. I'll hang on to this computer in hopes that what ultimately results from the efforts of the team is lean and streamlined enough that Reaper will work well on it.

[drillbit]

I find having a low latency setting on your ASIO sound card will make DAWs run like shit. So play with your sound drivers. I mix with high latency (16ms) and play live with low latency settings (2ms). If you don't have a sound card then you will have evil latency in y experience.

Not sure if that help.

Cheers

[adouglas]

Drillbit...

So what about recording? Does the latency setting have an impact there, or only on playback?

If I can record okay, I can always mix on the office PC.

I confess I do not fully understand the impact of latency settings on various activities.

[Jeronimo]

Dude, try some session with WAV files...

OGG have do decompress on the fly if I'm not mistaken...

[schwa]

So what about recording? Does the latency setting have an impact there, or only on playback?

Yes, the latency setting has an effect when recording. Unless you need to monitor the output of effects (like, if you are playing a soft synth, an amp sim, or need to monitor reverb on vocals that are being tracked), there's no need for low latency settings when recording.

[Jeronimo]

Yes, the latency setting has an effect when recording. Unless you need to monitor the output of effects (like, if you are playing a soft synth, an amp sim, or need to monitor reverb on vocals that are being tracked), there's no need for low latency settings when recording.

What do you mean by low latency? how low is low for you?
I track using PT LE at 128. It's the lowest it goes with a 001 and I never got a complaint about it

[schwa]

What do you mean by low latency? how low is low for you?
I track using PT LE at 128. It's the lowest it goes with a 001 and I never got a complaint about it

IMO there aren't any absolute rules. All I really meant was, if you're tracking and CPU use is a problem or a concern, it should help to increase the buffer size if you can do so without harming the performance because of monitoring delays. Personally I keep everything at 64 unless there's a specific problem in which case I move it up to 128, but everyone's setup is different.

[Jeronimo]

IMO there aren't any absolute rules. All I really meant was, if you're tracking and CPU use is a problem or a concern, it should help to increase the buffer size if you can do so without harming the performance because of monitoring delays. Personally I keep everything at 64 unless there's a specific problem in which case I move it up to 128, but everyone's setup is different.

That's what I thought.
Are you on Reaper mac? What computer are you using?

[adouglas]

It was the OGG files that were bogging the system down. I recorded using WAV and it worked fine.

BUT....My system locked up cold after a while. Not an app crash...full system lock. This is the first time this has ever happened to me under OS X.

I'll start a new thread to report this.

[Tom Drinkwater]

This may be related...

I can't get good monitoring at 64 samples, it has to be 128.

I'm using a G5 dual 1.8ghz, and a fireface 800

other apps (protools LE , logic etc) manage monitoring with 4 tracks of audio and a comp on each track and a master limiter at 64 samples latency.

is there a setting i can change? or is Reaper inherently less efficient for some reason?

I've played with some buffer settings to no avail so far. the osx version seems not to have the detailed driver settings of the windows version in the manual, is that right?

I want to monitor WITH the plugins, for live streaming over he net... so i need it to work at 64 samples and can't use low latency monitoring on the interface...

Incidentally, taking the plugins out doesnt seem to help... which suggests to me that cpu load is not really the problem...

I am very impressed with the app overall though!

[kaddenheart]

i run a new macbook pro 2 gb RAM with sessions on a FW800

it runs pretty smooth, actually i have some very large sessions from my band at 16, 44.1 WAV file running with lots of plugs and it's not stopping.

the meters are a little annoying to me at times,..but i think it's just how they respond,..not the program slowing down.

[mrelwood]

Haven't tried the demo project or compared the performance to other software, but with my Intel Macbook the ReaperMac works better than the Windows version in Bootcamp. The difference is when the project is totally bloated with plugins. The Win version is having hard time to start playing or even keep up with playing, and 10 sec freezes occure every now and then. At the Mac side, the fan is blowing at full, but the app is completely usable to the very end.

At the windows side I must keep the audio threads at 1, since 2 will crash Reaper when hitting space twice in a big project. I guess I should make a clean install with the latest Reaper.

And comparison to other software is irrelevant for me since even if Reaper had worse performance than others, I would never give up Reaper. Cpu performance is one thing, but the overall usability and handling is so much more important. I get any project done a lot faster with Reaper on a crappy PC than PT on a rocket.


-Aki.

[norbury brook]

I think you'll find that cross platforms audio apps of which I can only think of 3 ,Reaper,cubase and Nuendo all have a snappier feel to them in XP than OSX. I have been a long time Nuendo user and still at V4.x the XP version works better than the OSX version,lower latency,faster graphics and MAC's still can't do ASIO direct monitoring either (not that that's an issue with Reaper)

i think OSX is the culprit here.There's no difference now between a well built PC and a Mac now as they use the same Intel cpu's,same motherboards chipset,graphics cards etc so it's only the OS thats different. :D

I have used Reaper bootcamped in XP for a recent TV show for SKY as my Live VSTI host and it ran every day for 12 hours for a month without a hitch so I can safely say the MacBook Pro is a great windows XP machine :D


MC


p.s. I'm a Mac and PC owner/user

[mark604]

While I haven't tested a new version of Reaper in quite a while, what I did notice is that there was a massive difference in CPU usage between using built-in audio and my MIO 2882+DSP. I do not have this same problem with Spark, Logic, or non-studio applications such as various media players. I wrote Metric-Halo about this, and the conclusion was that it was the application. I also wrote Justin, but haven't heard anything.

Reaper uses about nine times as much system CPU with the 2882 than with BIA, which leads me to believe that Reaper is doing something unnecessary with all 18 inputs and outputs even if I am only using two channels for monitoring. Which makes it impossible to play the demo track on my 1GHz TiG4 with 1G RAM while using the 2882.

So if you are using a multi-channel interface, you might want to use Activity Monitor to compare the System CPU usage between BIA and your audio interface. I would be very interested in hearing your results.

[Justin]

While I haven't tested a new version of Reaper in quite a while, what I did notice is that there was a massive difference in CPU usage between using built-in audio and my MIO 2882+DSP. I do not have this same problem with Spark, Logic, or non-studio applications such as various media players. I wrote Metric-Halo about this, and the conclusion was that it was the application. I also wrote Justin, but haven't heard anything.

Reaper uses about nine times as much system CPU with the 2882 than with BIA, which leads me to believe that Reaper is doing something unnecessary with all 18 inputs and outputs even if I am only using two channels for monitoring. Which makes it impossible to play the demo track on my 1GHz TiG4 with 1G RAM while using the 2882.

So if you are using a multi-channel interface, you might want to use Activity Monitor to compare the System CPU usage between BIA and your audio interface. I would be very interested in hearing your results.

We don't do anything explicit with the i/o other than opening them (unless you use them).. but I'll re-look over this.. It may be that the CoreAudio drivers incur a huge penalty with all of them open.. In comparison with MOTU or RME hardware on win32 via ASIO you can open 30-40 inputs (and indeed send data to/from them) with no real noticeable CPU use...

-Justin

[mark604]

We don't do anything explicit with the i/o other than opening them (unless you use them).. but I'll re-look over this.. It may be that the CoreAudio drivers incur a huge penalty with all of them open.. In comparison with MOTU or RME hardware on win32 via ASIO you can open 30-40 inputs (and indeed send data to/from them) with no real noticeable CPU use...


I'm not sure what "opening" them entails, but perhaps it shouldn't open them until they are selected as an input or output within the application. Which I guess is what Logic does. That Mac and PC are different in this regard would not surprise me. Thanks for looking into it.

[Justin]

I'm not sure what "opening" them entails, but perhaps it shouldn't open them until they are selected as an input or output within the application. Which I guess is what Logic does. That Mac and PC are different in this regard would not surprise me. Thanks for looking into it.

Yeah that pretty much goes against the REAPER-grain though, since we want to be able to enabled/disable i/o on the fly etc..

Perhaps we can let you configure them in the preferences, though..

Oh also, is it any better if you create an aggregate device and use that instead?

-Justin

[Jidis]

mileage on PPC macs may vary
To anyone on PPC-

I'm considering giving my cousin some PC sessions. From what I know, his Macs are probably last generation, fast G4s running built-in audio. Are there any issues with just straight playback of projects with decent track counts on non-Intels? I could limit or omit any plug-in stuff and convert the file formats if needed. I think right now they're mostly 44.1/24b mono wave tracks, but the track count would be anywhere from 6 to 24 tracks or more. I see Justin mention the OGG file CPU load- Is all compressed stuff rough on a PPC or mainly those?

Thanks!

[adouglas]

I'm the OP on this thread. Note that my G4 Powerbook (system details earlier in this thread, IIRC) does work with WAV tracks, but LOCKS MY MAC SOLID after a little while.

I started a separate thread on this issue, which you can find on the OSX forum.

I asked if anyone else has experienced this, but got no response. It is alpha software after all, so I'm sure nobody is bothering to figure this out.

I seriously doubt it's my machine, since it has not locked using any other application, ever, in five years, but it locks solid when running Reaper for a while. Every time. I have not bothered to find out exactly how long it will go before it locks, but it DOES lock the system 100 percent of the time.

This is just running the application...not recording, not playing back, just launching it and letting it sit.

Since I also have a new Macbook Pro, this issue is nothing more than a minor annoyance to me. I'd very much like to devote my old Powerbook to full-time recording workstation status, but I cannot.

The only complaint I've got is that I have proved to my satisfaction that the published minimum system requirements for Mac Reaper are not accurate. It runs flawlessly on my MBP, but fails every time on my G4 PB, even though that machine is well within the stated system requirements.

[Justin]

adouglas,

what audio drivers are you using? Is it using a different driver name for input and output?

Can you try creating an aggregate device and see if using that for both input and output helps?

-Justin

[Tom Drinkwater]

this may be related, I'm using a G5 dual 1.8ghz with a fireface 800

I don't get all the nice asio settings that show in the manual in the device pane of preferences, and I can't see how to turn off unwanted inputs and outputs, but reaper is showing 28ch/28ch in the menu bar, and cpu load sitting at 9-10% with NO activity or plugins.

can someone tell me how to create an aggregate device? search for "aggregate device" shows up nothing in the manual or the wiki - presumably its way to turn off unwanted IO?

but i'm guessing that the high idle load and many I/O channels are related, OTOH when i change to BIA the cpu load only drops to 6.5% or so...

I could happily set mine to 8in 2 out and never miss the extra IO

any advice apperciated....

[GIlJanus]

Here's Apple page on aggregate devices

http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/aggregateaudio/

I haven't tried it yet, but it should work.

Hope this helps.

[Tom Drinkwater]

oh cool i see, thanks, aggregate device is a apple/coreaudio thing... i didn't know you could do that!

i made an aggregate device using just the fireface, it gave me no options to reduce the number of tracks of I/O, and it had no impact on the CPU use reported by reaper. the dvice works, but behaves the same as using the fireface directly.

so i learned something, but it didn't help in this case..

[Tom Drinkwater]

any guidance on optimising for the G5/ppc would be appreciated too...

[todd160]

it's wierd, my template projekt that i use on my old pc takes around 3% cpu idle (all plugins deactivated, MOTU 828MK2). same projekt on my intel macbook takes 39% cpu (internal soundcard). can this be ?

if someone wants to check it out:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mft1tvvd4pq

[Tom Drinkwater]

i downloaded that project and opened it.

I don't understand what is what in it, I just opened it as is and reaper reports around 20% cpu use, and FX CPU use at 0.11% 2 effects active.

the 2 active effects appear to be midi ones.

is this info any use to anyone?

PS the 20% is using the fireface 800, if i switch to BIA reaper reports 17.5% cpu use.

[Tom Drinkwater]

I just realised how useless the above post is without further info:

PPC G5 dual 1.8Ghz, 3Gb Ram, OSX 10.4.11

using built in audio:

512 sample buffer gives 17.5% cpu as reported in reaper

256 sample buffer 25%cpu

128 sample buffer 45%cpu

64 sample buffer 62% cpu

[todd160]

I've come to the conclusion that it is the routing. delete the sends, or a few battery outputs and it gets better.
even when i only open up battery with multichannel routing i get 17% cpu usage with barely any effects cpu use.

my system specs :

macbook / 2.16GHz / 2Gb Ram / using interal soundcard = 28% cpu / using motu 828mk2 = 24% cpu

[kerryg]

REAPER 2.301/OSX0.98

Dual G5 2ghz / 1.5 GB ram / OSX 10.4.11 / RME HDSP 9632

Total CPU use:

buffer size:

512 = average 23.84% / range 21.3% - 34.0%
256 = average 31.53% / range 26.2% - 40.8%
128 = average 52.27% / range 46.8% - 61.5%
064 = average 69.22% / range 64.0% - 76.1%
032 = average 76.56% / range 72.1% - 81.3%

[Tom Drinkwater]

I did a quick test on a friends intel macbook core 2 duo 2ghz with 2G ram

i dont have all the figures now, but performance was considerably worse than my g5 which surprised me.

something like 45% cpu with 256 buffer

25% cpu with 512 buffer

so whatever is using the cpu in this project, it doesn't seem to be much worse on G5 than intel, in fact possibly the reverse...

[todd160]

anyone else in for a little test on his system ? this seems rather strange to me .. such a difference between pc and mac ? i installed reaper on winxp on the same machine : 5% cpu usage..
maybe this would also be interesting for justin to test.

[DGT]

I really hope performance can improve.

At the moment REAPER is struggling to do things ableton does with ease.

Not yet used the latest preview but " reaper2207pre4_096 " works 'ok' (ish) for ripping vinyl - one of my main uses for REAPER - so a single stereo track, 4 plugs on the master buss 2 x Destroy FX RMS buddy & 2 x JS eventhorizon2.

Recording 44.1 / 24 is ok, navigation - zooming in/out - is very non-responsive & clunky. This is not the high speed editing I'm used to on XP with REAPER.

After I render / close the render box I get spinning wheel - everytime. Activity moniter says REAPER is not responding, but, 9 times out of 10 (so far) REAPER comes back on-line after 'a few minutes'

Also getting alot of spinning wheels and poor performance in pref. windows & setting file names for renders, can't understand this, what is going on behind the scenes that chokes the system? - CPU useage does not appear go up during these 'moments'

Performance is worse when using my ULN-2 than BIA.

1gHz Powerbook with 1.25 GB of RAM. I play live on this lappy with LIVE 6 and I've never had a problem, albeit 16bit files - but lots more - currant Live Set has 800+ tunes loaded in (and counting) :D

Sorry for the negativity. I really, really like REAPER - have registered - but I'm worried I wont be able to use it on OSX, which is a problem as I'm dumping XP (finally had enough) and going all mac, but can't afford / don't want an Intel box at the moment...

I'm hopefull that the beta will fix these performance issues tho & sort out the differance between BIA & external audio.

[Per Lichtman]

REAPER 2.301/OSX0.98

Dual G5 2ghz / 1.5 GB ram / OSX 10.4.11 / RME HDSP 9632

Total CPU use:

buffer size:

512 = average 23.84% / range 21.3% - 34.0%
256 = average 31.53% / range 26.2% - 40.8%
128 = average 52.27% / range 46.8% - 61.5%
064 = average 69.22% / range 64.0% - 76.1%
032 = average 76.56% / range 72.1% - 81.3%

Dual G5 2.5GHz / 2.5GB RAM/ OSX 10.4.8 / Built-In Audio

Buffer Size:

512 = average 16.41% / range 14.9-20%
064 = average 54.56% / range 50.2% - 65.8%

[todd160]

any news on this topic ? i just tested reaper on one of our new g5's in the studio (can't remember the specs, but it's really maxed out). i used the same project i mentioned above and cpu usage was 9 % .. how can this be ?? there's really nothing going on in this session, fx cpu is about 0.2 %. where does the rest come from ?
am i the only one having this problem or is this general ?

[Tom Drinkwater]

yes its a general problem.

I have run reaper on both windows and osx ON THE SAME MACHINE (intel obviously) and it uses miles more cpu on osx just for tracks existing etc.

its also uses way more cpu than logic for a similar setup in osx. yet the cpu use in reaper/windows is about the same as for a simliar setup in logic/osx

reaper is not using osx audio channels in a correct and efficient way, but i have no idea what is involved, however for me , its the only major issue remaining with the osx version of reaper, and that merits it being still in beta.

if this gets fixed I will register reaper immediately, since then i can ditch logic completely!

[Justin]

Updating the screen in OS X using normal Quartz/CoreGraphics seems to a lot of CPU, this is something I've confirmed with people intimately familiar with OS X.. so our updating of track meters, transport, etc, is probably a lot to blame..

That and gcc seems to suck.. we'll get ICC for OS X soon too, though this will only help Intel macs..

[Tom Drinkwater]

so if its screen and meter updates causing the cpu use, are other audio apps that use less cpu doing screen updates by a different method and is it practical for reaper to do that too?

BTW I really love the meters in reaper. but not so much that i'm happy for them to use 20% of my cpu power...

[Tom Drinkwater]

minimising the window makes no difference to the cpu use, if it was screen updates causing the cpu use shouldn't that make a difference?

cpu use is high with no playback or recording and no level on the meters.. so no screen updates required...

FWIW - I'm not a software developer so i have no idea if this is relevant..

[todd160]

i guess it can't be the screen.. cpu is even high when absolutely nothing is going on ( no meters moving etc). it seems like with every track i add cpu goes up at least 1 %.

that's my only problem left with osx reaper, otherwise i would register and start using it as tom already said.

[adouglas]

From time to time I load an updated version on that old G4 laptop to see what it'll do.

I haven't tried seeing if it locks the machine up simply because that takes some time, but it still overloads and gives me choppy audio dealing with 8 tracks of playback, very few effects, no automation, nothing else running.

I was really hoping to just use that old machine as a recording tool for band practice, leaving it in the practice room, but it just doesn't look like it's going to happen.

[Mjolniir]

I test reaper on my iBook G4 (1.2 Ghz, max mem 1.25 gig) every month or so, but truthfully it's never run well. Hell, The newest version of garageband is pretty much TOO much for it. It ran garageband much better with GB 2 on Panther and Tiger, but with 08 on leopard it sucks. Reaper also ran better in Tiger so i am assuming that Leopard itself is consuming too much valuable CPU overhead.

[Tom Drinkwater]

reporting of plugin cpu requirements sseems to be wrong..... when i add an instance of verbiage menu meters reports much larger cpu increase than reaper does... will test more and report

[junioreq]

Yeah, reaper def is a hog of sorts, out of all the Daws, reaper is the hardest on my system.

2Ghz, 1Gb ram

[Tom Drinkwater]

yeah the bottom line for me is that a simple session with 4 channels, a comp on each channel, and a master limiter and bussed reverb uses 16% cpu across all 4 cpus on reaper rising to 35% when recording. (as reported by menumeters)

on logic a very similar session (with a better reverb) uses 6-8% when not recording, and hardly rises at all when recording.

128 sample buffer in both cases

if you need to run loads of other stuff at the same time on the same machine then the cpu load matters, reaper is fine for me for normal recording where its the only thing running, but i do lots more complex things than that!

(I'm performing live with live video and streaming it into second life, whilst recording the unprocessed tracks in the DAW, and feeding the processed mix to the sound part of the video stream)

reaper on windows on the same machine uses similar cpu to logic - so its a osx /reaper interface issue.