Cubase 5 Performance/Stability Mac vs PC

[muziksculp]

Cubase 5 Performance and Stability ....

[CSeye]

Edit: I didn't notice that this was a poll. It should be an interesting one.

Are you having any specific performance issues?

Web buzz seems to indicate that C5 is more efficient on a PC.

I've been very happy with C5 performance on my first edition 2.66 GHz Xeon Mac Pro.
My projects are single tunes vs lengthy soundtracks.

Everyone is expecting some sort of performance boost with Snow Leopard which will be out in September...

I'm very at ease using OSX and have no fear of backup/erase/clean install etc. At this point I just don't understand how Windows works. I could certainly learn but there's just no need for it at this time. It's really cool that C5 is cross-platform...

Maybe someone here who uses C5 on both platforms could post some benchmarks.

I did a Mac DAW comparison (C5, L8, DP6) that was posted elsewhere but it needs some further work before I post it here.

Best

[muziksculp]

Hi, and Thanks for your feedback.

I'm not having any issues, I'm on a Mac, but, I have no problem switching to a PC if that will provide any 'major' improvements. So, It all depends on whether Cubase 5 does actually perform 'much better', and is more stable on a PC. I'm also aware that I can use bootcamp to run windows on my Mac, but I would rather keep my Mac strictly on OSX, and use a PC for C5, if that would offer 'much better' performance, and stability. if the difference is 'minimal', or 'slight', then I would stick to the Mac.

I decided to post a POLL about this, since it was quite difficult to come to any conclusion, regarding Cubase 5 on Mac vs PC, by just reading numerous posts, that are related to this topic, on GS, and other forums, and I found no POLLS on this topic.

OSX-Snow Leopard is not too far away, C5 might get a boost in performance, and stability on the Mac side, and finally become 64-bit DAW on OSX-SL, On the PC side, Windows 7 could also change things. So, as you can see, this is quite a dynamic topic.

Things can change !

Interestingly, when I ask Steingberg Reps, or audio retail, sales persons, about this topic, their most popular response is : Cubase 5 runs equally well on both platofrms, no major advantages, it all depends on your system specs. But then again, this is not the impression I'm getting when visiting forums, where Cubase 5/PC seems to be more popular, where some PC users seem to indicate it runs better, and more stable on their PC. So there is clearly some conflicting feedback.

Another factor to consider here, is that many PC /Cubase 5 users have not had a chance to accurately test it on a Mac, and vice-versa, so.. comparing Cubase 5 on both platforms is not something that many C5 users do on a regular basis, and having the access to an equally spec'd Mac and PC, to perform accurate comparisons, is not very easy to come by in many studios.

I used the words 'Much Better... ' in the POLL mainly because, if the difference between Mac and PC was ' Slightly Better", it would not be a critical, or major factor in choosing a platform. The third POLL option, "Equal" is not to be taken literally to mean exactly equal, but more like saying... its pretty close /quite equal. No major difference.

I hope this POLL would be of some value to Cubase 5 users, or others who are considering adding Cubase 5 as a first or second DAW option.

Cheers.

[CSeye]

I wonder if Steinberg uses more or less equally specified Mac and PC computers in it's development process? They're certainly in a better position than the average user or studio as you've indicated, to post a graphic-numerical comparison.

It's interesting to note the early responders to your poll.

Thank you for starting this.

Cheers

[muziksculp]

You are very welcome.

It will be interesting to see how this POLL develops in the weeks, and months ahead.

[warmer]

The large performance difference is well documented and the likely cause pin pointed, go over to the cubase/nuendo forums. There are only a few people who test both platforms so i don't see this poll being that useful.

[muziksculp]

Originally Posted by warmer

The large performance difference is well documented and the likely cause pin pointed, go over to the cubase/nuendo forums. There are only a few people who test both platforms so i don't see this poll being that useful.

Yes, there is a good amount of info./discussion regarding Cubase 5's performance, and stability on Mac vs PC on the Cubase/Nuendo forums, but reading through all these discussions, can be a good source of developing a 'mini-migraine' .

Although, I agree that there are a few people that can professionally test C5 on both platforms, on pretty much equally spec'd computers, to reach a conclusive technical conclusion. Steinberg would be a good candidate to reveal some of this info. but I doubt they will. So far, they claim C5 runs pretty much equally on both Mac and PC platforms.

There is no guarantee that some platform based bias will not play a role in this POLL. But I still feel that this POLL can be very helpful, as an overall indicator of the collective consensus of the current C5 user base. Additional comments will also help.

By the way, I have also read about the 'speed-step' issue on Mac OSX, being one of the major contributors to the degraded performance on Mac OSX. I'm not an expert on this detail, and have no clue if this will change in the next Mac OSX-SL, or if it actually is a real issue.

[redroom]

Cubase is very Stable in OSX but performance at lower latency is not good
and the graphics can be slow.

Form all accounts its more to do with OSX than Steinberg



Windows for me has been nearly as stable but took much more setting up and
tweaking but performance at low latency is much better than OSX and graphics are much quicker.



Most of the time Im happy with OSX as its such a great Multi tasking OS

[StereoPari]

Originally Posted by muziksculp

There is no guarantee that some platform based bias will not play a role in this POLL. But I still feel that this POLL can be very helpful, as an overall indicator of the collective consensus of the current C5 user base.

..And what if the "collective consensus" is mostly based on some internet hear-say, and not so much on the experiences of the real dual-platform users?

[muziksculp]

Originally Posted by StereoPari

..And what if the "collective consensus" is mostly based on some internet hear-say, and not so much on the experiences of the real dual-platform users?

Then you are simply looking at a biased result, with not much value built into it.

I don't expect this to be a 100% clinically pure, and professional test result based POLL, but the more we hear from users who tried to conduct some pro-tests on both platforms, the more we can reach some conclusion.

It would be interesting to hear from users who participated in this POLL as to how they came to their conclusions. Did they actually test C5 on both platforms, with equally spec'd computers, or was their conclusion based on other testing method i.e. bootcamp on Mac, or any other factors.

I strongly feel that having a POLL for this topic offers some value to other C5 users, or future users of Cubase 5, and it might shed some light on whether C5 actually runs better on a PC or a Mac, or if it "runs pretty much equally well on both platforms", which is Steinberg's classic answer when I ask them this question.

[TAFKAT]

Hey Muziksculp,

I have done extensive research and testing on the subject of Multiprocessor scaling in Cubendo over the years, and have had some highly knowledgeable and respected Multi platform end users help with the ongoing testing and reports, and the conclusion is that scaling on OSX is severely degraded compared to XP/Vista for numerous reasons, some that are out of the reach of Steinberg developers as they are inherent within OSX .

Heres the latest graph with testing on a current MacPro running OSX / Vista64 - Boot Camped



Lots more info Here

The only internet hearsay happening here is some thinly veiled apologetics to try and draw attention away from the quantifiable evidence with spin.

V:

[muziksculp]

Hi TAFKAT,

That's very interesting.

Let's hope that we will eventually see a big improvement in Cubase 5's performance, and stability in OSX-Snow Leopard.

Thanks for your contribution to this topic.

[muziksculp]

Hmmm ! No more interest in contributing to this thread ?


Accoridng to the current (low number) of POLL results, (11 so far favoring 'Much Better on PC', and Zero votes for the other two options, indicating that Cubase 5 is much better as far as stability, and performance on the PC.

Also to be noted, that the low number of POLL results might be a good thing, since it is more likely indicating that they are based on Pro-benchmark comparison tests, and not much based on internet based buzz, or biases.

I'm guessing that many other Cubase 5 (Mac) users would like to know the answer to this question.

I have a strong feeling that things will begin changing in favor of the Mac/Cubase 5, once we have an updated version of Cubase 5 running on OSX-Snow Leopard. Hopefully it will also be 64-bit ready for OSX-SL. (I'm an Optimist )

Thanks.

[dysamoria]

i had it crash on my Macbook Pro 3,1...
twice. Short time in between crashes. like one session of use, really.
Cubase 4 has not crashed in Windows Vista 64, on my generic PC.

i stopped using Cubase on my MacBook almost immediately. Cubase 4 was a whim purchase on credit card debt. i bought Logic Studio (Logic 8) on another whim for my Mac use... but i really was irritated that Cubase 4 seemed to perform seriously worse on the Mac (by crashing) because i have historically been platform agnostic.

Now i'm finding myself planning a move to an Apple Mac Pro dual-cpu 8 core machine for hardware to run BOTH MacOS AND Windows because my ASUS Striker Extreme put me off self-built machines forever and i love the hardware design of the Mac Pro machines.

Anyone want to buy my license of Cubase 4??

[Bob800]

Any self respecting professional musician won´t use Windows for their DAW. That´s just a fact, deal with it.

And it´s sad that Cubase is directed more to amateurs than professionals. I hope they would change their direction and focused more on the OS X side, but I guess money talks...

[dysamoria]

Originally Posted by Bob800

Any self respecting professional musician won´t use Windows for their DAW. That´s just a fact, deal with it.

And it´s sad that Cubase is directed more to amateurs than professionals. I hope they would change their direction and focused more on the OS X side, but I guess money talks...

your comment has nothing to do with the topic.

[shanabit]

Originally Posted by Bob800

Any self respecting professional musician won´t use Windows for their DAW. That´s just a fact, deal with it.

And it´s sad that Cubase is directed more to amateurs than professionals. I hope they would change their direction and focused more on the OS X side, but I guess money talks...

Look mom , another human has learned to talk out of his rectumdfegad


Cubase starting from SX2 here has been more snappy on the PC than with OSX, I run both . Tafkats numbers bear this out

[W-W-Int]

Originally Posted by dysamoria

your comment has nothing to do with the topic.

BIG +1 to that

anyway this topic is a non-issue. mac osx to date has a slower video subsystem than win xp and drastically slower than vista. that is the reason for the video glitching under osx not cubase it's the lesser efficient than windows video api's of osx. as far as supported plugin counts that again is due to i/o and audio api's under each os. windows xp was designed for faster audio and video at the sake of stability during it's development. over time and patches it got a bit slower but far more stable.

vista was designed for faster video and audio and i/o and stability was not tossed out for that goal during it's development like it was for xp. xp was simply an update to win 2000 which was an update to nt4. vista chucked the baby and the bathwater out and made a better baby without so much dirty bathwater. the thing is the way they re-did things for stability is they took away third party developers ability to sidestep security measures and locked them in to the apis that exist on the os and no elevation of priveledges like under win xp to make their app run faster than anything else on the system. vista is a balanced os and win 7 is a tweaked version of that so it should be a faster platform to run cubase on than vista as it's more resource friendly and doesn't try to assume as much as vista does as far as memory pre-fetching etc...

snow leopard is an unknown. however given apple's recent past I am not expecting big speed improvements from snow leopard. they are going to have the same problems microsoft did with vista switching to a 64 bit underpinned os and app compatibility and patches from thrid parties for their software to run properly. thrid party developers do not want to spend money on a product they have alredy released to make it run better or faster on a new platform. they save that version as a new upgrade and charge and make money off it. that's simply the way it goes in the software business. for apple to see huge speed improvements they will have had to retain near 100% compatibility with existing osx api calls and somehow magically behind the curtain make the underpinnings faster and comepletely the same as before as far as applications are concerned. and frankly microsoft is 100 times the software company size wise with literally that many more resources at it's disposal than apple has. and microsoft couldn't even get close to that either. it isn't a smarter programmer issue or even a better starting point issue. it's a we don't have anyway of knowing what tweaks and hacks all those third party developers used when they made their software issue.

[ecmaj7@gmail.com]

My projects get very heavy.
A lot of VSTi and plugins all over the place.
On Windows I get that wall, a little over 2gigs and poof.
On OSX I can push Cubase a lot farther before problems appear.
I can even jump on the internet, check email and have Omnifocus running at the same time while a big project is loaded without a problem.
Just so you know, I ran Cubase on PCs almost exclusively until I got a Mac Pro.
I have tried to do the same stuff on both Win and OSX.
OSX is better.
Yeah the graphics used to be slower on the Mac but anymore.

Emilio

[Pier]

Originally Posted by Bob800

Any self respecting professional musician won´t use Windows for their DAW. That´s just a fact, deal with it.

And it´s sad that Cubase is directed more to amateurs than professionals. I hope they would change their direction and focused more on the OS X side, but I guess money talks...

Well... Hans Zimmer uses cubase on the mac, you konw... that guy that composes music for film... oh and also his friend James Newton Howard too.


I'm interested in the performance of cubase vs logic on the mac.
Anyone can share his/her experiences?

TIA

[Mike Connelly]

Now there's an old thread.

Cubase 5.5 was supposed to be a big improvement on the mac side, is it on par with the performance of the PC version now?

[TAFKAT]

Nope.

Details on the thread Here

I have just completed a new round of cross platform testing with Nuendo 4 v Nuendo 5 v StudioOne 1.5 v Reaper 3.6 , using all 3rd party plugins which I will upload details over the next few weeks. In short, the performance variable between Win7 and OSX is not reserved to Cubendo, as much as many would like to believe.

[Mike Connelly]

If you're going to do a real comparison, you should include DP and Logic as well.

[DannyMac]

are those tests really fair seeing as os-x nuendo is not yet 64 bit?

[TAFKAT]

Originally Posted by Mike Connelly

If you're going to do a real comparison, you should include DP and Logic as well.

A real comparison ?

Firstly I am focusing on cross platform DAW applications, Protools is next in line after I complete the current reports. Logic , DP and Sonar for that matter are of less interest to me because they are not cross platform.

Re Logic, I already have the whole suite of sessions for Logic, but this methodology of quantifying scaling performance in relation to audio interface latency doesn't apply to Logic due to its hybrid playback engine setting the playback latency to 1024 ( default ) no matter what the hardware input latency is set to, so a direct comparison is difficult. Also Logic has its own quirks running this style of real time incremental loading benchmarks because it doesn't load balance dynamically very well. I don't want to go too far into it just yet, but I will do a detailed series of test and reports in future.

Re Nuendo OSX not being 64 Bit - that is irrelevant as all the applications tested are 32 bit versions, also, the 64 bit versions will not necessarily scale any better. The advantage of native 64 bit is in regards to available memory address , not overall scaling performance.

[Pier]

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

Nope.

Details on the thread Here

I have just completed a new round of cross platform testing with Nuendo 4 v Nuendo 5 v StudioOne 1.5 v Reaper 3.6 , using all 3rd party plugins which I will upload details over the next few weeks. In short, the performance variable between Win7 and OSX is not reserved to Cubendo, as much as many would like to believe.

Hey Tafkat, you are doing a great job.

Any reason why you use a multiband compressor instead of reverbs/eq/etc?

Maybe a more real life varied channel strip would throw different results?

Just guessing...

[TAFKAT]

Hey Pier,

The load plugins are simply a vehicle to place an incremental and quantifiable load on the subsystem.

I initially used the multibands as I needed something that was chewing enough cycles to challenge the newer multicore systems, but still small enough to give a consistent incremental result .

The new series of testing I have also added the URS Channelstrip Pro and the Elysia mPressor as well as also using the WaveArts Multidynamics 5 (which has been one of my reference plugins for a few years )

The results are very consistent across the 4 reference plugins being used ( the Steinberg Multiband and the 3 3rd party plugins )

Just finalizing the reports and I'll drop back and give everyone a heads up.

[TNM]

I agree with TAFKAT having extensively researched the issue myself... On anything but logic and possibly dp cause of it's pre render, windows trounces osx in performance for sheer number of effects that can play simultaneously... This can be seen simply by loading bootcamp on your Mac...
Also every program besides logic due to it's hybrid engine, has terrible low latency performance on Mac..... I always thought it was simply a speedstep issue but even with coolbook locking the processor to maximum frequency on my MacBook I still see the issue so there are other factors involved.....if it's for outright performance for cubase, windows, end of story. Same can be seen on my quad Mac pro....

Now other stuff comes into play though..... I find the window handling of cubase on Mac to be superior... I am ten x more comfy in osx in general than on windows... I like how I can have five apps open at once that can share the same driver even at different latencies!

And however apple do it, logic never pops and clicks, ever. And I only care about having low latency on the track I am recording....so for me it works...hybrid engine is great! Cubase runs everything at the latency chosen and even on the best windows systems I have seen pops and clicks when resizing windows etc..the asio meter jumps around like wildfire... And on a heavy CPU project unless you are using vst3 plugins only, cubase is constantly hammering the CPU as it doesn't release resources when playback is totally stopped even.... Logic refuses to play with a pop or click... It overloads and stops... Wheras this is some peoples poison for me it is it's saviour! I always know what i am listening to!

Tbh cubase will get more instances in bootcamp at the same latency of the same plugin than logic on osx... Roughly 25% more... Yes it's true.. But the way logics engine works overall I seem to be able to play back heavier real world projects without a glitch than I can in cubase, because of logics dynamic resource allocation and hybrid buffer so in the end this is what matters to me....

[Mike Connelly]

Originally Posted by TAFKAT

Logic , DP and Sonar for that matter are of less interest to me because they are not cross platform.

Then I guess your tests are of less interest to me since I don't use one of the cross platform apps.

If an app performs better on one platform than another, that's how it is. But you can't draw blanket conclusions comparing the platforms themselves from that.

It's not like it's a big surprise that a company that creates their app on one platform and ports to the other isn't going to have equal performance on both sides, that's one of the downsides to using a cross platform app.

Originally Posted by TNM

On anything but logic and possibly dp cause of it's pre render, windows trounces osx in performance for sheer number of effects that can play simultaneously...

Then I guess good thing many mac users are using Logic. I'd be curious how Logic compares, if it does well then the cross platform guys should get their act together and get the mac version up to par.

[zephonic]

Originally Posted by TNM

Now other stuff comes into play though..... I find the window handling of cubase on Mac to be superior... I am ten x more comfy in osx in general than on windows... I like how I can have five apps open at once that can share the same driver even at different latencies!

This is why I love working on OSX as well. It is a better over-all user experience. Still, it sucks to have to pay more for computer and get less performance. But the boys at Steinberg have hinted that the next version will see a big upgrade on the Mac side of things, so who knows....