Reaktor 6: poor performance under Apple Silicon
Comments
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Please inform yourself before posting. This is embarassing.
For what I'm talking about here, singlecore performance is pretty much THE most important thing.
"Four performance cores is not strong computer by any means in current days.!"
Thanks for proving you have no idea what you're talking about. Did you read the performance figures I posted above? Apparently not.
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To get some things straight:
- I do VERY well know what I'm talking about. So please stop offending my intelligence by telling me the number of cores is oh-so-relevant to a single instance Reaktor test. Because it's not.
- I WANT to work at 32 samples buffersize all througout. Accept it. And guess what? I CAN work at 32 samples buffersize all throughout.
- Along these lines, it is again offending my intelligence to recommend switching to 128 samples buffersize until NI will fix their Reaktor issues. I have hardly ever read something more absurd.
- So far, there's exactly two plugins showing abysmally bad performance: Kontakt 7 Player and Reaktor 6. Each and every other plugin I have installed shows HUGE performance boosts compared to my old Mac Pro. And as said, we're talking 3-4 times the CPU juice for singlethread tasks and roughly 30-50% improvements on multithreading tests. So, seriously, stop telling me it's my computer or Apple or their OS. Because it's not.
- Just to make this very, very clear: I'm having strong issues with Apple. I don't like their business tactics at all and I hate planned obsolescence (something Apple is pretty good at) with a passion. Yet, there's reasons why I'm using Macs. So please stop telling me about the marvels of the Windows world.
- Also stop telling me my computer is too weak. You're only making a fool out of yourself. It's very unlikely you'll find a Windows laptop getting even close to this Macbook Air (maybe some gaming machines twice as large and heavy with their batteries crapping out after two hours). Everybody who has ever worked with any of these new Macbooks (regardless whether it's Pros or Airs) is stunned about their performance. Because yes, their performance is almost brutally stunning.
I'm actually quite astonished about some of the replies in this thread. It's like talking to people who are parroting things they may have read somewhere on the internet without any actual scientific proves or even just evidence behind.
If any of the above seems arrogant to whomever, be it so. But I know what I'm talking about, so I can afford it.
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This might help (from the actual Reaktor team):
R 6.5.0 (appears) to have entered permanent maintenance mode well over a year ago and was not built with an M3 or Sonoma or anything newer (Mac-wise) than what was available circa Jan-Feb-March 2023.
Regardless of your hardware - this is an old dog with no new tricks unfortunately.
Whether Reaktor gets a new coat of paint in the future is anyone's guess - but I am guessing it won't be anytime soon.
VP
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First off: Thanks for the link. Doesn't exactly help, though - I mean, "For a variety of reasons, NI is not in a position to invest major resources in this product" doesn't exactly read positive. It's more like "we just have to leave it at that".
So, after all, maybe it's time to entirely let Reaktor go. I actually liked some ensembles (especially Form, which is performing as bad as Super 8, which I liked as well), but none of them justify to sacrifice my super low latency performance (3.5ms RTL at 44.1kHz, which I just love).
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"For a variety of reasons, NI is not in a position to invest major resources in this product" doesn't exactly read positive."
The way it reads to me is - enjoy v6.5.0. Reaktor Team Out.
I still use R 6.5.0 a lot here with no issues (@3.2ms).
Especially Super 8 - one of my fav synths.
VP
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Fwiw, out of interest, I copied the Reaktor component from my old Mac Pro. And guess what? While performance is still pretty bad, it's better than with the silicon-native version, even with the additional Rosetta "translation" layer.
So NI didn't manage to get Reaktor work even just as good as the intel-version via Rosetta. That's quite embarassing.
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Yeah, but you're on Windows.
Well, just goes to show again: NI and Apple are a match made in hell. I have been there so often by now… Machine I, Rig Kontrol II, Kore Kontrol I - they're all rendered electro trash. Let alone all the nice plugins they abandoned.
Sure, you could blame it on anyone using Macs, but as said above, sometimes there's reasons for that (and I very often don't like them, either). And these days you can at least get one of the world's most powerful laptops. But you rather don't use NI stuff.
Maybe I should finally learn from that episode and start looking elsewhere.
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"Sure, you could blame it on anyone using Macs, but as said above, sometimes there's reasons for that (and I very often don't like them, either). And these days you can at least get one of the world's most powerful laptops. But you rather don't use NI stuff."
Can't really blame the userbase. They are conditioned to believe that as soon as they open that shiny new M3 with Sonoma on it - that the rest of the known software world should simply "just work".
I have had had some very deep, involved technical chats with at least a half dozen developers and vendors this last year or so - and all of them have stated very clearly - that trying to navigate this Apple Silicon thing AND especially Sonoma - has been a headache for everyone out there - sometimes in massive proportions.
These challenges start and end at the Apple Labs - where it is no secret that Cupertino does not really care about third parties out there - especially when they essentially rewrite the OS every summer and expect the world to simply "catch up".
If I were a third-party DAW vendor or plugin developer and had this gauntlet thrown at me every 10 months - I would seriously consider if it's even worth it to support this platform at all.
There will come a point for all vendors where too much is finally too much - all because Apple decides to change the guts of either their OS OR their chipset - OR both whenever they feel like it.
I do not envy Mac users at all. And cannot even imagine what I would do if my workflow were compromised like this year in and year out and then piling on the kind of performance issues and weirdness you are seeing with specific apps and plugins.
I would probably stay put on a known good (solid) version of Mac OS and only update when absolutely necessary. And use my hardware til it dies or is 100% unsupported.
VP
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So, @Sunborn, I followed your advice and switched my buffersize to 128 samples - just to give it a try (as if I hadn't done so before…). Here's the result. This is a single instance of Super 8 in an otherwise empty project and there's NO MIDI sent to it. Logic is stopped and I'm not touching any keys.
I think that this should more than perfectly demonstrate that it's not my machine, not Logic, not Apple or whatever. It's solely NI not being able to code this thing properly.
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What audio interface do you use?
VP
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See, @Vocalpoint, I am absolutely aware of all this and I share quite some of your sentiments. I'm possibly one of the most critical Apple users you can find. And often enough I hate being trapped into all this.
Yet, in this case here, it's clearly NIs fault. They're a big player in this business so supporting silicon-native versions of their plugins properly is a must. Add to this that plenty of much smaller players have no issues doing so.
And as far as the ever so annoying OS updates go, yeah, it's pathetic. And there's been some utterly sh** updates in the past, killing soo many things for no technical reasons.
Still, there's no way to deny that Apples ARM CPUs are pretty much a game changer (to use that overused term - in this case it's actually correct). Hence, this time, the other players (such as NI) need to follow suit.
And seriously, it's not because of things being to hard to do. It's simply because NI has changed from an innovative company (raising the bars on the plugin market quite often) to merely a content sales shop.
Take a look at Battery 4. It's not Apple's or anyone else's fault for Battery 4 to be disgrace to human intelligence. It's solely NI who have committed that crime.
Or take a look at Kontakt. It's not Apples or anyone else's fault that you can, say, still not resize the editing windows. Or that they think grey on light grey on some darker grey with some grey-ish orange added would be a decent and easy to decipher color scheme.
In most cases, it is very clearly NI messing things up.
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And are e-cores used or not? If yes, maybe it runs on e-core…. Or any other DAW thread.
Big-little is big-little, it is OK if it works and disaster if not.
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For singlethread tasks e-cores are never used.
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For the last tests mainly a Motu M2. But I crosschecked with a Zoom UAC-2, a Line 6 HX Stomp and the onboard audio device. It's the same all throughout.
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Have you seen this video as well? Some interesting M3 findings…especially for audio:
VP
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