hey guys
does anyone know if vintage VSTi can utilize multi-core? or only use 1 core?

by vintage VSTi
i mean something like Hypersonic, Kompakt edition of EWQLSO, Stormdrum, RA...etc
they were all released in single-core era.

 

Good question.

 

Why do you want multi-core on a vintage VSTi?

 

That would be totally dependent on your DAW and how it handles plugins, right?
I know some plugins won't work at all unless I use jBridge, not even as bit bridger but basically as a host/wrapper.

By design those VSTs are made to work with one core. A multi core system won't give you any advantages.

 

First question...
What is analog for you? How do you divide analog sound and its multicore dependency? Do you think cpu hog u-he diva means close to analog? Or what? I know some vst and vsti that are extremely cpu hog but very far from analog and close to digital...

 

Last edited: Nov 5, 2016

From a programming standpoint, anything written (and compiled) very long ago will not make full use of more recent technologies even if the host application is managing the plugin and kinda assinging them to different cores dynamically.

Basically if that "vintage" plugin was re-written today, they could've used certain techniques to make it run more efficiently. But other than that, does it really matter to us sound-freaks? A lot of people still run Commodore C64s (real ones or inside a horribly inefficient emulator) all just to get the sound that they made with those outdated techniques of yesteryear.

 

Old VSTi have low CPU requirements because they were developed for whatever processors were available at the time.

 

That's like asking if the developers were able to look ahead in time and program for something that didn't exist back then. No, they can't make use of modern tech.
However, the closer they stick to the VST standard the more likely they'll still run - which alone is pretty amazing. And, as @Zenarcist mentioned, their requirements are so low that you shouldn't run into issues using a bunch of them.

 

ah...thanks guys
it is not that i have any cpu overload with those old plugins
simply the thought came to my mind and i wanted to know the truth

i used to think that DAWs would handle that automatically and didnt try to find the answer until yesterday...

 

Technically speaking, SMP (generic concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing#Mid-level_systems did exist back then "Intel Pentium II, and Intel Pentium III processors allowed dual CPU systems", it's just that <1% conssumers had them. And you could always program in as many threads you want, compiler/lib-dependant. Just that there's not much benefit on the hardware at the time. Realtime systems have been intrested in MTing for longer for abstrction purposes.

Well, there's something either sticking to VST conventions or avoiding this or thta (OS-specific calls perhaps?).

I have a few plugs that don't work properly at all, or work only when wrapped (say DDMF metafilter)

 

In another thread I got more detailed. You are confusing a few terms here. The multiple cpu integration is different from the current multi-core integration. Also, don't confuse system threads (of which you can have as many as the cpu can deal with) with Intel's "Hyperthreading", which is a different thing.

System calls are already against the VST specs. VST 2.x integrated .fxp and fxb reading/writing, but nothing else, not even sample loading. So every direct system call is outside the scope of VST 2.x. If somebody now programmed a system access that used some, say, deep WinXP trickery, it is likely that it won't work anymore under Win 8 or 10. But still, even on this level, if they sticked to the Win API, there's still a chance they'll work, unless they made use of now deprecated calls.