Multiple pc for more vst power?

Discussion in 'PC' started by tarakapand, Feb 11, 2020.

  1. Talmi

    Talmi Audiosexual

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    Thanks for the sharemouse tip. I use VNC to control my secondaries setups but I always used a virtual keyboard for the secondary setups, sharemouse will solve that.

    Yeah I'm eying an upgrade of my main setup but I'm actually in no rush to do it thanks to this handy solution that I'll keep using even after upgrading. I have 2 other computer as secondary setups right now, older setups that were fine workhorses in their own times. Each is dedicated to its task (one for aquas, one for virtual instrument/samplers with cpu needs), with VEP it's very easy to do a bunch of presets that perfectly fits your needs. The things run in the background and are always ready to go independantly of the load I put on my main setup, which is also a lovely plus. Both main and secondaries are never in the red, you can balance power needs very sweetly. Also since they have very little things installed on them, they require less reinstall and maintenance. The main setup is the one that requires the most time in that domain.

    Also why I wanna change screen. I have a dual screen setup right now with one screen dedicated to my secondary setups. I want an ultra wide one where I can perpetuate this behavior.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2020
  2. junh1024

    junh1024 Rock Star

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    Yes, but I think it's better to try reducing your CPU usage first, by e.g, using less & DAW internal FX instead of 3d pty.
     
  3. Blue

    Blue Audiosexual

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    I read that servers with multiple cpus were bad for music production because of bad latency performances..So is it wrong?
     
  4. Blue

    Blue Audiosexual

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    THIS IS a home studio!
     
  5. statik

    statik Audiosexual

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    well we have multicore cpu's which are essentially 2 or more cpu's in 1, so sort of the same as dual cpu's
     
  6. taskforce

    taskforce Audiosexual

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    Not at all in this case. You can see he's turned them to Vienna Ensemble "Satellites". Nothing wrong about it. They are used for almost what they were built for, running as servers for VEP. In short, they just run plugins and libraries not DAWs.
    Sorry but this is quite ridiculous, something that you would advice a total novice for wasting his comp's resources back in "98. Everyone else today, just can't get enough. Moar powah plz. That's the nature of the beast brah.
    Not even sort of the same anymore. Between Intel & AMD, only AMD had this problem with their chiplet design and Ryzen gen 3 has solved it by giving all cores equal access to the memory controller that sits in the middle of the cpu's die. Intel's cpu design is monolithic so far and never had these probs with one cpu, this may change because i hear Intel's planning a chiplet design too.
    But with dual cpu mobos you have everything x2. Each cpu has its own chipset, memory controller and ram slots etc etc. The system decides which cpu will run the tasks at hand and audio apps don't handle the latency between the two cpus well...
    (EDIT) Whereas rendering and 3d apps, video editing and so forth don't care about this so they scale better with a ridiculous number of threads. But for Windows 10 Home and Pro, the max the os can handle is 64 threads. You need Win Server or special Enterprise version or Win 10 Pro Workstation edition if you want a cpu with more threads.
    PS: Win 7 Ultimate x64 supports 256 threads if i recall correctly. Oh dear... so much for the future.
    Cheers :)
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2020
  7. Legotron

    Legotron Audiosexual

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  8. Xupito

    Xupito Audiosexual

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    It only works for FX rendering purposes. When it comes to video FX, it's the equivalent to producing a song with your DAW but the render process takes several hours or even days. No real-time use.
    As @taskforce said it's different. I think the important thing to remember is that the weakest link with audio PC slaves is the added latency of the Ethernet communication. It's small for what it was designed for, but for real-time audio 25 ms (random guess) of additional latency can be a problem if you for instance are playing/recording live your guitar/keyboard.

    If it's a virtual instrument you basically score/program with the piano roll not that much of a problem or not at all.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2020
  9. dondada

    dondada Rock Star

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    Xupito
    first
    you are talking about a hypothetical situation
    says nothing about tracking

    secondly in toms example he used com over ethernet but an/digi audio for sound

    lastly
    nowadays thanks to ravenna/aes67/dante, 25ms is nonsens ;)
    if one needs AOIP it of course:wink:
     
  10. taskforce

    taskforce Audiosexual

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    Depends on the pcs but with VEP and two slave pcs it's more like 1- 1.5 ms. Perhaps 2ms roundtrip. A little more when 3 and 4 pcs are added and Hackintosh gets in the mix too. Not 25ms mate. And why on earth would i be recording on a remote pc ? I don't get it lol. Unless you meant recording on the main daw computer but i don't see why would that introduce added latency.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
  11. Legotron

    Legotron Audiosexual

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  12. Always Grateful

    Always Grateful Kapellmeister

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    Rather than do that. I think 16-24gb ram and 3.4 ghz is ideal for 16-24 track recording. Have a look at Samplitude and Sequoia which Masterers use and commented to have the best audio and find Greg Wells Start to Finish, he changed my approach he uses 4 plugins on vocals or hardware when he can, entire song on 1 stereobuss and limiter across chorus elements. His methods will save me from some latency headache playing with buffer times the more vsts' added.
     
  13. Xupito

    Xupito Audiosexual

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    Wow, hold your horses! :rofl:

    For some reason I'm pretty sure I was talking about something not only the op but two pages later quite some people are interested.
    Same thing.

    As I stated: random guess to put an example. BTW, I couldn't care less about latest technologies when most people at home have your average joe 1GB ethernet card.
    Same thing.

    Where on earth did I say that? I was obviously talking about the effects of slave pc's latency when playing live on the master computer. Recording or not.
     
  14. dondada

    dondada Rock Star

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    i didn't put a gun to you head ;)
    i thought maybe you'd like to know
    hmmm........you are doing it again
    you can use your existing gear and use adat or aes spdif
    or dante or any other stuff like long audio cables. none of it
    is latency dependent.
    the only thing transmitted over "real" or pure ethernet
    is toms video/grafix and mouse, controller signals.
    think of it as old-school usb-hub (wich it can have) - monitor switch for peripherals.

    that's the whole point of toms rig
    super power No latency
     
  15. taskforce

    taskforce Audiosexual

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    Just some corrections, i was wrong here, win10 pro supports 128 threads, when a 64c/128t cpu is present though, it divides the processes to two processor groups of 64 threads, which of course doesn't help performance (and even worse for latency) as each processor group has its own priorities. Win10 Enterprise supports 256 threads. It is obvious MS wasn't ready for such a giant leap in consumer technology, as the one AMD offers right now. I'm not sure Apple is ready either, but i read they have been mesmerized by AMD's offerings and have been buying AMD cpus to test on their systems since summer's rls of Ryzen gen3. Don't be surprised if the next gen Apple comp has an AMD cpu hehehe...
    That's what Dante,AVB and the rest of Ethernet audio tech leverage. The built-in 1gbit connection found in all comps currently. These aren't latest technologies, they are tried and tested. The majority of live audio works with some form of Ethernet audio as it is the best in terms of connectivity and control. Btw, i wasn't "correcting you" there about the latency, i saw what you wrote, i was just stating my experience, i have also used VEP live (macbook with shuttle mini pc slave) and had no problem performing.
    About that recording and remote pc thing, i could swear someone wrote all they 're interested in, is use a remote pc to record live or something like this anyway. But looking back at the threads i don't see it anywhere lol. So no worries, my bad mate :)

    One thing we have to note here about VEP, it's not some proprietary form of Ethernet audio protocol. At least not one that i 'm aware of. It doesn't perform as a dedicated audio card like AVB, Dante etc. have various interfaces, if it did you could have every comp on the network being a slave and a master at the same time and run multiple daws but this is not the case, VEP is just a smart vst/vsti host with a few more perks under the hood.
    Cheers :)
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2020
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