For the last 1-2 years, many plugins have been getting heavier + bigger. For instance, Sonible SmartEQ3 eats around 10 times of the resources and 20 times bigger the file size than SmartEQ2. There is the improvement though.
Many other plugins go this way. Plus, some of them have weird copy protection, and even the best cr**king team wasn't able to break it perfectly.
So, I feel it's better to stay with the plugins before 2021 except some of them as they are still the same.
Just my opinion.

 

Last edited: Apr 4, 2022

Consider the problem in reverse: your computer is getting old, time to buy a new one

 

This is a law of computing. Basically, in paraphrase, software expands to consume the resources as technology advances. It happens with operating systems, applications, file formats, everything. Some is just bloat and lazy coding because, why not, and some isn't.

 

if it aint broke dont fix it - this goes for upgrading software as well

 

we might be at a point where effort invested to final effect ratio starts to become very big - what I mean is every 1% more of sound quality needs 10% more of cpu power and coding
you know, like when you are finishing a song and its like 90% done in 3 days, then you spend way more time to get those remaining 10% which may seem nonlogical at first, but it is how it is, at least from my perspective

 

i see a trend coming with a renaissaice of vintage plugins late 90s etc

 

Well, I'm not comparing with really old ones, but am talking about the recent 1-2 years. The plugins before 2021 and the current ones have a big gap. This is my point.
This issue happens in the game industry as well. Compare Street Fighter 4 and 5. The loading time in 5 is much longer than 4 even with a good system.

 

Last edited: Apr 4, 2022

I think this is the reason.

 

It makes sense. I also tend to do that. It takes only 2-3 days to complete a song and takes more time to finish it sometimes.
However, I recently made it shorten as my skill also has been improved.

 

"Dude, new plugins will never have the warm sound of Waves 32bit versions."

 

Any software is OS dependent: once the system is upgraded it is not possible to remain with the old app & plugins installed, we are forced to update everything. The only solution is to never update OS, but this also means precluding the performances provided by technological progress

 

100%. Aside from the replacement of any defective code, I have never seen a newer direct upgrade OS run any faster on the same equipment. Measurably faster sure, but not noticeably; and that is all I care to worry about. Apples to apples comparisons, not windows to some unix build comparisons. The typical " Oh, its faster now!" perception never takes into account that it was running with the system drive fragmented as hell prior to formatting it and reinstalling OS.

 

Last edited: Apr 4, 2022

I agree on that, that's why I'm always very suspicious when I get notified of a system upgrade. Unfortunately there is no choice, sooner or later, we are forced to do so.
Note:
There is only one thing to do to have a faster computer: hardware upgrade

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 4, 2022

I think Trurl is correct. I mean, our cell phones spend more power playing candy crush and watching YouTube videos than they had for the space missions back in the day. 100 years from now a decent amp sim may be 100 gigs or 100 teraflops and it be just another average program. Just like the size of an amp sim and computation power to run it right now might have blown the Apollo mission scientists' minds

 

Hi-Res Graphics

 

It's a case by case study / decision.
As computers get more powerful, some programmers just think less in efficiency, and other will use this power to bring real new possibilities.
But before updating any program it's worth studying what the update really brings to the table and if you need the new functions.
To bring some concrete examples:

Does the latest version of a multiband EQ really bring something different than 2 years ago?

Kontakt, now allow heavy programming and developers are creating synthesisers with it, do you need it?
Also the newest classical libraries have more expression , do you need that?

Synthesizers like Phase plant , rapid etc can be heavy on cpu, but if you are looking for the same sounds as always, do you need them? Are you really going to use their possibilities?
Another example of CPU hog is Diva from U-He, that is renowned for having a very close sound to analog synth, is that what your looking for?
BTW, it seems that all synth really getting c!ose to analog needs higher CPU consumption.

Depending on the answers, you take your decision.

Side note: This month, there is an article in Sound on Sound magazine about the recent advances from AMD and Intel and what they mean for music. It's very interesting, and at the end the author says: " Now that video edition in 8k is covered, we (musicians / ingeneers) don't have to worry about computer power."
You can read SOS for free in their online edition if you register.

 

Last edited: Apr 4, 2022

More sooner than later, devs need to think of parallelizing DSP, possibly using GPU for this purpose. Even DAWs do many things in a painfully blocking manner (the UI freezes you get are nothing but long tasks getting executed in the UI thread, which should actually be running in their own thread). Thanks to advances in programming languages it is very easy to write non blocking code, but idk how well C++ is with it.

Also most devs don't bother with having to create an app per platform. That's why you see a lot of Electron apps these days. Javascript is painfully slower and a memory hog unless used carefully, which devs with their 32GB RAM and top-of-the-line CPUs don't seem to care about

 

Things evolve. Compare one of the fisrt VST Instruments with for something complex as VPS Avenger.
But therer are still less sophisticated plugins available today, which are still updated but are lightweight.
It is the choice of the user. Years ago Apple introiduces Space Designer, It hasd a significat cpu demand. On todays hardware things look different

 

With some plugins you can reduce the number of voices to save CPU, sometimes some presets are designed so that you can only press one key, otherwise the CPU goes into the red zone. Some presets are badly made, so that the CPU goes into the red range.

VST`s that use less CPU Power
https://audiosex.pro/threads/vst-s-that-use-less-cpu-power.41145/

Synthesizer Plugins and CPU Usage
www.16sounds.com/blog/synthesizers-plugins-and-cpu-usage/

 

If you feel that, is just a signal. You have enough vst.