Metro IN OSX AND POWER REQUIREMENTS AND COMPATIBILITIES

[fastlanephil]

Is there a major difference between a G3 and A G4 machine when it comes to recording audio with or without effects or is it mhz, cache. Will third party upgrades help or should I stay away from them as in a beefed up Cube,ect. I'm using an iBook 600 Booting from a Lacie L2 7200 FW drive with 384 megs. Looking at that new 12" Powerbook. Will it cut the muster for basic audio recording with effects and virtual instruments using Metro.

[françois]

I'm working with os 10.2.4, and an I book 800mhz, i think there is no pb to U to continue with an I book, I record yesterday 3 hours with AIFF with my single I book HD .....

[Jerm]

I should note that most laptops (powerbook, ibook) have drives that rotate at 4200 rpms. This is very slow for digital audio applications, especially when the OS uses virtual memory.

[fastlanephil]

Yes, I noticed a cleaner recording using the faster external drive. The iBook 800 has a much better video chip so that might help out the processor. I think archiving unneeded tracks helps a lot also.

[Scoot]

So one of the things fastlanephil really wants to know is what does altivec do to metro?

[Jerm]

It does very fast conversion to/from floats which is very useful for coreaudio and much of the audio engine utilizes the vector processor which translates (hopefully) in to more tracks/effects.

[dannsh]

Jerm:

Are you close to notation in OS X? I purchased and downloaded the upgrade today. I did some Midi imports. I had to adjust my Clockworks settings for my MTP AV to get midi to play correctly. I am using a Roland JV1080 and Sound Canvas SC-88. Are there any insturment lists out there for the JV1080 and any of the expansion cards? I am using the Sound Canvas insturment.ins and the General MIDI.

I wish I had hung on to my Metro 5 JV1080 JV1080 insturment list.

[Jerm]

Jerm:

Are you close to notation in OS X?

This is a work in progress. It will be at least a couple of months before this is available.

Are there any insturment lists out there for the JV1080 and any of the expansion cards? I am using the Sound Canvas insturment.ins and the General MIDI.

Have you followed our links to .ins files?

http://www.sagantech.biz/links/links.shtml

[dannsh]

No I had not dug that deeply into the site. Thanks.
Scooterman offered to email me the JV1080 ins.
Keep up the good work.

[arbastien]

Hello all!

Is it useful to have the 2 processors G4 machine?

In other words, will Metro use both processor? I'm in the process of buying a new Mac and I was wondering if there is an advantage to the dual processors machines. In what scenario do you think a dual processor would be useful?

I'm not familliar with those new computers, but I think that a process can only be assign to a single processor. So I don't think it is that useful for working with MIDI and audio (VSTis, Etc.) unless you can assign things to a specific processor. Am I right here?

Tks,

Alain

[buserror]

It is virtually impossible to overwork a dual proc machine. thats the main difference with a mono one: Even if you have a very heavy task, the machine stays responsive.

Even if Metro is single threaded (wich is is no longer now on OSX) the work done by the system on the audio chain is spreaded on two processors. For example, the driver can run on one, and the application on another, at the same time.

Note that the choice of where the program runs is not done once and for all, it is done several hundreds time a second, so any tasks always run on the less busy processor.

I've been using dual procs macs for over 3 years now, and I wouldn't trade them for any amount of snazy leg-warmers, even with 17" screens

[stringplucka]

i love my dual 533 too ! only wish it supported dual monitors like some of the legwarmers do

[Jerm]

Don't they have PCI Slots?

[stringplucka]

all the dualies since have supported dual monitors out of the box .
for the price of a v card i could almost upgrade . at least that was the case till apple dropped the dual 867 from the entry point for desktop . bad move apple .

also I have read posts about various conflicts caused due to installation of 2nd card but maybe this was in os 9 .

yes but maybe soon I will purchase a 2nd video card for my machine.

cheers

[arbastien]

Forgive my ignorance, but... what do you mean by "Legwarmers" ?

Alain