REAPER torture test: Pro Tools Engineers performance testing

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:50 am

*Hey, just thought you guys might wanna read this post from the REAPER site. I've seen a few tests lately, nothing like this though:
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Ok, well, I'm a very long time PT user(LE and HD) and the other day MattP insisted I give REAPER a shot. I definitely tortured it all day today on my Quad Opteron rig. Pretty impressive.

-I had 600 tracks with SSL Channel strip on every track(buffer of 1024)and not a prob. 30% CPU left.

-I recorded on 165 audio tracks all at the same time with the buffer at 64(no plug-ins inserted). Not a problem. Smile

-I recorded a ton of different tracks of various media all in the same session. Pretty cool. I did all of it like FLAC(a fave of mine for years next to Monkey's Audio), AIFF, WAV, OGG, MP3 etc.

-I put a 60 track PT session into Reaper. These were consolidated tracks from the archived PT session. I was surprised how fast this session opened in Reaper. Pretty cool.

-I tortured ReaMote. I did the tests by networking my Quad and Dualcore laptop via firewire. This feature was VERY easy to setup and was amazing. Not that I would need to do this with the Quad. And again, with the buffer at 64, I had no problems. MattP did further tests with ReaMote and was able to get great results on a wireless network. Smile

-The Pro Tools color theme made working with the app more comfortable and quick.

It's a pretty cool app. But, one thing it needs is the inserts and sends in the mix window for quickly inserting and accessing plug-ins. This is also pretty major when mixing. With Reaper, I cant see what plug-ins I inserted and what is routed to my busses by looking at the mixer. That is definitely a "must have" especially when doing the type of massive mixes I do. 40-60 tracks with 8-12 returns are common for me. With other DAWS, I can look at the mix window and instantly see what plug-ins are inserted on a track and what tracks are being sent to the various aux returns. This keeps the creative flow going and the mix moving fast.

I'm sure the Reaper boys will sort this out. Cool app. I'm going to work with it some more and definitely try out every new build they release.

As a long time Pro Tools user that works with PT full time everyday in the studio, Reaper has definitely got my attention.

Shane
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*And here's the actual test:
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I was doing a common benchmark stress test that we do in Pro Tools to measure CPU usage and performance and to compare PT rigs with one another. We call it the Dverb test. Since Dverb cant be used in Reaper, I decided to use another CPU intensive plug-in that can be used in both Reaper and Pro Tools, hence, the Waves SSL Channel strip.

Here is a rundown of the Dverb test we do:

http://duc.digidesign.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1000686&page=0&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1

I was able to do this benchmark in Reaper using the SSL Channel and then doing the same in Pro Tools. I didnt complete the test in Reaper and gave up after hitting 600 tracks with 30% CPU left over. Smile

I'll have to redo this test in PT but if I recall, I got about 180ish SSL channels doing the same test in Pro Tools Native. I'll have to find my old post for an accurate number.

Great app you have going.

Shane
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You can read the whole discussion here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=170804

and REAPER's site is here:

http://reaper.fm/download.php

btw the inserts and sends on the tcp are coming soon.

Cheers! Smile

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:57 pm

Here's a 'test' done by a Nuendo user from our forum:
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I use Nuendo 3 (same audio engine as Cubase SX3) and I essentially replicated a session in Reaper (the most recent version) that gets very bogged down in Nuendo at low buffer settings. I like to track with 64 samples buffered and then mix with something like 512 samples as buffer or double that sometimes.

If I run the session in N with 64 samples I was hitting 70-80% + CPU usage and tons of clicks and pops...

I ran a virtually identical session in R, tracked with low latency, and then reset the buffers for mixing...had it running more or less like N except the CPU was pretty low (like 19% with 512 samples) but I thought, so what, let's knock it down to the lowest setting and, I'll be damned, my CPU hit was only a few % higher (about 23%-27%) with NO clicks or pops at all with about a dozen plugins.

I was changing the buffers on the fly with no hiccups at all...unlike in N when I would change settings and it freezes up for a moment or two.

Very impressive, overall.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:35 pm

One comparing Sonar 6 and Tracktion2 :
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I have noticed a dramatic difference between Tracktion 2 and Reaper.

I am able to work with half the latency. And I still have mega dropouts in Tracktion (never dropped out once in Reaper using 256 samples) when using VSTi's at 512 samples.

For instance, I often have dropouts in T2 while auditioning loops in Stylus RMX. In Reaper not only will it preview without fail, it will do it while dragging loops into a song while the song is playing! I actually can drag and drop MIDI files on the fly without a glitch in Reaper.

And a typical project in Sonar 6 usually hovers around the 55% mark on my CPU meter (occasionally darting up to 80% randomly), while a similar project in Reaper just smokes it at around 12-15%. No shit.

Basically, I put Sonar aside for Tracktion simply because of the workflow, but was ready to return to Sonar because of stability issues. But Reaper smokes them both for me.

Reaper is rock solid and so intuitive...I am loving it.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:48 pm

Most CPU consumption comes from plug-ins. Smells a bit of fan fever.

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:38 am

GregP wrote:

Most CPU consumption comes from plug-ins. Smells a bit of fan fever.

Ouch!

If it's the same plugins used to compare, then it's the daw that's the difference Smile

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:11 am

True dat, true dat. The entire project would pretty much have to be recreated to compare, and the way it was worded, it didn't seem to be the case; however, now that I'm thinking about it, of course that's what you must've done.

Other things factor in that I hadn't considered, such as graphic rendering. Unless graphic code is dumped to the GPU for processing, it'll make a CPU hit. I know that Tracktion is cross-platform, meaning that they don't use SSE, DirectX, or other code standards that would be able to either: 1. process the graphics on the CPU with on-die instructions; or 2. efficiently allocate work to the GPU.

If you're coding specifically for one platform, in Reaper's case, Windows, you gain the benefit of coding efficient graphics handling (and for that matter, other kinds of platform-specific handling that I might not even be thinking of), but at the cost of cross-platform compatibility.

IOW, you're probably right that Reaper uses less CPU. Sorry for making it sound like you're full of it. I'm sure you're not. Very Happy

Greg

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:03 am

I didn't do any of the tests myself...the first was by some pretty experienced Pro Tools engineers, the last two were a Nuendo user and a Tracktion/Sonar user. We've had a lot of these since REAPER got low latency optimized maybe 8 weeks ago, these ones just stood out a bit more as the testing seemed fair and less subjective...eg the Pro Tools test was a standard D-Verb test which they substituted an SSL plugin for on both (REAPER doesn't support RTAS of course).

Not dissing anybody or any daw, it's just more likely it'll get read here...people should do their own tests really Smile

** I just wanted to add, REAPER has an alpha Mac build available for download,but it's lagging far behind the PC version ...estimated to catch up though within 6 months.

http://reaper.fm/files/reaperosx_020U.dmg

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 7:22 am

seems pretty interesting, I've seen it at KVR but didn't try currently...

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