Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Is it time for me to get a new computer?

musicalweather

musicalweather

Senior Member
So, my main machine is a 15" 2016 MacBook Pro, 16 GB memory, 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, OS Monterey. My sample libraries are on two PCs, which are connected via Vienna Ensemble Pro. My DAW is Digital Performer 11.

It ain't great having just 16 GB of memory, but this system has worked decently for a long time. But these days, the MacBook Pro seems to slow down to a grind nearly all the time. When I check the activities monitor, it's almost always the kernel_task that has shot up to 500 or 600% of CPU. Sometimes it's also mds_stores that eats up a huge percentage of CPU. These percentages can be high even if I have relatively few apps open. This morning I was working with Pigments in standalone mode, and everything got slower and slower until I got a hung note in Pigments. This seems to be happening a lot.

Would having a larger memory and a more robust CPU help this problem? Or is there some kind of fix that can help me cope with this issue for a bit longer?

I've got some great plugins like Ozone, but am hesitant to use them because they inevitably cause my Mac to slow down.

Thoughts?
Click to read more...
 
In a general non official way, any 12-13 gen Intel or M1/M2 Mac will be better and more suitable for working without issues (64 ram min). Still there's always times you may find issues due to size of template, Q of plugins active and etc .. but in the big picture today an upgrade will solve and give you years to come in compatibility so you can work without concern.

Cost is your decision but I built an i7 12700 with 128 Ram, 2 nvme's, a regularl video card and paid around US$1800 if I recall. So budget would be near that figure, I didn't mention Ryzen though mostly because I believe you would go via MAC unless budget has priority.
 
musicalweather said:
Would having a larger memory and a more robust CPU help this problem? Or is there some kind of fix that can help me cope with this issue for a bit longer?
Click to expand...
Well, since these problems are occurring recently, it's more likely that your macbook has some faulty hardware. Pigments alone shouldn't be enough to make these specs sweat. What you described sounds like a memory leak to me, but as far as I am concerned you can't just replace individual parts on notebooks.

So the only thing that comes to my mind would be to make a backup of your important data and make a fresh and clean reinstall of your OS to see, if that fixes the issue. If not, it's most likely hardware related, which means it's time for a new device.
 
I think so, yes. If you are working with virtual instruments, At least 32gig RAM and a fast i7 or better would be the way to go. CPU for running VI’s, yes.

Probably a good time to get spending, if big politics goes wrong, and there are issues with the production of chips in Taiwan, new computers could become a scarce commodity.
 
Voider said:
Well, since these problems are occurring recently, it's more likely that your macbook has some faulty hardware. Pigments alone shouldn't be enough to make these specs sweat. What you described sounds like a memory leak to me, but as far as I am concerned you can't just replace individual parts on notebooks.
Click to expand...
When pigments was updated, I read some comments regarding the "new update finally allows multicore" meaning that they're complaining about how Pugments was hard on CPU. Never noticed though, but maybe, maybe intels MACs on single core isn't that great on performance?

So, did you @musicalweather update Pigments and checked multicore settings?
 
musicalweather said:
It ain't great having just 16 GB of memory, but this system has worked decently for a long time. But these days, the MacBook Pro seems to slow down to a grind nearly all the time. When I check the activities monitor, it's almost always the kernel_task that has shot up to 500 or 600% of CPU.
Click to expand...
That's MacOS trying to manage your CPU temperature; see this link.

musicalweather said:
Sometimes it's also mds_stores that eats up a huge percentage of CPU.
Click to expand...
That's Spotlight indexing. Letting it finish usually settles it down, but occasionally it needs a restart if it has got stuck. Excluding sample drives (also removable drives generally, and locations that see lots of file changes) can help.
 
The short answer is YES.

Not sure what your budget is and whether you want to stay Mac mobile. Most bang for buck imo is a Ryzen 9 PC with a good mobo and fast M2 system drive. I don't think you need masses of RAM especially if you're continuing with the 2 PC slaves - 32GB should be okay. The good news is that your VE Pro template should transfer okay to the new rig I think.

If you go with a rig like that, or get an M3 Macbook (running everything native), the performance will be night and day compared to what you're used to. I went for 7900 processor and that runs at 65w - it's fantastic.
 
Thank you all for weighing in!

@EanS : did you build a Mac or PC? The specs of your machine sound great, but it seems it would be hard to get a Mac with 126 ram for that price. Maybe I’m wrong. In any case, I’m looking for a Mac - just too entrenched in it to switch to PC. Besides, the PC version of Digital Performer seems to have a lot of problems. Also: I have the most recent version of Pigments and I do have the multicore option checked.

@GtrString: yikes, hadn’t thought of possible shortages. Thanks for the tip.

@aldous: thanks, I had read about both of these. The thing is, the kernel_task seems to be super high even when I don’t have that much going on. I do wonder if the kernel_task percentage can stay high even after I close an app that’s using a lot of CPU. Seems to be that way. I’ve tried restarting in order to stop the Spotlight from indexing, but that doesn’t always work.

@Guy Rowland: I’m going to stick with Mac, for several reasons. The most important is that my DAW, DP, does not run well on PCs. I’m bracing myself for the financial pain of getting a new machine...
 
Yes, I think you should.

The one you currently have has apparently served you well since 2016. A lot has changed in chip architecture and other areas since then.

Get a new Apple Silicon machine (plenty to choose from), and I think it'll serve you well for a number of years going forward.
 
Just had a gander at what's in the marketplace, new and used. So many variables! It seems you pay a very steep price for any new MacBook Pro that has 64 or more GB of ram. My dream spec of a 14" MBP with an M3 Max chip, 96 GB unified memory, and 1 TB is about 4k! 😮

Some questions: is unified memory some kind of miracle memory? Is it so powerful that I can get by with less than I would normally want? A new 14" MBP with an M3 chip, 24 GB of unified memory, and 1 TB storage is about $2200. But 24 GB of ram sounds like way too little.

If I find a machine with an M1 Max chip, will that suffice for a while, or will it become obsolete in the near future? It looks like a 2021 MPB with an M1 Max chip, 64 GB of ram, and 1 TB of storage is around $2000.

I really know nothing about all this stuff, so any help is appreciated!
 
As I mentioned above, if you are sticking with your PCs for all the VE Pro stuff, 24gb should go quite a long way. It sounds like you need to find places to save, and with your config RAM is a strong contender. IMO 64gb is way overkill these days where you can run things purged, and disabled until used.

The Apple memory isn't quite miraculous, things will slow down if they go over the limit but they won't rapidly fall over. The M1 Max is still massively better than your i7 so yes that's another possibility.

If you think you are okay with 24gb you could be as radical as me and get an Air, not a Pro. Much lighter, and a lot cheaper. It's only a basic level CPU though, so that might not be enough for you - I'm not using it as a main rig, only for fairly small projects on the road and for that it is great.
 
EanS said:
When pigments was updated, I read some comments regarding the "new update finally allows multicore" meaning that they're complaining about how Pugments was hard on CPU. Never noticed though, but maybe, maybe intels MACs on single core isn't that great on performance?
Click to expand...
I think that Pigments would be CPU hungry is a myth, coming from people on really old systems who don't realize it's their computers. I also read that in the Pigments Facebook group once, and then I checked, I had a CPU workload of 20-30% with 25 individual instances of Pigments in one session. I'm on a Ryzen 7 2700X - that one came out in 2018 and is a 6 year old CPU by now.
 
musicalweather said:
So, my main machine is a 15" 2016 MacBook Pro, 16 GB memory, 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, OS Monterey. My sample libraries are on two PCs, which are connected via Vienna Ensemble Pro. My DAW is Digital Performer 11.

It ain't great having just 16 GB of memory,
Click to expand...
I am just a hobbyist, and I have no idea how one can properly compose with 16GB of RAM. With multiple instruments you are literally only using one mic on each instance.

musicalweather said:
Just had a gander at what's in the marketplace, new and used. So many variables! It seems you pay a very steep price for any new MacBook Pro that has 64 or more GB of ram. My dream spec of a 14" MBP with an M3 Max chip, 96 GB unified memory, and 1 TB is about 4k! 😮

Some questions: is unified memory some kind of miracle memory? Is it so powerful that I can get by with less than I would normally want? A new 14" MBP with an M3 chip, 24 GB of unified memory, and 1 TB storage is about $2200. But 24 GB of ram sounds like way too little.

If I find a machine with an M1 Max chip, will that suffice for a while, or will it become obsolete in the near future? It looks like a 2021 MPB with an M1 Max chip, 64 GB of ram, and 1 TB of storage is around $2000.

I really know nothing about all this stuff, so any help is appreciated!
Click to expand...
96 GB is the absolute minimum I would go for RAM.
I'm using 128DDR4 on a Ryzen 3900x (12 core) and I have occasionally hit 80GB.
Don't waste your money on a machine that only upgrades you from 16 to 24.
Better yet.....forget the overpriced macbooks and get your self a PC tower. 4 times the power for the same price as a macbook.
 
Robert_G said:
I am just a hobbyist, and I have no idea how one can properly compose with 16GB of RAM. With multiple instruments you are literally only using one mic on each instance.


96 GB is the absolute minimum I would go for RAM.
I'm using 128DDR4 on a Ryzen 3900x (12 core) and I have occasionally hit 80GB.
Don't waste your money on a machine that only upgrades you from 16 to 24.
Better yet.....forget the overpriced macbooks and get your self a PC tower. 4 times the power for the same price as a macbook.
Click to expand...
The OP @musicalweather uses DP which by most reports works much better in the Mac environment.
Suggesting someone changes the OS and essentially the DAW they use to save some money on a computer would be an enormous undertaking.
The learning curve and time that something like this would take to make the transition imo isn’t realistic for most usrs.
 
@musicalweather

I do agree if you’re going to upgrade I would definitely recommend going for more than 24gig unified memory,if you’re going to spend the money to making the jump imo going from 16g to 24g isn’t enough of an improvement spend a little more get more ram so you are set for a while.
 
Robert_G said:
I am just a hobbyist, and I have no idea how one can properly compose with 16GB of RAM. With multiple instruments you are literally only using one mic on each instance.


96 GB is the absolute minimum I would go for RAM.
I'm using 128DDR4 on a Ryzen 3900x (12 core) and I have occasionally hit 80GB.
Don't waste your money on a machine that only upgrades you from 16 to 24.
Better yet.....forget the overpriced macbooks and get your self a PC tower. 4 times the power for the same price as a macbook.
Click to expand...
I don't think I've gone over 32gb in the past 6 years since I've been using the VE Pro disabled template with Cubase. Everything opens purged, I just use the ram that's in the notes I play. Doesn't add up to all that much.

The OP is using two PC slaves, which makes me assume they're doing orchestral mockups primarily, all of which will be hosted elswhere. So the DAW computer will be primarily synths, drums, effects. Shouldn't need that much RAM.

But really we need to hear more from the OP on how they want to work - that will determine what the best way to go is.
 
aldous said:
That's Spotlight indexing. Letting it finish usually settles it down, but occasionally it needs a restart if it has got stuck. Excluding sample drives (also removable drives generally, and locations that see lots of file changes) can help.
Click to expand...
100% agree with this. Exclude everything you can bear to be without from being indexed.

musicalweather said:
...the kernel_task seems to be super high even when I don’t have that much going on. I do wonder if the kernel_task percentage can stay high even after I close an app that’s using a lot of CPU.
Click to expand...
yes, even sitting at in idle desktop with no apps running, mds services will eat all your CPU. all of it!
But once it's done, it should stay done, until the next reboot.
 
kgdrum said:
The OP @musicalweather uses DP which by most reports works much better in the Mac environment.
Suggesting someone changes the OS and essentially the DAW they use to save some money on a computer would be an enormous undertaking.
The learning curve and time that something like this would take to make the transition imo isn’t realistic for most usrs.
Click to expand...
Curious as to why he would have to change the DAW. DP runs on Windows unless I'm missing something....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom