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Old 02-03-2023, 03:19 AM   #1
spinal
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Default Apple M1, buffer settings, strange behaviour

Hi,

I'm not here to complain or ask help for fixing anything, I'm just surprised how buffer size affects performance since I'm working on Apple M1 (MacBook Pro 13").
I'm using buffer size between 32 and 64 samples because it is at these settings I can have the biggest amount of vst plugins running without reaper lag and drops.
What I mean is that of course anything lower will lead to more audio dropping issue, but anything higher than that will also lead to more audio drop.

Am I the only one with that strange behaviour?

Have a nice day!
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Old 02-03-2023, 06:55 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spinal View Post
I'm using buffer size between 32 and 64 samples because it is at these settings I can have the biggest amount of vst plugins running without reaper lag and drops. What I mean is that of course anything lower will lead to more audio dropping issue, but anything higher than that will also lead to more audio drop.
It is indeed weird. I don't use Reaper for recording, only for playback: mostly multichannel audio files, some editing, some mixing. MacBook Pro M1 Pro and Mac Studio M1 Ultra. The buffer is always set to the highest value possible, at least 1024, usually 2048 if the driver allows it.

This to say I have never observed what you're describing. What is the audio interface?
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Old 02-03-2023, 08:22 AM   #3
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Antelope Orion 32+ gen3
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Old 02-03-2023, 08:53 AM   #4
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On the Buffering page of preferences, what are you doing there?
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Old 02-03-2023, 12:17 PM   #5
spinal
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On the Buffering page of preferences, what are you doing there?
I have a project that run fine at "Request block size: 64" .
If I go to 256, I have some glitches, lag and drop. It is even worst a 1024.
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Old 02-03-2023, 01:22 PM   #6
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Quote:
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I have a project that run fine at "Request block size: 64" .
If I go to 256, I have some glitches, lag and drop. It is even worst a 1024.
Unusual bur higher buffers CAN be worse than lower. Justin the main dev explained why sometime...
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Old 02-03-2023, 02:20 PM   #7
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Quote:
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I have a project that run fine at "Request block size: 64" .
If I go to 256, I have some glitches, lag and drop. It is even worst a 1024.
that's the BLock size on the Device page. there's another page for other buffer and CPU settings
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Old 02-03-2023, 03:21 PM   #8
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Quote:
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that's the BLock size on the Device page. there's another page for other buffer and CPU settings
Here are the settings!
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Old 02-04-2023, 06:39 AM   #9
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Antelope Orion 32+ gen3
Have you contacted Antelope? Maybe they can help. Also have you tried to reproduce this issue using a different audio interface such as the built-in IO on your system?
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Old 02-04-2023, 08:38 PM   #10
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Here are the settings!
cool. play with those settings and see if it improves.


Your M1 mac has an extremely fast internal SSD so the media buffer can be dropped super low. I use 150ms and 15%

Try setting the Audio reading/processing threads to 6 instead of Auto.

Try Allow live multifx on 2 CPUs

The thread priority setting may help with keeping the project from running on the low performance cores of the M1.
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Old 02-05-2023, 03:34 AM   #11
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cool. play with those settings and see if it improves.


Your M1 mac has an extremely fast internal SSD so the media buffer can be dropped super low. I use 150ms and 15%

Try setting the Audio reading/processing threads to 6 instead of Auto.

Try Allow live multifx on 2 CPUs

The thread priority setting may help with keeping the project from running on the low performance cores of the M1.
Agreed, try the time critical thread prio also. Though, it feels like it is something else in your system. Like the antelope driver for example.
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Old 02-06-2023, 12:24 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicSounds View Post
cool. play with those settings and see if it improves.


Your M1 mac has an extremely fast internal SSD so the media buffer can be dropped super low. I use 150ms and 15%

Try setting the Audio reading/processing threads to 6 instead of Auto.

Try Allow live multifx on 2 CPUs

The thread priority setting may help with keeping the project from running on the low performance cores of the M1.
Could be helpful to sticky this and other M1/ARM performance optimization suggestions.
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Old 02-06-2023, 04:20 PM   #13
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Yes I’ve been thinking I’m general we need a sticky for Mac that could help people in general not run into the typical issues, and solutions to common problems and things to try for troubleshooting. Thinking of going to M2 so I’m sure any M1 advice on general would apply to that as well.
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Old 02-08-2023, 08:48 AM   #14
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I tried the tweaks you advised, at the end I found out that I have a tiny tiny bit better performance when only using 4 cores instead of 8.
I have same performance when using the internal Macbook audio output.

I really wonder how fast it is running for others M1 users.
Maybe I should try again with a completely fresh reaper configuration?

In any case, I have never seen this behaviour when I was running Intel CPU. With Intel CPU, the higher the buffer, the largest amount of plugins I could run in a session...
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Old 02-09-2023, 01:48 AM   #15
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Mac Studio M1 Max here.
I just found out that I can get rid of my Media xruns by setting the media buffer to 0.
Also slight improvement by setting CPU cores form auto to 6 plus 2 for live fx multiprocessing.

What made the most difference so far for me was switching my UFX+ from USB to Thunderbolt.
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Old 02-10-2023, 09:33 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spinal View Post
I tried the tweaks you advised, at the end I found out that I have a tiny tiny bit better performance when only using 4 cores instead of 8.
I have same performance when using the internal Macbook audio output.

I really wonder how fast it is running for others M1 users.
Maybe I should try again with a completely fresh reaper configuration?

In any case, I have never seen this behaviour when I was running Intel CPU. With Intel CPU, the higher the buffer, the largest amount of plugins I could run in a session...
Starting over with a clean config couldn't hurt, but I'd check the Performance Meter in Reaper first. Does it show any indications that some tracks may be maxing out your FX Cores? Also have you tried to narrow down which plugins run ok and which don't?

With regards to you wondering how it runs for other M1 users, I have an M1 Pro and Reaper runs great (I don't run it in Rosetta mode). I usually leave the buffer between 64 and 256 but have no issues going as high as 1024.
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