Slow render times on new Mac Studio M1 Ultra compared to Intel MacBook Pro

[Owlbethere]

Hello,

I recently purchased a Mac Studio M1 Ultra to replace my 2019 MacBook Pro and noticed that the render times on the Studio are much slower than the MacBook Pro. Like, 2.7x versus 66x on my old machine. Any thoughts? Anyone else have this issue?

Thanks.

[schwa]

Do you have some intel plugins that are bridged? You could try running a test render with no plugins at all to quickly check.

[Owlbethere]

Thanks, I just tested a 1 min project with freshly recorded room sound and it increased to 4.2x for wav output and 5.4x for MP3. No FX at all.

[schwa]

Are you running REAPER itself in Rosetta? You want the universal build from the download page (the top one).

[Owlbethere]

No, not running it in Rosetta, I downloaded the version for macOS 10.15+
I'm currently on Monterey, I haven't upgraded to Ventura yet.

[schwa]

Well, something is different, I would expect render times to be as fast or faster on the new machine.

Are you 100% sure it's the universal build? You can check via Help/About REAPER; the title bar in the about dialog will either say "-arm64" or "/OSX64".

[Owlbethere]

Yep, it says macOS-arm64

[Owlbethere]

Anyone else have any thoughts or experience the same issue?

[schwa]

And could you post a screenshot of both render setup windows, to make sure everything is the same?

[Justin]

If you go to preferences/rendering and look at the blocksize field, is it blank? If so, try setting it to something like 2048 and see if that helps.

Also: can you send the .rpp file and reaper.ini to support at cockos dot com? thanks!

[Wallaby]

MacBook M1 Ventura Reaper 6.72, plain computer without interface.
A song with 22 tracks and lots of plugins including Ozone in the main out,
reached 9.0 times speed
Fast as a shark !
But I don't have another older computer for comparison.
There mast be something with his Mac Studio...

Disconnect all USB stuff also audio interface
Switch off bluetooth
Switch off Wifi
Quit all other apps
???

[Owlbethere]

Originally Posted by schwa

And could you post a screenshot of both render setup windows, to make sure everything is the same?

Sure, have a look at these.

[Owlbethere]

Originally Posted by Justin

If you go to preferences/rendering and look at the blocksize field, is it blank? If so, try setting it to something like 2048 and see if that helps.

Also: can you send the .rpp file and reaper.ini to support at cockos dot com? thanks!

That did it! (changing the block size from blank to 2048) Whoa. 92.4x now. Thanks a bunch. I don't know if you still need the .rpp file and reaper.ini but I'll go ahead and send them.

I much appreciate it!

[cleantone]

Originally Posted by Justin

If you go to preferences/rendering and look at the blocksize field, is it blank? If so, try setting it to something like 2048 and see if that helps.

Also: can you send the .rpp file and reaper.ini to support at cockos dot com? thanks!

Wow. I knew nothing about this setting. I've been wondering about M1 Max performance. I chew through video processes but was not super happy with audio performance, I supposed mostly thinking my render times should be better. For example I'm rendering a 22 channel mix and was getting 2x render time but not hitting my CPU too much. So I started looking into it. Found this thread. I changed the block size as recommended here and I'm getting 3x render. Still not hitting half of my CPU. I guess I will have to look into this setting. Should I go even higher?

[Mr.X]

My MBP (i9/32GB) renders a particular project at 10x. My new MM M2 Pro renders at 20x.
I was expecting a bigger jump in speed. Changing the blocksize to 2048 didn't affect the speed.

[mlprod]

Originally Posted by Mr.X

My MBP (i9/32GB) renders a particular project at 10x. My new MM M2 Pro renders at 20x.
I was expecting a bigger jump in speed. Changing the blocksize to 2048 didn't affect the speed.

You expected more than double speed?