PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Help! Tech S.O.S (Off topic) TEST BENCHMARKS OF VARIOUS DAW MULTITRACK SOFTWARE AND AUDIO INTERFACES.

more on computer benchmarking.
and some ideas for discussion.

in realband itself, it will tell you number of tracks for your rig.
action>>test performance.
my cheap refurb i5/ssd comes in at 191 mono 44.1 tracks.
yes, i know its a rough idea but it might be usefull
to some if testing a rig.
if i remember powertracks has the same test.

it would be nice if pg now expanded this test , to do a detailed benchmark type of deal people could run on their computer rigs. i would be happy to pay a few extra dollars.
maybe have a dummy 24 or 48 track test song in RB, maybe trak count user selectable ,and a user could then load in their favorite fx/instrument and other plug ins .
then the user could enter in such info as no of traks anticipated being recorded at one time,and recording rates etc etc. RB would report like some daws do, the cpu useage of each plug in. and a user could isolate possible problem areas like a slow disk drive or a rogue plug in or a slow processor etc etc.

so then RB reports back a final overview like.
"this rig will play back UP TO xxx no of traks , with yyy no of plug ins you have identified, while also recording zz no of inputs at a sampling rate of ."
and several more detailed tables could follow to show stats useing various sampling rates, maybe IDENTIFY problem plug ins with high cpu useage that might be problematic etc etc.

would other pg users find this usefull ??
possibly this might cut down the number of interractions with pg support where a user is wondering why there are problems on a low power rig that cant handle the load etc etc.

actually i would like also a standalone small version of such an application i could put on a small sd card or usb drive.
because i could then visit my local computer shops that are friendly to my needs,and run the standalone benchmark app on the new latest and greatest rigs;and/or on refurbs they sell that have come off lease when i was shopping for a new rig.

yes i'm aware that some stores dont like in store testing.
so i just walk away, and only deal with those stores that WILL let me test.
its amazeing if you think about it that a car dealer will allow a test run, but some computer dealers wont.

of course at the dealers i wouldnt expect to load in plug ins and RB etc etc.
but the smaller standalone app could report such things as track counts, input max in conjunction with playback counts at various sampling rates, and possible plug in counts max, assuming low cpu useage plug ins.
eg a report might look like this .
"this computer at 44.1 khz will allow recording 8 simultaneous input channels while playing back 24 tracks with xx number of plug ins each."
that type of idea.
as we move into the future and people upgrade their rigs this type of test utility could be rather usefull as pg add more features to biab/RB etc.

(of course we all know that recording lots of inputs concurrently on a slow machine can lead to problems while also running lots of plug ins/traks playing back in real time. at high sampling rates. ).


to any naysayers i say its kinda a "hope and pray" approach currently in buying a computer.
ie particularly for a new user , who visits a store, and buys some machine that might or might not meet their needs or have the power "oomph" for now and the next few years.
not all of us are wealthy enough to buy a new computer often.
i make this suggestion because over the years various recording forums have threads where obviously often the wrong computer purchase has been made that doesnt meet the users needs properly.

its just a basic spec idea, but i'm sure you get the idea, and i feel would help a pg user immensely in shopping for a new computer to run biab/rb/powertraks etc etc and their other softwares etc.

for example maybe biab will run happily on a persons current computer, but what about if/when (per the wishlist) biab itself is expanded to run many more realtraks channels ?
eg 16 like some users want. nice idea rustyspoon. ??
maybe the benchmark runs the first time a new pg user boots up ??

what do other pg users think of this idea ??
particularly as pg adds more features over time ?
all input welcome.

respectfully.
muso.