What CPU should I buy for VCV Rack?

I just used “crazy” as a throw-away word,here. It wasn’t a loaded word,nor potentially insulting,like stupid may have been,and I certainly wasn’t “aiming” it at anyone. Just one of those instances where text is lacking in nuance,I guess.

FWIW,I think that the whole VCV endevour/adventure seems to be very openly and fairly run,from what little I know of it [eg : the Mission Statement ,and parts of some threads touching on developments/changes]. I’m not sucking up,here.I arrived here just after discovering Voltage Modular,and finding that not only were there many more Vult modules for VCV,but that many were free,and the others,much cheaper. I think the arrangements here seem much better,at least as an end user.

Anyway,I’m,literally,just starting to learn about modular,virtual or otherwise,and know nothing about programming,so there’s no possible chance of me trying to change any more than maybe some colours.[Not your blue knobs and dials,though :slight_smile:].

haha, nice. Well, welcome to the group!

1 Like

Thanks,Squinky.

That’s my first official welcome,so I feel all warm and fuzzy now :slight_smile:

Also,I’m looking forward to trying out your modules - many are very appealing,and,I hope it goes without saying,not just visually - as soon as I can get a PC that will run the Rack.

They are very plain. Some people like that, many don’t. but don’t worry, they’ve been called much worse by others.

1 Like

“They are very plain. Some people like that, many don’t. but don’t worry, they’ve been called much worse by others”.

You misunderstand.I said,in an earlier comment,above - 10/30 - that I think they look great. Very clean lines,nice design and lovely blue knobs and dials.That’s what I was alluding to when I said I might change the colours of some modules,but I wouldn’t change your lovely blue knobs and dials.

I wasn’t being snarky,either then,or in my last comment. I meant that many of your modules are very appealling - they sound great,and are very cpu efficient,and are also very visually appealing. Ireally do like the clean,unfussy designs.I especially like “Formants” ,“Chopper” and “Shaper”. Also,I think Chebyshev sounds fantastic.

oh, no worries, I did not take your post negatively, although I did misunderstand a bit. I know you are kidding, but in some cases it would actually be difficult for someone to change the blue knob color, because at least one of the blue knobs I use is part of VCV, and you don’t want to tinker with the shared controls.

But it is a topic that comes up a lot. There is an active thread here called “Let’s see your custom module skins”/ https://community.vcvrack.com/t/lets-see-your-custom-module-skins

1 Like

Yeah,it seems we’re having some real difficulty with the lack of nuance thing.As in,I remember you explaining that some of the blue stuff was part of VCV,but I still think it looks great. I meant every word of the compliments about your modules.[I’m just going to leave it at that,'cause I don’t think I could be any clearer].

Re : the thread about the custom skins - Yeah,I was reading that yesterday.I wouldn’t have even known that you could change colours,let alone how to do it,otherwise.Excellent thread. Sound,and,especially music,matter most to me,but I’m a sucker for a pretty face(plate),too.

Oh,and thanks again for the welcome.Sincerely.

1 Like

I have a Ryzen 7 2700X and have a moderate amount of GAS for the upcoming Ryzen 9 5950X CPUs. Does anyone know if the Zen 3 architecture improves on the inter-core latency issues mentioned in posts above? I’m starting to find the 2700X an issue in certain situations (usually when running DAW, VCV and lots of plugins) so I will be looking to upgrade, but unsure about leaping to Zen3 or buying one of the faster Zen 2 CPUs when they drop in price once Zen 3 arrives.

As it is, it’s all moot for me until MSI makes good on their promise to update the firmware on their x470 motherboards to support the 5xxx series processors.

zen3 is supposed to have removed the problem with the ccxs and cache, that’s one of the performance improvements they quote.

1 Like

oh cool, will hang fire over the Black Friday period then

Hi.

Really interested by the way you managed this with Process Lasso, because i’m experiencing performance issues with a 3900x and 12 threads selected in VCV. Did it implied to micromanage CPU affinity attributions for each running applications (VCV / CCX 1 : CPU 0 to 2, and on the other hand CCX 2 to 4 : CPU 3 to 15 for DAW, synths, etc…) ?

Cheers

really odd to have issues with such a powerful cpu. Have you read the optimizing part of the manual? It’s got all the basics.

Choose as little treads as you can manage, it works see manual :

Threads

Sets the number of cores to be used in Rack’s multithreaded engine.

To minimize power usage and CPU resources for other programs to use, disable multithreading by selecting 1 thread. Using more threads increases CPU usage but increases the maximum number of modules you can use in the rack.

It is recommended to begin with 1 thread, and if you experience audio hiccups, try increasing the thread count by 1. Continue adding threads until no hiccups occur. The maximum recommended number of threads is the number of physical cores in your machine. For example, a quad-core machine would likely maximize the number of modules by using 4 threads.

Due to simultaneous multithreading such as Intel Hyper-Threading, you may attempt to use up to twice as many threads as physical cores in your machine, but typically this results in worse performance with higher power usage.

Also here : Menu Bar — VCV Rack documentation

1 Like

I read and applied every tip in the optimizing part and increased my buffer size from 64 to 128, but i’m stil ocasionaly getting glitches an d noises, mostly when the interface redraw while zooming (with a GTX1080). However i checked my RAM and CPU performances with Cinebench and also Latencymon and had no performances or stability issues. I can run the same heavy patches on my laptop (Intel core i9 10980K - 8 cores) without notable issues so i’m wondering if the glitches i’m geting on the Ryzen could come from this CCX latency question.

I also tried to reduce the number of threads wondering if it could lower the system stress but it didnt really changed something.

Thanks for your advises by the way.

2 Likes

Has anyone tried one of the zen 3 processors with Rack yet?

I’m itching to buy one just in the hope that it solves the problem. My processor is fast enough for most things and I can run pretty large projects in Reaper but with Rack I can’t do half as much I would expect.

Wondering if I should just go for Intel but any potential gain is unknown.

Sure, i’m counting on these ones too :wink: … when the stocks will be renewed.

Hi, I am running a 5600X (with 32GB RAM, RTX3080). Only Issue I found is that my Steinberg UR22 doesn’t know what to do with PCIe Gen4 - so I had to downgrade that to Gen3 in the Bios. Is there some kind of Benchmark-Patch to see how well this system works? I am happy to provide any insight.

  • mo

In the past I did a lot of work with and on POV-Ray (docs). Big improvements where optimisations to the code by AMD and Intel and using their compilers. Looked good in the benchmarks and saved us users a few processor updates.

If you use proprietary compilers like that I don’t think you can get your plugins auto-built for the VCV library. That would be a big downside.

You and the manual were right. I wasn’t lowering my cpu usage enough.

Combining Process Lasso to restrain VCV to 1 CCX (cpu 0 to 5) and using 3 threads resolved these issues. I was just stressing the hell out of my system by using 12 threads.

3 Likes