I’m running VCR Rack (and VCR Rack 2 depending on the plugins) on my laptop.
Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 GHz;
12,0 GB;
64 bit;
Windows 11 Home Version;
a simple AMD Audio Device & Realtek;
AMD Radeon internal GPU;
ports USB 3.0 ----> so no USB-C or FireWire.
My question: what should I upgrade to have a better performance? The processor, the sound card, the GPU? The goal is to do this in a reasonable “cheap” manner: I can’t easily spend money due to my personal circumstances. I’m also not afraid of second hand material… I’m just not sure of the following: if I’d buy an external sound card, maybe just USB-powered, would this be enough?
Why do I ask? I’m following Omri Cohen via Youtube, and, simulating what he’s doing. But, when making some of the “more performant” patches, VCR Rack can become quite slow… And my laptop quite hot, really hot even
We have a thousand performance threads in here, so I advice searching. Bottomline: Rack really cares only about two things:
A decent, not top-notch, GPU/graphics card. That means no built-in graphics (except for Apple M1 machines) but a discrete/seperate GPU, like it says in the manual.
That’s it. But if you also care about heat and noise then, yeah, it takes good cooling, or very efficient CPU’s (see: Apple M1), which means: Desktop is better than laptop, gaming-laptop is better than regular laptop, Apple M1 laptop is better than all.
I think that’s your problem right there, built-in graphics, although I’m confused by the “with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx” - does that mean it has a discrete graphics card as well?. Get a discrete GPU for it, a better laptop if you can’t, or make smaller patches and/or use much more efficient Rack modules - there’s a big difference between those.
Ok, the problem might be that Rack is using the built-in GPU instead of the discrete GPU, which is a common problem in Windows since they introduced the crazy dual-use GPU thing that nobody can manage right. Try this:
In your computers’ BIOS/SETUP look for a setting that says something like “always use discrete GPU over built-in GPU”.
In Windows and/or your Graphics card control-panel thingy, try and find a setting for the same, to force the GPU used to always be the discrete one, or at least pin the Rack application to always use that one. It’s very likely to make a big difference to the CPU consumption of Rack and thus heat and noise.
Other performance tips:
Don’t run the engine with more than 1 thread, unless you absolutely have to (Engine menu).
Don’t run the sample rate at more than 48K or 44K.
Make sure selected samplerate in the audio module and the engine menu is the same, select “auto” in the engine menu.
Try lowering the framerate in the view menu.
Set the buffersize in the audio module as high as you can to avoid audio crackling/breakup and get better CPU usage, but as low as you need to get good enough responsiveness with e.g. a MIDI keyboard, if you use one of those.
I’m running it on an i5 with built-in GPU (8GB), but this is just a test set. The quad-core is powered enough that the intel graphics works, and if using Jack Audio I can even get about 20 modules working plus Chrome. It does stutter if going much beyond this though.
EDIT: Has anyone considered an IcarosDesktop AROS compile? It’s a fast OS, but just 32-bit so only 4GB.
“I’m running it on an i5 with built-in GPU (8GB), but this is just a test set. The quad-core is powered enough that the intel graphics works, and if using Jack Audio I can even get about 20 modules working plus Chrome. It does stutter if going much beyond this though.” => OKAY
IcarosDesktop AROS => never tried this… I’m considering installing a Linux OS, intuitively I’d guess performance will be better…
GPU: I’ll also follow the performance tips as mentioned by mr. Lars.
