Following this post, some answers have been given and it may be interesting to know which plugins are greedy in cpu cycles and if this is the case for all users.
IK B3 → LINK
Arturia Augmented Strings → LINK
Sampletank VST3 → LINK
Arturia Stage-73 → LINK
DX7 from Arturia V8 is higher than all the others I use from the V8 collection, although it is only noticed on my old Mac Pro
Have you tested Dexed?
It is so close to the original DX7 that I can hardly tell the difference with my 1985 recordings.
2 advantages: it’s free and in GP the cpu indicates between 0 and 1 %.
And there are some 16,000 sound banks available (with many duplicates).
I will give it a go thanks.
I found Noire in Kontakt to be high on my old PC setup, but don’t notice any issues now.
Korg Triton extreme uses a lot of CPU
The Morgan Amp Suite from Neural uses a lot of CPU, especially in stereo mode. The AC20 model in there is manageable (barely), but the PR12 and SW50 models use quite a bit more horsepower for some reason, and when combined with other plugins can easily push my 2017 i7 laptop past 60% and into dropout territory.
Yamaha Montage M ESP is pretty CPU intensive.
It seems to be worse than Diva (which isnt that bad these days).
I hope the next update gets it an efficiency boost. Even fairly “simple” AWM only presets are pretty intense.
One thing I have found that can vary WIDELY with VSTs is how they handle graphics in their window display. Some developers are very careful about this, especially if their products have visualizations that update at a significant frame rate. Some like MeldaProduction, Mario Neito’s Harmony Bloom, will actually go the extra mile and offload the graphics computation to a GPU if available. But the law of the VST land is YMMV.
In my experience one thing you should always try out IMHO with any VST is the effect of just closing each VST window once you have it dialled in. If performance is the goal, just closing all the VST windows may help a lot, depending on the VSTs. If you need to see values ongoing, it may be advantageous to just map that VST control to a GP widget—easy peasy.
I say closing VST windows “may” help because there’s no possible guarantee, but this simple measure is absolutely worth a try.
Neural Amp Modeler is an amazing free amp simulator but also one of the highest CPU hogs among the VSTs I use. I also like to run several instances to model stereo amps and various overdrive pedals. It was the reason I needed to upgrade my laptop to a miniPC.
This subject struck me as interesting because I’d already given up on certain plugins because of this (the latest being Arturia Augmented Strings).
I’ve just carried out this test with ten or so plugins taken at random and I was quite surprised by the results: for some there was no difference, for others the cpu indicator increased when the window was opened or the reverse.
This was the case for the first plug-in (SuperTron 6.1) that I opened for this test: with a midi file of a single looped chord, the cpu indicator fluctuated between 9-13% with the window open, 15-20% with the window closed.
Last example too with 3 Melda plugins: the cpu indicator is 1% with 3 windows open, 5-7% with 3 windows closed.
The test was also carried out with software and OpenGL renderer modes, with no significant differences for the plugins tested.
In the end I agree with you on the principle of checking the impact of the plugin’s GUI on resource consumption, as this could in some extreme cases be a method of reducing this consumption.
There’s no way of expecting some compliance with this issue. It’s TOTALLY down to the VST developer.
They could implement horribly inefficient graphics that consume a huge amount of CPU, and they could implement it in such a way that it’s still happening when the VST window is closed. Or they could be as efficient as a mobile phone game developer… MeldaProduction for one example (which sips at CPU worst case and already employs GPU for graphics) also includes addional “power switches” that will let you turn off things like peak and level meter displays in their VST windows, further reducing computational load.
This is probably a good example of how when you pay (even a very reasonable price) for a commercial VST or other software it’s a lot more likely that you’ll get this level of effective performance optimization. It’s not impossible to get extremely good performance from a “free software” type project, but it’s probably a lot more likely a lot more often from a commercial project.
Synthogy Ivory III. Incredible sounding - but beware and take heed to their requirements b4 purchase. 8 cores, 3.4ghz - and 32gb ram recommended.
And at least Intel i7.
And screen of at least 1354 x 990 for full view of the editor .
I am very surprised about this. Everything is streamed from the SSD in Ivory II, nothing loaded.
Also, in the context of a band, you don’t need all the CPU intensive refinements like sympathic resonance with 300 notes of polyphony. I use Ivory II with low CPU and it already sounds fantastic.
Are they adding convolution reverb?
Yes I agree it is highly customizable but ivory iii is a very small disk footprint and more of a modeling vst from what I understand. With all their mics turned on (there are 4) and with release samples and all that jazz —- cpu can go to 70% pretty quick in my case. Granted I’m running 64 samples and 100 notes polyphony. In short, I have ALOT to tweak. I’ve only had it a couple of days! I need to turn some features off, increase samples and lower polyphony.