polive Posted March 17, 2018 Share Posted March 17, 2018 I am thinking of buying a new Mac (well, second hand, but new to me) on which to run Logic 9. (I know I'm a Luddite, but I am midway through a major project on Logic 9 and have no wish to progress beyond 9 for the moment.) My question is: what will make more difference to Logic 9's performance — the number of cores in the processor, or the amount of RAM? Is there anything else I should be considering? I really want to make more use of CPU-heavy plugins like Arturia's synths. Right now I have to spend what feels like hours constantly freezing files, and I would really like songs not to take seven minutes to open! Input would be truly welcomed. 2012 Mac Pros are looking a fair bet on eBay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 There are a couple of things to consider when using Logic 9: It is a 32-bit app by default. This makes the uses of Ram max out at less than 4 gigs. Big plugins use a lot of Ram and logic also loads everything into ram on project startup. You can make L9 run in 64-bit but it will use the 32-bit bridge for 32-bit plugins. Not very stable. So L9 is not very efficient in ram use because of that bridge. In essence, L9 is a disaster on big plugins. If you really want to start using more plugins, you should consider moving to Logic X. But hardware-wise, lots of cores, high gigahertz CPUs, lots of ram is always good! A 2012 mac pro with 6 or 8 or 12 cores is a great choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polive Posted March 20, 2018 Author Share Posted March 20, 2018 Thank you triplets! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lonsdale Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Getting SSD drives will speed things up, as will keeping LOTS of hard drive space free (more than 25%-ish). Whatever anybody says about RAM usage, There was a SIGNIFICANT loss of processing speed when I lost a couple of sticks of RAM and dipped below 10gb of RAM, although only on audio-heavy projects. keep your projects well organised, carefully empty your Audio Bin regularly, make sure Mono audio isn't running on Stereo tracks, Bounce In Place complex audio creations and think efficiently about you construct your signal paths - it'll all add up! And yes, upgrade. I run L9 and L10 on separate OS drives (10.6.8 for L9 and 10.11.6 for L10) but 9 feels pretty ancient now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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