Trying to find any correlation between L8 crashes and config

[bmdaugherty]

Since I joined this forum, I have been constantly suprized at the number of people complaining about the poor preformance of L8 (8.0.1 in my case) and I cant figure it out. Is it a hardware specific thing? Is it the audio interface drivers? Is it a system configuration issue?

 

As a starting point, it would be interesting to find out how many of the people experiencing issues have upgraded from L7. I have L7, but got a new computer when I got L8, so I never had them both installed and never installed one over the other.

[ski]

To clarify, you want to get perspectives from people who've been running L8 on a MacPro and experiencing poor performance?

[bmdaugherty]

I'm not even trying to tackle the hardware side yet. I just wanna see if there is any kind of majority as far as software configuration. I'll followup with some hardware specific questions.

 

So really ANYONE experiencing poor performance while running logic 8.0.1. I'm not even worried about the version of the OS at this point.

[ski]

OK then. Running a PPC Quad, with L8 installed on a separate partition running 10.4.9 on a second internal HD (meeting the criteria for your choice "B" above). I specifically made that partition for the purpose of testing out Logic 8. There is a HUGE performance difference between L7.1.1 (my mainstay) and L8.0.1. Compared with L7, L8's graphics rendering is much slower, windows and other displays activated by key commands take much longer to display (although conversely, movie playback and the fast-paced incrementing of such things as SMPTE frame values is just as good as in L7 if not better/smoother).

 

In short, L8 appears to operate much more sluggishly than L7. It was obvious from day one of my installing L8 and unfortunately my impression of it hasn't gotten any better.

[steveyeahno]

everything new here!! (2008 mac pro) ......

how quickly joy turned to aggravation after openeing all the shiny expensive boxes....esp as logic 5.5 on my PC is more stable!!

[davidpye]

Installed on a Macbook with a fresh Leopard install. Don't have any problems, I rarely get crashes, and it's normally when I'm taxing my system abnormally.

 

Logic 8 have been brilliant for me, I don't get a lot of the problems I read people reporting on here, and elsewhere.

[bmdaugherty]

see thats my thing. new install of leopard, new copy of logic, no problems. Thats why I started the poll. I'm trying to rule out things one at a time.

[trebor99]

I had Logic 7 for a few short months before L8 came out.. so I installed it as an upgrade.. the workflow for me has mostly developed by using L8.. got Leopard shortly thereafter and hasn't seemed to be a problem especially after L8.0.1 update.. I do get major crashes occasionally: mostly involving comp take audio files.. L8 doesn't seem to like it when I move them around a bit or try to scissor them before they've been flattened.. also I get the overload shutdowns now & then and usually work around them by freezing files.. all in all I'm having a good time of it but I know my experience is limited compared to many of you.. I am definitely looking forward to 8.0.2 though.

[steveyeahno]

not being able to rely on automation is difficult for me....inconsistent behaviour with third party plugs too...

[fader8]

My setup is nearly identical to ski's, G5quad, 10.4.9, plenty of ram, etc. But I don't have sluggish video issues. However, ski is using the stock video card and I'm using an NVidia GeForce 7800GT, so I think that's where his bottleneck is.

 

My biggest beef with LP8 is the management of multiple MIDI interfaces. It wasn't great in LP7 but it's gotten worse in LP8. I'm going to be removing USB drivers for my padKontrol and RemoteSL and just running them with MIDI cables into my Unitor8. I think things will improve then.

 

Note, I can almost always attribute crashes and freezes to 3rd party plugs or hardware issues.

[Waterboy]

Don't forget to try a spread sheet. Maybe a Scatter Plot thingy, too.

 

Don't forget to post the results.

 

[m-m-m]

I installed Logic for the first time with 8.0 ... immediately upgraded to 8.0.1. I don't have that many crashes. My main problem has been the bugs (ultrabeat and take folders for example). I'm pretty happy overall. See sig for hardware specifics ...

[David Robinson]

hi,

ski, g'day.

upgrade you graphics card, mate.

and congrats for becoming a mod here.

your knowledge of logic will be invaluable to all.

 

re: topic.

 

Still on a G4.

 

don't get many problems and am on 8.00.

graphics are good, same as lp7.

workflow, better than lp7.

sound output quality is definitely superior.

i can use auxes now without the harshness i found in lp7.

plenty of HDDs.

one or two for boots, two for recording/projects.

two for sample steaming, etc.

maxed RAM, etc.

generally, Onyx, MainMenu, TechToolPro, fix my little problems.

done solid work on this system, with 3CDs out, 3 Masters and a new album in the works.

i'm pretty happy, atm.

DR9.

[ManOfHank]

I installed 8.0.1 on a qCdP 3.2 MacPro running OSX 10.5.1. I then installed the 8.0.2 upgrade. Then I installed OSX 10.5.2. I have 10 gigs of RAM and 4 separate hard drives.

 

The installation was done over a reformatted drive so everything was fresh. I had serious problems at first. I then did another reformat and followed the same procedure. I did not install a few free plug-ins as I suspected they may have been the cause of my problems.

 

As I am composing, at the moment anyway, and not mixing I am not having any problems. I'm running just a few plug-ins and they're mostly the included Apple ones. I have run the Sonnox 6 with no problem and Sonalksis TBK.

 

I have installed all the Apple updates.

 

I'm keeping things simple and that seems to work. I'm not getting any crashes now- but when I started with Logic, about two months ago, it was a nightmare. I was getting 10 or more crashes a day. So, as the red-faced man with the awful wife said 'KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid'.

 

When the engineers are given priority over the salesmen we'll end up with a better product.

[ski]

bmdaughterty,

 

Maybe this anecdote can offer some perspective for you... the first time I tried out Logic 8 was in the Apple store, running it on whatever their biggest, baddest computer was at the time (this was September/October 2007). The first thing I did was assign the ESC key to "close window" (this has been my key command assignment in Logic for over 10 years). Simply making that key command assignment caused Logic to crash.

 

So there it is, in some very basic ways Logic is (or was) incompatible with its own operating environment.

 

Food for thought...

[ski]

hi,

upgrade you graphics card, mate.

and congrats for becoming a mod here.

your knowledge of logic will be invaluable to all.

 

Thanks DR. When I got my Quad there were zero PCI-e graphics cards available so yes, I'm running on ths stock card. Perhaps it's time to look again and see what's available.

[Holger Lagerfeldt]

After upgrading to 8.0.1 Logic 8 seems both stable and fairly bug free.

 

The only crashes I've got is due to running Antares Auto-Tune version 4. Still, Logic is being nice and saves a crash file and let's me have 5 seconds of goodbye-time.

 

I upgraded from Logic 7.

 

G5 Dual 2.3 running OS 10.4.11

[bmdaugherty]

@ ski: man, but thats such a tiny easily overlooked bug that is now fixed, and it may have even been that apple demo crap that they put on in-store models. (you know the desktop with buttons on it, and the random demo that tells you to keep using it or it will start.) Remember that nothing "just works". EVERY little tiny thing in logic was coded that, buggy or not. Think of all the more important bugs still left! Also, I'm trying to stick to logic instability under normal everyday production use. I was thinking more about the people who experience crashes when recording, composing, mixing, etc., as these are the main uses for logic. Thats interesting, just a silly oversight on some coders part.

[ski]

@ ski: man, but thats such a tiny easily overlooked bug that is now fixed, and it may have even been that apple demo crap that they put on in-store models.

 

I was able to replicate this on my system as well (as I said above, a virgin install).

 

Remember that nothing "just works".

 

My friend, you're preaching to the choir!

 

Also, I'm trying to stick to logic instability under normal everyday production use. I was thinking more about the people who experience crashes when recording, composing, mixing, etc., as these are the main uses for logic.

 

That would be me. 13 years on this platform. And I'm sure that most other people who post here will be reporting experiences based on everyday production use. Besides, what other kinds of use for Logic is there? I'd say that for many of us here, Logic is our audio/MIDI recording device + scoring (notation) software + mixing & mastering box.

 

Thats interesting, just a silly oversight on some coders part.

 

Yeah, on one hand the situation I described represents a silly little bug. But there are tons of silly bugs, and, as you pointed out, major ones as well. However, any bug no matter how small that crashes the program can go from "silly little bug" to "AAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" quite quickly. Anyway, you're looking for examples of instability. Aside from the plethora of posts you'll find here and elsewhere regarding core audio overload messages on quite powerful systems, here's an example of L8 instability regarding automation behavior:

 

http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=22318&highlight=automation

 

Other users have reported this behavior as well (there are numerous threads on this subject here).

[TC]

see thats my thing. new install of leopard, new copy of logic, no problems. Thats why I started the poll. I'm trying to rule out things one at a time.

 

Isn't a bit soon to state that (Not saying its untrue). There are a huge number of variables that can affect LP8 performance. Maybe it would help if you define in the pool what type of problem (System Overload, bad Graphic performance, crashes,....)

 

hi,

ski, g'day.

upgrade you graphics card, mate.

 

Is that possible that from now on we'll have to buy new graphic cards to run LP8 ?

 

Shouldn't Logic 8 be more efficient ?

 

I just discovered that if I disable the Core Audio LP8 becomes as fast as LP7. Too bad it will not make a sound in that way ...

 

BTW, My system: PPC dual 2.3 GHz, 4GB ram, Mac OS 10.4.11, with a prior install of LP7. Problems : a lot of System Overloads and sluggishly graphic performance.

[ski]

Shouldn't Logic 8 be more efficient ?

 

Not necessarily, at least not according to what I've learned over the past number of months. Presumably, L8 taxes the OS much more than it used to (with L7) in order to do things like graphics rendering and menu generation. It's something to do with the change to the Cocoa Framework. And particularly on older computers, like my G5, it's not more efficient than whatever framework Logic 7 was coded with.

[novacainestudio]

I'm running a MBP 2.4 with 4 GB RAM, Apogeee Symphony Mobile with Rosetta 800 and Big Ben keeping clocks tight among MBP on other digital devices in the studio.

 

fresh install of Logic Pro and Leopard on a fast internal HD

 

No problems - no crashes.

 

My guess is that crashes tend to come from 3 places:

1) video cards/video card drivers

2) 3rd party plugs that might pass the AUVAL but aren't really coded that strongly

3) cracked versions of software

 

just my guess...

[kwackman]

Where's the box for upgrading from Logic 8 express?!

 

I'm in that camp (No Logic installs before I bought Logic 8 Express).

 

I'm fairly happy. Very few crashes- only one that I can remember.

[bmdaugherty]

Look, I'm not trying to say anyone is or isnt in a production environment. What I mean is that, when you get new software, it takes time to get your system setup, and as such you can expect to uncover a few things that dont work right or at least how you would expect based on previous versions. I'm just trying to figure out who's experiencing general instability during recording, mixing, composing or mastering. and anything that you would mess with on a daily basis.

 

I think from the posts that having a previous version installed or not doesn't seem to be the ticket. I had to clear that up first.

 

as novacainestudio said, I really think this might be half video card drivers, and half 3rd party plugins. I have none, and Logic has never crashed ever.

[Riffbeeper]

I have none (plug ins that is) and many many crashy's

[bmdaugherty]

Sorry, let me be more clear. Thats how logic works for me.

[Simon R.]

While I have my issues with Logic - things they removed from L7, VERY sluggish GUI compared to L7 etc., I haven't had many stability issues. I have been working on my first "serious" project the past few days in L8, and it has only crashes once, and that was when I did a scrub rewind... Apart from that it has worked nicely, no core overloads or anything (although I need to run buffersize at 512 - at 256, I get strange hickups in audio pretty often when content begins on an audio track while already playing back others).

 

My main wish for L8 is actually that they get the damn slow GUI more responsive. Scrolling back and forth in the arrange window can now be really slow, especially if you have another window showing region content in a piano roll, it struggles to keep up and gets very slow. Also during playback with "scroll during playback" enabled, it is clearly having trouble keeping up. It seems like Apples new fancy quartz and what-not isn't exactly blazingly fast at doing all this eyecandy. I hope Apple get this sorted out, but I am not holding my breath.