wow logic plugins look so bad on retina! - oh and some performance tests

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an apple program and they can't update the gui's of the classic plugins? I find EXS24 labels practically unreadable unless i squint real close, for example.

Anyone else finding the same thing with a retina macbook?

On the good side, the performance difference is ridiculous. I am actually surprised how much.

I did a more scientific test than using logic meter.. i opened activity monitor and monitored cpu.

my 2.2ghz sandy bridge i7 quad, 2011 macbook at 128 samples, is using 65 percent, playing multiple polyphonic notes on the default sculpture patch.

The 2.8ghz haswell i7 quad macbook, uses 25-28. WTF? That's less than half. I saw similar increased in reason when i tested my sisters macbook 2.5ghz retina haswell. (don't have reason installed on this one).

The other kicker is, set logic to 32 sample buffer (using in built output with iloud, shows ~3 ms output, vs 128 samples (5.3ms output) on the 2011 model. But even at 128 samples it still stayed at 25%. So 32 samples which is ultra responsive to play Vi's live, is performing with grace on the retina. the other can do it to but starts crackling when logic's meter shows about 75%, whereas this doesn't, although granted i didn't get the meter that high yet.

I really thought haswell was only a 10% change clock for clock, so even factoring the 2.8ghg vs 2.2 it is still performing way better than i expected.. and let's face it, it's not like the cpu is going to be cranked up to high mhz when under such low load anyway..

BUT APPLE, PLEASE fix the old plugins, as i rely on, well almost ALL of them, and i know MANY logic users who do!

For anyone that's interested, there is a reason benchmark test for reason 8, my 2011 got 12 seconds, my sisters retina 2.5ghz got 40 seconds (!!!), so i presume mine would be a tad better again.

So basically, i can thoroughly recommend the retina macs for audio work, they are very powerful.They also seem to take a hell of a beating before the fans ramp up at all also.

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Yes, in the near future I'll be migrating over to a 5K iMac and am not looking forward to the impending pixelated ugliness of Cubase Pro 8 and most of the old Logic plugins. High-DPI displays have been available for over 3 years now and it's surprising that Apple, one of the earliest champions of these types of screens, hasn't updated all of their software to support them yet.

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I have been using 2 Retina displays (27" and 32") for a while now and many 3rd party plugins produce intense flickering and bad artifacts, the Logic ones just look bad but many of the others are simply terrible, the worst being GRM Tools and Sonnox.

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wow Simon that's really bad news.. I am going to stick to my non retina iMac for a while then.. there is no choice with a new macbook, it's retina or nothing.

I haven't yet installed any 3rd party plugs (still downloading logic additional content lol), and i am a huge fan of sonnox and GRM, so am not looking forward to that at all! Damn! No way i can give up the speed and quietness of this machine and go back though.. impossible now!

I think if i ever sell my iMac it would only be for a mac pro, and i would grab one of those non retina 27" screens and just have it here in the event any news about a retina one coming (cause knowing apple, they will then sell only the retina). Or just get a dell 30" 2560x1600, which is still feel is the ultimate single screen setup resolution for any daw (and works with everything).

Thanks Tronam also for the confirmation. I haven't installed Cubase yet though, but plan to upgrade to 8 when i have some more cash. I won't bother installing 7.5 in the meantime as i have so much to do atm, and would rather a V8 fresh install.

The fact is, there is a large percentage of apple's user base using retina. Apple and Steinberg and all of them really, need to update. Look how beautiful the stuff like retro synth looks which fully supports it, or the new logic factory compressor (what a great SOUNDING plugin also, wow).

I also indeed find it flat out warped that apple push the tech, then don't update their own app. At least logic itself looks fine and very sharp actually.

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There was mention a few months ago in the Steinberg forums that there's a current internal beta where at least Cubase's text elements are finally supporting retina screens, but who knows how long it will take before this makes it into a public release. I suspect we won't see it until v8.5 or 9. Here is a screen-grab from one of the threads:

Image

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TheoM wrote:wow Simon that's really bad news.. I am going to stick to my non retina iMac for a while then.. there is no choice with a new macbook, it's retina or nothing.

I haven't yet installed any 3rd party plugs (still downloading logic additional content lol), and i am a huge fan of sonnox and GRM, so am not looking forward to that at all! Damn! No way i can give up the speed and quietness of this machine and go back though.. impossible now!

I think if i ever sell my iMac it would only be for a mac pro, and i would grab one of those non retina 27" screens and just have it here in the event any news about a retina one coming (cause knowing apple, they will then sell only the retina). Or just get a dell 30" 2560x1600, which is still feel is the ultimate single screen setup resolution for any daw (and works with everything).

Thanks Tronam also for the confirmation. I haven't installed Cubase yet though, but plan to upgrade to 8 when i have some more cash. I won't bother installing 7.5 in the meantime as i have so much to do atm, and would rather a V8 fresh install.

The fact is, there is a large percentage of apple's user base using retina. Apple and Steinberg and all of them really, need to update. Look how beautiful the stuff like retro synth looks which fully supports it, or the new logic factory compressor (what a great SOUNDING plugin also, wow).

I also indeed find it flat out warped that apple push the tech, then don't update their own app. At least logic itself looks fine and very sharp actually.
Fortunately I got my current music laptop in late 2012 when we still had the option for a non-RETINA display (why they ditched the 17" model is beyond my understanding though), but with my new Mac Pro I get the full impact of graphic-related problems.

Steinberg is very slow with their update cycles, some bugs exist for several years, some apparently never get fixed, they have a lot of great products though, so it's take it or leave it. Concerning RETINA I get the impression that some devs have given up to follow Apple's update policy, I mean they're releasing a new OS by the week now, constantly introducing new bugs and problems affecting their own software as well as 3rd party programs. And how many Thunderbolt audio interfaces do we have nowadays? Maybe a hand-full, my RMEs still work fine using adapters so I won't change those for now.

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The only reason they ditched the 17" is that it must have not been selling enough for their liking.. i would guess it was a niche market..
I can promise you if they sold a lot, i bet even 50% of the 15" sales, they would have kept it. But everything is transitioning to smaller, especially in mac world (although iPhone 6 plus and coming iPad plus are reversing that for the mobile stuff LOL).
Personally the 17" would be my pick too, with non retina, just native HD res.. that would have been perfect for logic and plugins.

Thunderbolt interfaces are great for those who need mass i/o simultaneously at low latency - for someone like me who uses an mbox 3 and just play's Vi's, the latency and cpu performance for my needs (and i presume many other project studio's) are just fine anyway. I mean how big a market is there really for thunderbolt interfaces anyway? There is the choice of UAD, Apogee, Focusrite and something else I can't remember.. oh motu, that's it. Besides the motto ultralight they are all $1K+ - not a huge market.

I hear you re steinberg, but to be totally fair cakewalk are no better, neither are apple. Sure they do fix bugs but I am aware of some in Logic existing since 5.5 still in 10.2.. they need a code revamp but nothing will ever really "beat" logic for me as even all my reason projects ended up being mixed in logic lol.

as far as plug in vendors, i can understand they are pissed about constant os updates, but surely 4K screens are appearing everywhere in windows land as well - so i do think plug in developers in general should optimise for both.. not just be anti retina because it's apple LOL - i mean let's face it, retina is just apple's name for an ultra HD display.

Now this is a question that I wonder if any gfx guy can answer - how hard is it to keep an interface identical, say an average size plugin, and do nothing to it other than convert it to ultra HD compatibility? Is that a huge job? Like, are logic plugins not done because apple are lazy, or is it really that huge a deal to change them to be hi res?

If it's the former, i bet it's because they want to revamp like they did with the EQ and comp and not just "update" the current ones to Hi res.
But i am sure tons of us would be happy if they did LOL.

Here's another question.. can those people offering skins for logic and it's plugins, take it upon themselves to provide hi res versions of their own skin?

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Oh and Tronam, great to know ProQ2 supports retina with logic - that looks wicked.. that's a big deal to me for something as intricate as an EQ that i will look at mix in mix out, so i better check if the acon does too, as that was the one i had decided to buy.

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In fact all the Fabfilter plugins look pretty much perfect inside Logic on a retina display.

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if anyone is interested the acon is retina optimised also.

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Sampleconstruct: Are the glitches seen in those plugins on a Mac with integrated retina or only when on external third-party displays at high-PPI mode (scaled)?

TheoM: you can size up the plugin windows in Logic. It looks ugly, but they're at least larger that way.
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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And yeah, I thought Apple was the SOLE instigator of high-PPI displays, causing other companies to catch up. It's pretty lousy that they haven't bothered to redo the GUIs on ALL their products by now. I assume they intend to replace the plugins that they haven't updated the GUIs on, and therefore have refused to dive into a project of GUI redesign (larger graphics might not be a simple changeout, depending on how the GUI framework code was written). The down side is that they're also not making completion of the replacement plugins a high priority (not to mention it would break everyone's projects if they REPLACED things rather than upgraded them!!).
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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Jace-BeOS wrote:Sampleconstruct: Are the glitches seen in those plugins on a Mac with integrated retina or only when on external third-party displays at high-PPI mode (scaled)?

TheoM: you can size up the plugin windows in Logic. It looks ugly, but they're at least larger that way.
These glitches happen on both my screens, one being a brand-new Apple retina 27", the other one being a brand-new Sharp PN-K321 - 4K monitor, the latter is a little worse though. Logic itself looks splendid on both of those, photoshopping is a delight, but as I said, some plugins are simply not coded to work with that resolution it seems.

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Ok and now tell Apple that so they know how many want full retina support.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/logic-pro.html

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Bathrobe wrote:Ok and now tell Apple that so they know how many want full retina support.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/logic-pro.html

did that yesterday already. I USE the feedback system. Reported over 30 bugs last year alone and 20 FR';s.

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