We're talking about Studio One v3 of course. I used the S1 CPU utilization meter. The test 1 is on audio, how many tracks can be played back with no problems... So, I inserted an audio track that has one instance of the following plugins (all native): Fat Channel, ProEq, Chorus, Analog Delay and Compressor. I also inserted a Limiter on the master channel.
On my i5-2400, 6gb ram, HD2000, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit system, I could run in loop 80 tracks at 45% CPU utilization idle and 50-55% when playback and about 145 tracks with 75-80% idle and 90-95% playback.
On the other PC, a laptop i5-4210U, 8 gb ram, GeForce 840M, Win 8.1 64 bit, I could run in loop about a maximum of 90 tracks at 70-75% idle and 85-90% playback.
Test no 2 was on MIDI with the Mai Tai Childwave Pad patch that was discussed before. I made an eight bar midi with 4 notes every bar, played it in loop. I kept the Limiter inserted on master.
On my i5-4210U system one track in idle was 10-15% and it took the CPU to 55-60% in playback, 4 tracks to 75% and 5 tracks killed it at 100%. When transforming the tracks in audio, with preserving the instrument state, CPU was at about 10% in playback.
On i5-2400 system, one track idle was 8% CPU, in playback was 40%, 5 tracks 75% and 8 tracks 95-100%. The ninth track would kill it. When transforming in audio, the CPU was only about 7%.
Whenever I will have some time I will produce a proper arrangement, with native instruments/effects and compare between the two systems. To me, while v3 seems just a bit more demanding than v2, is still quite alright. And I am sure more optimization will be done as a .0 release is no doubt lacking. I am optimistic about it and I hope my Artist v2 will turn into an Artist v3 with VST support in not so long. Maybe when the first sale campaign will be done by Presonus.
