Does GPU Matter?

Configure and optimize you computer for Audio.
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It comes down to this, many processes, especially floating point calculations, get offloaded to GPU (that means sound and rendering). There is a cap to that throughput though, and I'm not sure a mega GPU is going to be all that much more helpful then a fairly newish one. I just run the included laptop intel one most of the time and I'm fine. It's a newer computer though, and I'm not sequencing 60 super saws through 20 instances of fab filter compressors, so there may be something to the type of card you use. The different cards do use different processors and they have different logic gates and drivers, so you guys can argue about the best set up for what you do, but I'm not sure there is a difference when there is a cap to the packets of data being offloaded. Of course, the newer your gpu, the more future proof it is.

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@Eclectus

Lol, ok so I looked it up, I have seen the setting before but never touched it. You're right,
It mostly affects games, AMD does the same thing by the way _GL_THREADING call. I didn't see anything
related to plugin or DAW performance, and the default setting is auto (which implies it's not always on).
It's not universally problematic either. Again, all I said was I never had a problem, thats what people do when someone reports something like that. Taking that as an attack is pretty damn unreasonable, and attacking me for it was also pretty unreasonable. While I find it hard to believe it would cause any problems for audio work, I'll accept that it's possible. Though, I am definitely convinced of one thing: that you are an ass.

Good day to you...

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Last edited by Obsolete317542 on Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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^ lol again wtf are you reading? Where did I say any of that? I even used the qualifier "just sayin"
Which in my understanding means essentially "hey no offense, but this is what I saw" thats it.
Any implications are completely in your head.

Anyway, I'm out as this can no longer end well.

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metamorphosis wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 9:11 am
lnikj wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 4:09 am
metamorphosis wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 1:40 am
lnikj wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:26 pm If you have any interest in running VCV Rack you will need a discrete GPU.
Also not true. It requires OpenGL 2 capability, which almost all integrated GPUs support nowadays. You have to go back about 10 years to find one which doesn't - or to a very obscure one.
System Requirements

Operating system: MacOS 10.7+, Windows 7+, or Linux (Ubuntu 16.04+, etc)
CPU: Intel/AMD 64-bit processor from ~2011 or later
Graphics: Dedicated Nvidia/AMD graphics card from ~2013 or later. Integrated (non-dedicated) graphics such as Intel HD/Iris are not recommended and cause significantly increased CPU usage.
RAM: 1GB
Disk space: 1GB

If you think you don't need a discrete GPU try running Rack on a laptop that hasn't got one.
From their FAQ: "Rack requires at least OpenGL 2.0 with the GL_EXT_framebuffer_object extension. If your graphics card supports this, make sure you’ve installed the latest graphics drivers, and restart Rack."
My apologies, I didn't realise this was a hair splitting contest.

Yes, OpenGL2.0 is technically required, whereas a discrete GPU is technically not.

My original point, from personal experience, and from the system requirements, and backed up by numerous comments from the developer himself, is that Rack runs poorly on an onboard GPU.

How do the two types of GPU compare for you? Any difference to the number of modules you can run? Any CPU temperature differences? Fan activity ?

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mgw38 wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 12:52 pm That's for the framebuffer only. Once you boot an operating system the driver will need memory to be able to run OpenGL/DirectX, so it takes and reserves that from system memory.

It'll usually reserve 1gb VRAM per 8gb system RAM. It can grow a bit dynamically but it will always start out with one fixed buffer.
That's not for the framebuffer only. And the latter isn't true, it's not 'reserved' it's shared.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads ... y.1837362/

mgw38 wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 12:52 pm
metamorphosis wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 1:36 am Virtually no software offloads processing to GPUs for the simple fact that they're not that good for processing most types of data due to the latency of transferring data from memory to VRAM and back again. A lot of software will use the hardware acceleration of the graphics card for blitting the buffers to screen, but that's standard, and nothing to do with GPUs.
GPUs are good for AI because of the large number of cores that are optimized for doing very basic things. That is pretty much perfect for running deep neural networks. Nvidia took advantage of that with their Jetson series. I think they just released a special CUDA based SDK for AI.
Yes, well aware of that, as noted I have programmed in CUDA.
There's just some idiots here that think everything can be offloaded to the GPU, whereas almost nothing is other than in some specialised areas...

lnikj wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:18 pm My apologies, I didn't realise this was a hair splitting contest.
I don't think I'm the one splitting hairs here (hare? :hihi: ).
lnikj wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:18 pm Yes, OpenGL2.0 is technically required, whereas a discrete GPU is technically not.
Opengl 2 is absolutely required, whereas a discrete GPU is absolutely not.

lnikj wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:18 pm My original point, from personal experience, and from the system requirements, and backed up by numerous comments from the developer himself, is that Rack runs poorly on an onboard GPU.
Will depend on the onboard GPU, but fair enough. They're probably doing a poor job of writing their opengl/directx code though, if their draw calls are having that significant an effect on what is primarily a sound-pusher.

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metamorphosis wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2019 2:29 am
lnikj wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:18 pm My original point, from personal experience, and from the system requirements, and backed up by numerous comments from the developer himself, is that Rack runs poorly on an onboard GPU.
Will depend on the onboard GPU, but fair enough. They're probably doing a poor job of writing their opengl/directx code though, if their draw calls are having that significant an effect on what is primarily a sound-pusher.
It is coded with NanoVG and the heavy graphical demands it places are due to an infinite canvas and completely fluid scrolling and zooming of what can be a very complex and detailed SVG interface depending on the number of modules present and the zoom level. I can't think of any other audio software that approaches it in this respect (tbf, the vast majority has no need to).

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lnikj wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2019 8:59 am
metamorphosis wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2019 2:29 am Will depend on the onboard GPU, but fair enough. They're probably doing a poor job of writing their opengl/directx code though, if their draw calls are having that significant an effect on what is primarily a sound-pusher.
It is coded with NanoVG and the heavy graphical demands it places are due to an infinite canvas and completely fluid scrolling and zooming of what can be a very complex and detailed SVG interface depending on the number of modules present and the zoom level. I can't think of any other audio software that approaches it in this respect (tbf, the vast majority has no need to).
Yes, can see how that would affect things, certainly if they're using opengl shapes rather than bitmaps ie. svg. Interesting approach, that's for sure. Not sure how Juce does it, but it does a similar thing.

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