5.2 GUI Hardware acceleration.

[nowiamone]

Unfortunaltely one has to configure this setting manually for each dedicated Application. That means for every new version I have to go to the settings again, navigate to the specific Bitwig executable in Explorer and configure it to use GPU-1 ... Or is there anything I'm missing?

yes An annoyance we have to live with i guess - just like giving the "OK" for Bitwig being allowed in the firewall etc.

On my desktop with windows 10 it still does not show anything in task manager even after cleaning and re-installing the NVIDIA drivers/software.

that's strange indeed!

[Kirkwood West]

So most mac users aren't seeing any imporvement here, still a lagging a lot and low fps, and some others claim they see more speed.

But you really should give us more details first, what resolution are you using, one or more screens, which macos version, which hardware (cpu/gpu)?

I observed 5.2 beta to be much snappier on my m1max MacBook Pro.

I’m just testing here and there tho… I will get into some larger projects and also what happens with super latent mix bus chains.

[Hanz Meyzer]

I activated 5.2 now, and on my M1 pro, macos 12.6.1, running 4k upscaled to 5k, the graphics is WAY smoother and more fluent, like 60fps. Really a great step forward.

But I now have some nasty cpu spikes in a project which didn't have these using 4.4.10, at the same audio settings, 48khz, 256 sample buffer. Maybe the thread priority isn't set right? I have no idea

Could be caused by the new Avenger 2.1 update, too... But it basically happens, while Vital starts to play something new.

Bildschirmfoto 2024-04-28 um 22.01.22.jpg

Do you have a similar experience?

EDIT:
Also the graphics performance HEAVILY decreases, as soon as I switch to 200% scaling in Bitwig, it is super fluent with 225% though. This is quite weird, because such a minimal change shouldn't bother a gpu at all.

EDIT 2:
The slowdown seemed to be caused by the performance graph popup window and not by the resolution change.

[pdxindy]

I activated 5.2 now, and on my M1 pro, macos 12.6.1, running 4k upscaled to 5k, the graphics is WAY smoother and more fluent, like 60fps. Really a great step forward.

But I now have some nasty cpu spikes in a project which didn't have these using 4.4.10, at the same audio settings, 48khz, 256 sample buffer. Maybe the thread priority isn't set right? I have no idea

What sandboxing method are you using?

[Hanz Meyzer]

What sandboxing method are you using?

I think this doesn't matter, but I use "within bitwig". I just re-checked with the old Bitwig version, and there are no cpu spikes at all, using the exact same settings and plugins...

I have the impression this is related to macos audio workgroups, the Renoise dev had the same problem while introducing Metal2 rendering to Renoise. There seems to be only one valid way in macos, if using metal2/3 rendering and multithreading, which is audio workgroups. Could be totally wrong though

[Hanz Meyzer]

I went back all the Bitwig versions, until the CPU spikes disappear, using the same song, same settings. This seems to be v5.0.9.

Here is a comparison, first screenshot is 5.0.9, then 5.2.0 beta 1:

Bildschirmfoto 2024-04-28 um 23.03.16.jpg

Bildschirmfoto 2024-04-28 um 22.01.22.jpg

You can see that starting with 5.0.11 or so, there are heavy cpu spikes. But it is the worst in 5.2.

What could the cause? Maybe MPE wasn't properly processed in 5.0.9, so it saved CPU? How can I disable MPE for Vital? Any idea?

[pdxindy]

I went back all the Bitwig versions, until the CPU spikes disappear, using the same song, same settings. This seems to be v5.0.9.

That was when I started seeing CPU spikes in Dune and Vital and I switched sandboxing to Together" and they went away. Other plugins were fine. But this may also be affected by OS, plugin version, etc. I never investigated further.

[Hanz Meyzer]

That was when I started seeing CPU spikes in Dune and Vital and I switched sandboxing to Together" and they went away. Other plugins were fine. But this may also be affected by OS, plugin version, etc. I never investigated further.

Ah ok, will try that, thanks for the hint.

[] Peter:H []

I activated 5.2 now, and on my M1 pro, macos 12.6.1, running 4k upscaled to 5k, the graphics is WAY smoother and more fluent, like 60fps. Really a great step forward.

But I now have some nasty cpu spikes in a project which didn't have these using 4.4.10, at the same audio settings, 48khz, 256 sample buffer. Maybe the thread priority isn't set right? I have no idea

Could be caused by the new Avenger 2.1 update, too... But it basically happens, while Vital starts to play something new.

Bildschirmfoto 2024-04-28 um 22.01.22.jpg

Do you have a similar experience?

EDIT:
Also the graphics performance HEAVILY decreases, as soon as I switch to 200% scaling in Bitwig, it is super fluent with 225% though. This is quite weird, because such a minimal change shouldn't bother a gpu at all.

EDIT 2:
The slowdown seemed to be caused by the performance graph popup window and not by the resolution change.

Only a gut feeling, but I think Vital could be part of this story ... VST3 or Clap? I use CLAP.

On my side I started to notice performance problems recently as well. But I cannot clearly pinpoint it to one "reason", aka plugin or Bitwig update. I told myself it's caused by my projects growing more complex. Could it be that it has to do with the plugin "alive" control which can be set to "trust plugin", "when mute" or "never" ... I don't now, I'm just guessing.

[BobDog]

Hi Guys on OSX.

With the new version, if you have a screen full of audio tracks, smallest vertical size, on 4K/5K and scroll around what fps do you see?

I haven't got a plan at the moment so can't try the beta and am interested.

I ask because here midi tracks always render quickly but audio tracks are super slow, I just wonder if the new code speeds this up?

Thanks

[Hanz Meyzer]

With the new version, if you have a screen full of audio tracks, smallest vertical size, on 4K/5K and scroll around what fps do you see?

Can't tell you the exact fps, but on my m1 pro system, the drawing in the sequencer is way faster and way more constantly fluent now even with a lot of opened automation lanes, also those lags, for example while switching tracks, are gone. Feels to me now like it should have been always. Also startup time increased, the whole thing now feels snappy, not laggy anymore.

As for audio tracks, I barely use it, so I have nothing to tell here.

[jurij.es.a.szakkor]

How exactly does the new hardware acceleration implemented and work in 5.2, has the underlying Cairo GFX engine been replaced with OpenGL?

If this is the case, what is the recommended GPU for Bitwig Studio to take advantage of full HW GPU acceleration on PC/Mac and Linux platforms, any NVidia/AMD GPU with OpenGL support is fine?

[Hanz Meyzer]

No, it uses some GFX lib which I think is based on Vulcan/Metal2.

[muzicxs]

OpenGL has been deprecated on Mac:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/opengl- ... s.1312563/

So most likely they don't use OpenGL, but rather DirectX for Windows, and Vulcan/Metal for OSX. No idea what Unix would be using, though.

[jurij.es.a.szakkor]

No, it uses some GFX lib which I think is based on Vulcan/Metal2.

Yes, that's what I meant, they replaced the Cairo GFX library with something more up to date.

The Vulkan/Metal GFX API looks future proof.

This transition must have been a lot of effort and hard work, well done Bitwig!