Does Reason have proper multicore support?

[RFX]

So I've been wondering about the multicore support in Reason. I am currently using the latest Version (8.3), but I can't seem to get Reason to use more than 3 cores.

Take a look at this screenshot:



This shows that Reason is only using 3 cores. I've got multicore audio rendering enabled.

So reason clearly has multicore support, but why did they limit it to 3 cores? That doesn't really make sense to me, especially since 3 core CPUs don't really exist (well, they do, but these are usually just quad cores with manufacturing issues), and especially music producers most of the time have at least a quad core (or dual core with hyperthreading).

Can anyone explain this to me? Am I doing something wrong or does Reason really not have proper multicore support?

[submonsterz]

You may want to Google the processor fpu count etc for the cores .
Might give some clue to how it's all working in regards to audio and how reason works too.
Was argued to death on PUF way back if I remember pity that info never got saved ..........
Forgot to mention one of the cores reserved to the system ..

[shinjo]

Your machine has four cores. Three are used by Reason for audio and one is used for UI updates. Your operating system is setup to use hyper-threading, which Reason does not use IIRC. Therefore it looks like a number of 'virtual' cores are unused, but it's actually better to not use these cores and get full speed on the whole core.

[RFX]

You may want to Google the processor fpu count etc for the cores .
Might give some clue to how it's all working in regards to audio and how reason works too.
Was argued to death on PUF way back if I remember pity that info never got saved ..........
Forgot to mention one of the cores reserved to the system ..

I think I know what you mean. My CPU has 8 physical cores, but only 4 FPUs. 2 cores basically share an FPU, maybe that's why it's not the first four threads being used, but rather the first, third and fifth (and the seventh one is probably for the UI updates like shinjo mentioned). That would be my theory.

[Raveshaper]

Hyperthreading is an Intel platform architecture, AMD can not utilize it because it is proprietary to Intel.

To be fair, many apps still are not built to make use of multiple cores.

[RFX]

Does anyone here have an older processor that doesn't use shared FPUs or hyperthreading (and has 6 or more cores)? Because I'd like to know if the same thing will happen on these CPUs.

To be fair, many apps still are not built to make use of multiple cores.

Especially applications like Reason should utilize them though, since music production is a pretty CPU heavy task. I'm already hitting the limits of my FX-8320, and the song I used for that screenshot doesn't even have that many devices (maybe it's due to my heavy use of Rack Extensions, but who knows).

[Raveshaper]

I personally use an oooold AMD Phenom 9950 quadcore running at 2.6 and Reason uses three of the cores plus a bit of the 4th if I recall.

I agree, utilizing more cores should make sense and be a priority. But, much to my surprise, I have found that what makes sense to me has not made any sense to others.

[ScuzzyEye]

Does anyone here have an older processor that doesn't use shared FPUs or hyperthreading (and has 6 or more cores)? Because I'd like to know if the same thing will happen on these CPUs.

I had a dual Six Core Opteron workstation. 12 cores total, without shared FPUs. The last good CPU AMD made. Reason would render on 11 of the 12 cores.

[Eagleizer]

You can read this. (MAC and Win). It explains how Reason handles multicore
and how you can experiment with it yourself. DO AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdwy2at4fgmbc ... e.pdf?dl=0

If you understand how to do it, please share!

I tried it on a 6 core a couple of years ago, but had no luck. There should
also be a shortcut for it IIRC, but not sure if that gives you the control you
want. I`ll post here if can find my notes.. I have a 5960x (8 core) and it
would be fun to try this again.

Cheers

[Sinistereo]

The AMD FX-8320 has four processors in one package. Everyone else in the industry would say that it has four "cores," but AMD has been playing the marketing game and instead markets this processor as having four "modules" with a total of eight "cores." Intel calls these "hyperthreads," but either way the idea is that certain small but important parts of the processor are duplicated, while larger, more complex and less frequently used parts of the processor are shared between hyperthread-core thingamibobs.

Reason makes heavy use of the floating point and vector units - both are shared resources, one per Intel core or AMD module. Reason will fully saturate these shared resources but has no physical way of also saturating the hyperthreaded resources. This is a consequence of how these processors are designed. Although Windows reports that only 1/2 of the cores are saturated, it is physically impossible for the processor to do more work.

One core is reserved for running the user interface and internal logic to ensure that everything stays snappy.

The short answer is "yes, Reason has very well executed multicore support."

[gak]

Here is what they wrote me back recently:

Hi,

Hyperthreading is supported for non-audio tasks, e.g. GUI handling. For audio processing, hyperthreading is not used.

Reason should work fine on Intel 5820 CPUs as far as we know.
Generally, the faster the CPU the better, and the more cores the better.

Also make sure you don't waste processing power by using too high sample rates in your audio interface.

It's still not a good detailed explanation but it puts and talk of "hyperthreading" to bed.

[RFX]

I had a dual Six Core Opteron workstation. 12 cores total, without shared FPUs. The last good CPU AMD made. Reason would render on 11 of the 12 cores.

Thanks for sharing. I guess Reason really does just ignore hyperthreads (or whatever it is called on AMD processors).

[Sinistereo]

I had a dual Six Core Opteron workstation. 12 cores total, without shared FPUs. The last good CPU AMD made. Reason would render on 11 of the 12 cores.

Thanks for sharing. I guess Reason really does just ignore hyperthreads (or whatever it is called on AMD processors).

Reason doesn't ignore hyperthreads. It uses them. Most of the work that Reason needs to do uses hardware that is shared between hyperthreads, however. When these shared resources are busy, the hyperthreads can't do more work.

A factory would be a good analogy. Imagine that you have four production lines but only one packing department. When the factory is making small, easy to pack products, the packing department can keep up with all four production lines. However, if the factory is making something big and difficult to pack, everything else will be limited by the packing department and some of the production lines will stall or be shut down.

Processors are designed like this because shared resources are a good balance between cost and real-world computing power. Most people don't spend as much time as we do making heavy use of floating point and vector math.

[SteveDiverse]

I think I know what you mean. My CPU has 8 physical cores...

AMD advertises core count by quoting the total virtual cores - your CPU ( AMD FX-8320 ) has 4 physical cores.

Description: Socket: AM3+, Clockspeed: 3.5 GHz, Turbo Speed: 4.0 GHz, No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical), Max TDP: 125 W
Other names: AMD FX(tm)-8320 Eight-Core Processor

[EnochLight]

If by "proper", you mean: use all logical cores, then yes. Reason utilizes multiple cores - both logical and virtual (read: Intel Hyperthreading) for everything except audio processing. Things such as high-quality stretch and resample, disc i/o, and GUI can be spread amongst both logical and virtual.

Reason will leave 1 logical core free for the OS.

Here's a little demo I did demonstrating Reason's Hyperthreading:

[avasopht]

steinberg.net - Should Hyperthreading be enabled or not - Win 7 ?

i've tested it on numerous occasions with my 6core i7 CPU; each time my CPU could bear a higher processing load with HT off.

(win 7 x64, cubase x64, RME drivers.)

Something to bear in mind

[KEVMOVE02]

Whenever I read threads like this, I wonder if our time would be better spent learning how to optimize use of the Reason Main Mixer or getting the most sound out of the fewest rack devices. Just because you can create a reverb for each track in your song doesn't mean you should, especially if you can accomplish the same effect using the Mixer section send/return. I guess that's a lesson from a bygone era.

[Sinistereo]

In interesting news, AMD is the target of a deceptive trade practices lawsuit. Plaintiffs allege that AMD's choice to use the industry standard term "core" to refer to what amounts to an incomplete processor is misleading and was designed to confuse customers into thinking that an 8 "core" AMD CPU had twice the functional capability of an Intel 4 core CPU.

I expect AMD will lose. They are so deeply in debt that this could be a painful blow.

http://legalnewsline.com/stories/510646 ... of-new-cpu

[EnochLight]

I expect AMD will lose. They are so deeply in debt that this could be a painful blow.

http://legalnewsline.com/stories/510646 ... of-new-cpu

While I agree that it was incredibly deceptive to what AMD did to consumers, I'd hate to lose them as competition to Intel. Despite the fact that AMD hasn't even been close to competing in performance for many years, to lose them altogether would mean Intel's monopoly could stymie innovation and jack CPU prices back up to even more astronomically expensive than they already are. Just... UGH...

[gak]

Whenever I read threads like this, I wonder if our time would be better spent learning how to optimize use of the Reason Main Mixer or getting the most sound out of the fewest rack devices. Just because you can create a reverb for each track in your song doesn't mean you should, especially if you can accomplish the same effect using the Mixer section send/return. I guess that's a lesson from a bygone era.

What I'd say is the opposite. As computers have gotten better, there should be great emphasis on using that potential.

[kitekrazy]

Some DAWs are not perfect at using all cores equally. In other DAWs using a program like Kontakt you have to use multiple instances of Kontakt for all cores to be used.

[mcatalao]

While I agree that it was incredibly deceptive to what AMD did to consumers, I'd hate to lose them as competition to Intel.

How can you loose something you never had?
All AMD builds i did in the past gave problems. From really crappy performances, to completely unusable machines who would simply frack up every single recording i did with glitches. Pair them with via based mboards and you'd be bettetr off burning money directly!

[ScuzzyEye]

How can you loose something you never had?

AMD had better performing 386s than Intel. Allowed owners of 486s to upgrade to Pentium-level performance with a simply chip replacement. Completely reinvigorated the desktop computer market with the Super 7 series of chips. It was with first slot-based Athlons that Intel started to pull ahead with raw performance, but AMD kept their dollar per MIP lead. When Intel flopped with their 64-bit Itanium, they licensed AMD's 64-bit extensions, which were already in use with the Opteron and Athlon64s. The Opteron's true NUMA memory addressing, and full hypervisor instruction set made it superior to the Xeon in the server market for quite a while.

You're being short sighted if you think having AMD doing everything they could to compete with Intel didn't make better products all around.

[mcatalao]

You might be a little short sighted if you think AMD and INTEL are the only CPU brands around...

[EnochLight]

You might be a little short sighted if you think AMD and INTEL are the only CPU brands around...

As far as desktop/laptops? Yep, that's pretty much it. Those are the main players in the market still today. Now if you're talking mobile platforms like Chromebooks, Atom-based stuff, tablets... then the waters get a bit more murky.