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HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

Buying or building computers for Hauptwerk, recommendations, troubleshooting computer hardware issues.
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Messer86

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HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostMon Feb 28, 2022 3:45 am

Dear Hauptwerk users,

I’ve tried to understand the tons of topics here about the new Apple Silicon CPUs, in order to decide what kind of machine should I buy, to let me do the update from HW4 to HW7 without issues.
At the moment my MBP 2015 retina 4 core i7 works sufficiently good for HW4 Sample Sets fitted in 16gb RAM.

But, in order to upgrade from HW4 to 7, my doubt is about purchasing the right APPLE machine at the moment, considering that Apple this year is planning to replace all “old” Intel Macs with Apple CPUs, and considering that Hauptwerk is the main reason of my upgrade. So, my idea of future choice would be one of this option:


- new 2022 iMacs (sure that Apple in 2022 Events will release iMacs with m1pro/max CPU);
- Intel 2020 iMacs (i7 3.8ghz - i9 3.6ghz)
;
- 2022 Mac mini with m1max/pro upgrade (as I expect).

(Mac pros are insanely expensive and I prefer iMacs than MBpros as I want a desktop machine and as I have already an iPad Pro as portable device)

RAM Question:

The sets I’ve purchased from 2007 till now could fit in 64gb RAM, with all channels/options, but working in HW4.
I’ve read that HW7 works very differently and is way more complex and demanding than HW4.
So.. 64 or 128 gb RAM?

Thank you all and all the best!
Marco
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mdyde

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostMon Feb 28, 2022 5:38 am

Hello Marco,

Messer86 wrote:- new 2022 iMacs (sure that Apple in 2022 Events will release iMacs with m1pro/max CPU);
- Intel 2020 iMacs (i7 3.8ghz - i9 3.6ghz)
;
- 2022 Mac mini with m1max/pro upgrade (as I expect).


Although we don't currently have a native port of Hauptwerk for Apple's Apple-CPU Macs, we understand that the current version of Hauptwerk (v7) does work and perform very well on them anyway under Apple's Rosetta emulator/compiler. We do hope to make a native port in the future.

Currently, you might possibly find that the 2020 Intel i9 3.6 GHz iMac would give the highest performance (polyphony, etc.), but a high-spec Apple-CPU model might be the better bet as a longer-term investment.

Messer86 wrote:RAM Question:

The sets I’ve purchased from 2007 till now could fit in 64gb RAM, with all channels/options, but working in HW4.
I’ve read that HW7 works very differently and is way more complex and demanding than HW4.
So.. 64 or 128 gb RAM?


For any given sample set, any difference in memory usage between Hauptwerk v7 and v4 will be very small, but newer versions of macOS do need more RAM for themselves, and some recent sample sets do need more than 64 GB, so my advice would be to go for 128 GB if reasonably possible, for maximum future-proofing.

Hope that helps.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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larason2

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostMon Feb 28, 2022 9:23 am

I wouldn’t buy an intel mac if possible, because Apple is going to stop developing for them, and once Hauptwerk is Apple native, it’s going to really blow the currently available Intels out of the water performance wise. March 8 isn’t long to wait! The best bang for your buck is a Mac mini, and the only RAM option for those will probably be the M1 Pro Max with 64GB of RAM, which will probably be enough. HW7 only uses ~1GB extra of RAM, so if your sets fit comfortably in 64 GB before, you shouldn’t have a problem. That being said, Martin is right about future proofing being 128 GB of RAM. But you’re going to have trouble getting any Apple with that much RAM in the near future. Right now, you can get an Intel iMac with 128 GB of RAM, but the cost will be about $6000 CDN. The con of doing that is the processor won’t age well. So it’s a bit of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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Messer86

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostTue Mar 01, 2022 2:59 am

Thank you for the precious support!!
Unfortunately, as we know, the architecture of m1 Apple is that the Ram is not subsequently upgradable, and 128gb will cost more than the Mac itself.
It would be great if it will be possible on new M1 Mac Pros, in order to maintain the "customisation" that Apple has always guaranteed on this device. On Intel iMacs the 64/128gb upgrade is very easy and less expensive, and these devices will devalue after new 27" M1/M2 iMacs will be released.. but as you said, Intel future is very short, and Apple will probably force the incompatibility of these "old" devices very soon.
Hard decision to make :roll:
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mnailor

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostTue Mar 01, 2022 9:23 am

I'm curious, is there evidence that Rosetta 2 translation likely makes Hauptwerk run slower on M1 than it would if native? Does translation miss some specific performance features like vector processing?
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mdyde

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostTue Mar 01, 2022 9:54 am

Hello Mark,

I can't speak from experience, but I mentioned some thoughts on it here:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20082&p=150577#p150577

In general, I certainly wouldn't assume that a native M1 port would necessarily perform significantly better than the current Intel executable running under Rosetta.

I would imagine that the thing most likely to benefit performance significantly would be optimising Hauptwerk for CPUs with unequal core performances (as M1s and Intel 12th-generation CPUs both do). Doing that wouldn't in itself require a native M1 port, i.e. is effectively an independent change that would be required.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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mnailor

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostTue Mar 01, 2022 10:55 am

Thanks, Martin!
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Messer86

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostTue Mar 29, 2022 8:16 am

In the end, I finally decided to buy an "old school" Intel iMac 2021, 10-core 3.6 and 128GB of RAM.
Today I have tested the polyphony with 4+gb testing organ in HW4 and the result was more than all 61 keys at 500 pipes for each key.

It could run more polyphony I think, but the testing organ was limited to max 30500, so the 35% is around 10000 pipes.

Very proud of my "old" Intel iMac ;)

Hope it helps.

Marco
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mdyde

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Re: HW7+Apple in 2022.. the best CPU/RAM choice

PostTue Mar 29, 2022 8:28 am

Excellent.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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