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Forum: VirtualDJ Technical Support

Topic: New laptop for stems 2.0
Looking to get a new laptop to support stems 2.0 but unclear what I should be looking for.
When looking at laptop specs which piece processes the stems now?

I was under the impression is was GPU but in another thread someone mentioned the natural cores processes the stems on a mac, not the cores in the GPU.

Do stems process differently on a Mac vs PC? Do PCs still process with the GPU?
 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 3:47 am
 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 5:25 am
On Mac it's the Neural Engine, on PC it's CUDA cores in the GPU.

Although the RTX3050Ti (4gb VRAM) is a popular card, just be aware it doesn't work with stems.
 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 8:47 am
kradcliffe wrote :
On Mac it's the Neural Engine, on PC it's CUDA cores in the GPU.


Thanks for clarifying. I saw the post with system minimums but I want to max out the piece which calculates the stems and wanted to be certain.

I saw on another post you mentioned audio latency on Asus laptops. I currently have an Asus ROG and will most likely get another once the 2023s are out. Which machines were you getting latency on? I had my current machine since 2017 and it's been great, curious what you were testing on and if I need to be worried a out getting a newer one.

Thanks again!

 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 12:31 pm
And what exactly do you mean by audio latency? Without a controller you are hitting play on the PC and the output is delayed from the track position in the Ui?
 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 1:26 pm
More audio crackling and stuttering due to the bad latency rather than actual delays pressing buttons.
 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 1:30 pm
Latency is a delay - it doesn't in itself cause crackles and stutters.

Users setting it too low (buffer too small), poor drivers (for the audio interface or the computer) and too much background junk running are more likely culprits or dare I say it, AMD processors (IMO). So many posts here recently complaining of audio issues, all using AMD.
 

Inviato Tue 31 Jan 23 @ 6:10 pm
locodogPRO InfinityModeratorMember since 2013
Latency does cause crackles, you could have a huge buffer, 4096 samples, but if some lousy driver makes the machine miss a gear and that buffer doesn't get filled in time, the buffer will be sent out incomplete then you're going to have audio distortions
 

Inviato Wed 01 Feb 23 @ 6:46 am
@groovin High latency does cause dropouts. Experienced it first hand on that Asus I tested last month. When the nvidia graphics driver caused a spike in the monitor the audio from VDJ glitched.
 

Inviato Wed 01 Feb 23 @ 8:26 am
 

Inviato Thu 02 Feb 23 @ 1:48 pm
Wow! 😳 Have you given up on the M2 then Keith?
 

Inviato Thu 02 Feb 23 @ 2:14 pm
Yeah, the Mac wasn't for me. The OS is quite lacking in a few areas compared to Windows, and there were issues relating to video output I couldn't resolve.

Obviously the mac is far more compact and energy efficient, but I just felt it was like having an arm missing compared to Windows. I also had issues with database compatibility given I prep on a Windows laptop and they use different file paths. It was a bit of a mess and more hassle than I initially thought.

All good now though, and £100 cheaper than the Mac retail price too.
 

Inviato Thu 02 Feb 23 @ 2:30 pm
Glad you finally got a laptop that actually works for you!
 

Inviato Thu 02 Feb 23 @ 3:23 pm
It's always difficult to change. I used PCs from the 80s til 2010 when I first switched to Macs. My first 2 Macs are boot camped with W7 and W10. I DJed with the Windows side for several years until Windows screwed up a wedding's first dance. I've DJed with the Mac side ever since. I'm a little disappointed that the new Macs can't be boot camped as I still occasionally run Windows software that's not available on Macs. I still have a Dell Inspiron 6000 with Windows XP from 2006 that I use for my accounts (ex DJ laptop). I may give Parallels a try on the M1, I am sure it should be pretty fast and efficient.
 

Inviato Thu 02 Feb 23 @ 3:24 pm