The Logic Off Topic list

--- In logic-ot@y..., Colin Miller <snoopy@m...> wrote:
> At 10:35 PM 7/24/2002 +0000, you wrote:
> >http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/cgi-
> >bin/getframeletter.cgi?/2002/07_jul/features/cw_macvspc2.htm
> >
> >says it all
> 
> You're right, Logic Audio will never be able to render images as 
> fast as Phtotoshop.

<g>

The problem is, that if someone has a cheapy 2000+ Athlon machine 
with a DDR motherboard, and it's being suggested that they upgrade to 
a "superior" shiny new top-of-the-line just-released G4 2*1Gig 
machine, the G4's processing power with logic 5.x might not be any 
better than what they currently have, despite the fact that it might 
cost two or three times as much. And its performance with logic 
5.x /might/ actually be worse when it comes to running lots of 
sotware instruments and processing.

I guess that when logic becomes OSX-specific, they are counting on 
being able to strip out all the kludgey cross-platform code and 
replace it with super-optimised OSX code that'll run appreciably 
faster and compensate for the slower hardware. 
But at the moment that sounds a bit like jam tomorrow, and by the 
time they'd finished that piece of engineering, PC's will have gotten 
even faster, and distributed network processing might have caught on.

I think networked processing may be the Next Big Thing to hit the 
workstation market, and while someone might be happy to pay out a 
premium price for a single Mac G4 because of its pretty user 
interface and casing, they might be more reluctant to pay the same 
premium rates for a stack of slave machines to sit in a rack and 
provide background processing.

If emagic implement load-sharing, people will be able to buy /two/ 
macs and increase their power that way ... but since the Windows line 
is being cancelled before networking features are implemented, they 
won't have the option of supplementing their pretty G4 with a little 
ugly cheap PC cubelet hidden under the desk which automatically kicks 
in to take over part of the load, because because there won't be a 
version of the new logic code that can be run on the cubelet. 

Cross-platform processing is liable to end up being the domain of 
companies like Steinberg and Native Instruments, who are maintaining 
a presence (and investment) on both platforms. 

Unless apple/emagic change their minds about dropping all Windows 
audio product development, I don't see how they can hope to be a 
credible player in this new sort of market.

Erk