music playback sucks on the Mac
can somebody tell me:
- why it is that playing any sort of music on the Mac uses way too much CPU compared to a PC? Try any media player, be it playing MP3s on iTunes, or streaming music on RealOne or WMP, or Audion or whatever: you'll see your CPU getting sucked away when it should barely make a dent on a modern system. This is getting sooooooooooo freakin' long on the tooth... i thought by waiting a bit, things would improve but boy is the pace at which key consumer apps are updated glacial on the Mac... the list is so long it's not even funny: WMP, RealOne, pretty much any big name IM software (MSN IM, Yahoo IM), etc. And iTunes is still the slow piggish molasse it always was (as even PC users reckon).
- why there are no decent web radio solutions for the Mac? I am currently using LAUNCHcast on a PC and man is it great! The sad part is they only support NS 4.x on the Mac (which you means you have to start up Mac OS Classic!! in this day and age.. what a shame
). Apple is segmenting their already minuscule market so much that it pretty becomes unjustifiable even for huge companies like Yahoo to invest in Mac support (what with Mac OS X vs. the millions of installed base still using Mac OS 9, Safari vs. IE vs. Mozilla, G3 vs. G4 with Altivec vs. G5 with own specific optimizations tricks).
- why is it that there are no music subscription offerings for the Mac, a la Rhapsody/MusicMatch/Napster/LAUNCHcast? Why are forced to stick to the only model Apple offers (downloads)?
God is leaving in an island (however paradisiac) frustrating at times!
- why it is that playing any sort of music on the Mac uses way too much CPU compared to a PC? Try any media player, be it playing MP3s on iTunes, or streaming music on RealOne or WMP, or Audion or whatever: you'll see your CPU getting sucked away when it should barely make a dent on a modern system. This is getting sooooooooooo freakin' long on the tooth... i thought by waiting a bit, things would improve but boy is the pace at which key consumer apps are updated glacial on the Mac... the list is so long it's not even funny: WMP, RealOne, pretty much any big name IM software (MSN IM, Yahoo IM), etc. And iTunes is still the slow piggish molasse it always was (as even PC users reckon).
- why there are no decent web radio solutions for the Mac? I am currently using LAUNCHcast on a PC and man is it great! The sad part is they only support NS 4.x on the Mac (which you means you have to start up Mac OS Classic!! in this day and age.. what a shame
). Apple is segmenting their already minuscule market so much that it pretty becomes unjustifiable even for huge companies like Yahoo to invest in Mac support (what with Mac OS X vs. the millions of installed base still using Mac OS 9, Safari vs. IE vs. Mozilla, G3 vs. G4 with Altivec vs. G5 with own specific optimizations tricks).- why is it that there are no music subscription offerings for the Mac, a la Rhapsody/MusicMatch/Napster/LAUNCHcast? Why are forced to stick to the only model Apple offers (downloads)?
God is leaving in an island (however paradisiac) frustrating at times!
Comments
Originally posted by cygsid
- why it is that playing any sort of music on the Mac uses way too much CPU compared to a PC?
I'm not an audio expert, but as I recall, this is because on a Mac the CPU is handling all the tasks that create channels, combine and pipe the data, etc. for audio. On a PC, this is typically handled by your sound card. Thus, playing audio on a Mac causes a slight bump in CPU usage.
That said, I have never once (in Mac OS X) experienced an instance on my three-and-a-half year old Dual G4 500 system where playing music in iTunes has caused any sort of noticeable slow-down or lag on my system. Never, regardless of whether I'm surfing the web or ray-tracing 3D animations.
iTunes never skips for me, too. My CPUs are almost always maxed out to 200% with two folding clients running in the background. Even with them running and with surfing or writing code or editing graphics or any of the many other tasks I do, iTunes never skips.
the pace at which key consumer apps are updated glacial on the Mac... the list is so long it's not even funny: WMP, RealOne, pretty much any big name IM software
Did you ever think to a try third-party alternative? MPlayer, VLC... Fire, Adium... The alternatives are pretty good because people get fed-up with the glacial progress of the big software goliaths.
- why there are no decent web radio solutions for the Mac?
It sounds like you haven't been searching very much. I've heard great things about QuickTime Streaming Server and it's free. There's also iTunes if you're on the LAN. On top of that, a very basic search turned up all of these MP3 streaming apps: xStream GNU, iStream, MP3 Streamer, and Scream (an interface for shoutcast). I'm sure there are probably others too.
Apple is segmenting their already minuscule market so much that it pretty becomes unjustifiable even for huge companies like Yahoo to invest in Mac support (what with Mac OS X vs. the millions of installed base still using Mac OS 9, Safari vs. IE vs. Mozilla, G3 vs. G4 with Altivec vs. G5 with own specific optimizations tricks).
What? How is this a problem? Mac OS X has been available for three years. Mac OS X has been pushed full-force for two years. Did you miss the Mac OS 9 funeral? Did you miss the report of 10 million active Mac OS X users as of the turn of '04?
Safari vs. IE vs. Mozilla? Again, not a problem. Apple is pushing standards. Mozilla is pushing standards. Is it Apple's fault that Microsoft hasn't updated the IE engine in three years? Is it Apple's fault that some companies are too ignorant to right decent code?
G3 vs. G4 with Altivec vs. G5? Again, not a problem. The compiler will generate code that works on all three processors. When it runs, it'll execute the altivec-optimized code if you have a G4 or G5. If you don't, performance won't suffer any more than if it wasn't optimized to begin with. It's a win-win situation.
- why is it that there are no music subscription offerings for the Mac, a la Rhapsody/MusicMatch/Napster/LAUNCHcast? Why are forced to stick to the only model Apple offers (downloads)?
No one I know prefers the subscription model, even among my PC-using colleagues. I think there isn't a service probably because there isn't demand for it.
Originally posted by Aquatic
It happens with high CPU and/or network load. One reason is probably because audio playback eats so much CPU.
Point is: audio playback should not eat as much CPU as it does. Even decoding mp3 or aac should not take as much CPU time as it does.
Try mpg123 or some other command line decoder for a comparison.
Originally posted by Brad
That said, I have never once (in Mac OS X) experienced an instance on my three-and-a-half year old Dual G4 500 system where playing music in iTunes has caused any sort of noticeable slow-down or lag on my system.
Well, I only need to copy via sftp on my home LAN to an external FW disk to have iTunes stuttering (400Mhz TiBook, 100Mhz Ethernet). And no, there is nothing "wrong" with my system, it is a kernel bottleneck with high-troughput IO. Renicing processes helps to some extend.
No one I know prefers the subscription model, even among my PC-using colleagues. I think there isn't a service probably because there isn't demand for it.
Well, obviously the original poster would prefer it, so there is most likely some demand...
OSX iTunes has never ever skipped on my dual450 (purchased in 1999). Copying 50 gigs worth of video from IDE to SCSI while video chatting and compiling and downloading and installing software and expose-ing... still no skip.
Sure, it skips for some people, but no software is perfect.
Me? I'll trade a couple percent CPU usage any day for software as good as iTunes. Others, they can run well-optimized piles of crap if they want.
Just playing MP3s with all iTunes windows closed and with all 3 effects off, I get 7-10% CPU usage.
Merely by having a window open that shows the current song name, album, artist, time etc. It rises to 11-16% CPU usage with spikes everytime some text scrolls or changes.
Having the digital EQ show instead of the track info raises it even higher to 17-25% CPU but it is more consistently high since the Digital EQ display is relatively always busy whereas the track info scrolls periodically then stops.
Try it yourself. Each thing adds a bit to the processor load (obviously).
Turn on Sound Check 19-27% CPU
Turn off the Digital EQ again, 13-28% CPU
Turn on Sound Enhancer and Crossfade Playback: 11-31% CPU (Digital EQ off/Track info On): 12-33% CPU
Basically I get 10-13% CPU usage in typical play:
Play window minimized to just show back/play/forward/volume. ALl effects on, EQ (filtering) on.
It will spike at song change to about 23% CPU.
I've never had a skip and I'm on an iBook and an iMac DV SE. Never not once. Ironically I think some of the G4 and G5s might have skipping problems or so I hear.
Anyway if you want to cut down on CPU usage in iTunes, stay away from the graphical track info/digital EQ (I don't mean the actual EQ just the display). And the effects aren't really necessary most of the time.
Just get in the habit of clicking the green widget to minimize/maximize when you need to change songs or playlists then toggle it so it shows next to nothing.
Either that or just deal with a higher CPU load or get an iPod.
My PC doesnt have any fancy audio hardware, it is as simple as the mac - software mixing of channels.
Its hard to say why itunes might be skipping, but it probably is a system issue ( not an itunes issue ), with the machine being heavily loaded with tasks that are considered higher priority ( eg: kernel IO ). Personally, Id prefer a skip in itunes to dropped packets on my network.
I don't like how high the numbers get for iTunes playing mp3s, but I have to say that I've never had iTunes skip since OS9, and I think I do plenty of things with my Mac at once.
Point is: audio playback should not eat as much CPU as it does. Even decoding mp3 or aac should not take as much CPU time as it does.
Try mpg123 or some other command line decoder for a comparison.
You plonker - why don't you compare Doom3 to some text based adventure game while your there.
Close the window!!!
The only thing I will say is that choosing "Hide iTunes" does NOT work. Seems the cpu usage for drawing the window is still being used - weird.
Man oh man, the usual collection of absolutist NEVER-EVER responses... Thanks for your responses, but you're just wasting your time, mine, and others'.
Anyway, back on topic...
for the record, I never complained about iTunes skipping. Not sure who started that.
What I have complained about however is the CPU usage of iTunes, and yes, I do care about CPU cycles.. because guess what.. I *multitask*. And under OS X, believe me, it quickly adds up, and even ridiculous little processes like Process Viewer take a huge amount of CPU. So yes I like listening to music in the background and doing many things at once, FAST. Yes I know.. what was I thinking??
Originally posted by mmmpie
Not at my mac to check cpu loads there, but itunes on my PC ( P4 2.8 ghz ) is using, wait for it, 0% cpu. Thats with sound check on, and a minimised window.
My PC doesnt have any fancy audio hardware, it is as simple as the mac - software mixing of channels.
Exactly my point. Thank you.
Originally posted by johnq
iTunes has many things that are CPU intensive but merely playing MP3s isn't one of them.
Just playing MP3s with all iTunes windows closed and with all 3 effects off, I get 7-10% CPU usage.
Either that or just deal with a higher CPU load or get an iPod.
And you think 7-10% is reasonable??
Originally posted by Brad
I'm not an audio expert, but as I recall, this is because on a Mac the CPU is handling all the tasks that create channels, combine and pipe the data, etc. for audio. On a PC, this is typically handled by your sound card. Thus, playing audio on a Mac causes a slight bump in CPU usage.
blah blah blah.. and what's Apple's excuse for not providing a decently equipped audio device with their machines, if that can make such a big difference?? (assuming that's even true)
Originally posted by Brad
That said, I have never once (in Mac OS X) experienced an instance on my three-and-a-half year old Dual G4 500 system where playing music in iTunes has caused any sort of noticeable slow-down or lag on my system. Never, regardless of whether I'm surfing the web or ray-tracing 3D animations.
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maybe your dual CPU helps (I have an ibook G3/700, w/ plenty of RAM)... but again things add up..
Originally posted by Brad
No one I know prefers the subscription model, even among my PC-using colleagues. I think there isn't a service probably because there isn't demand for it.
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well so..? what's your point? maybe you just don't hang out around enough cool people
Originally posted by cygsid
And you think 7-10% is reasonable??
Hard as it may be to some people to grasp via the internet (judging from other similar, purely objective, flatly non-partisan posts I've made elsewhere on AI) I wasn't praising or condemning my numbers, just observing.
I was merely saying that, yes, there are spikes and there are workarounds to diminish the CPU usage. Not apologizing for Apple, btw.
If 7-10% is unreasonable to you, swell. To someone else it might be peachy or trivial.
If you are asking me, I'd say it is too high but sufficiently low for my home use.
If I was doing any work that demanded maximizing the CPU efficiency (and not wasting it with iTunes or similar apps) I would simply use no other apps on that machine.
If I was rendering something complex, I'm not going to waste CPU time by playing music on the same box. Even at the office I use my iPod rather than iTunes w/MP3s on the Mac because I want it to be portable and I don't want the frivolous apps to take CPU time away from my work.
If your work is less complex, go for it. It's not like it taxes the system. Heck, resizing any window will tax the CPU to near 100%, so tell Apple to fix that while you are at it.
Originally posted by Brad
I'm not an audio expert, but as I recall, this is because on a Mac the CPU is handling all the tasks that create channels, combine and pipe the data, etc. for audio. On a PC, this is typically handled by your sound card. Thus, playing audio on a Mac causes a slight bump in CPU usage.
Brad, is there any benefit to this type of architecture?
Originally posted by bunge
Brad, is there any benefit to this type of architecture?
Its cheap.
Note that AC97 audio hardware in PC's is the same, it just outputs audio, the cpu does all the hard lifting. You can add a DSP to do work for you. Typically it turns out that adding audio acceleration is a real pain, because audio developers dont want hard limits, so the OS still has to handle all of the extra work when the audio hardware runs out of oomph ( 32 or 64 channels ).
There are a few things that audio hardware can bring to the market, 3d positioning and dolby encoding are right up there.