Performance issues on M1 Pro

@bep

I'm sorry to hear you're having so much trouble with Unify.

Apple's M-series chips are not identical. Unify v1.9.x runs well on the original M1, but the Pro and Ultra processors handle multi-threading quite differently, and we are one of several plug-in vendors struggling to understand exactly what the differences are and how to mitigate them.

A bit more information may help us to suggest how to get at least somewhat better results on your lovely new MacBook Pro:

1. Are you running the Unify stand-alone app, or one of the plug-in versions in a DAW?
2. If you're running in a DAW, which DAW, and which version of the Unify plug-in are you using (AU, VST, VST3, AAX)?
3. What are your settings for sample-rate and buffer-size?

1. I have tested both with similar results, but my goal is to use it in Logic X.

2. Logic Pro 10.7.4. I use the AU version of Unify, to my knowledge that's my only option on MacOS removed link I try to use the VST version of any plugins inside Unify, because I read somewhere that that should be the "lightest" option.

3. Default settings: 128 samples, 44khz

I tried to bump buffer size to 256 now, and that seem to have a positive effect, will test a little further.

@bep

Your link got automatically removed again, which caused your post to get held back for moderation. I approved it, so it should be visible to all now.

You will probably get better results with a block size of 256. On a CPU as powerful as yours, 128 should really work fine, but doesn't, for reasons we still don't fully understand (but we're working on it).

Another thing you can try is checking or un-checking the "Max Thread Priority (advanced)" checkbox on the top row of Unify's Settings page. It should be checked by default on your system; please let me know if it is not.

Logic Pro X indeed only supports Audio-Unit plug-ins, so using the AU version of Unify is the only choice, but of course it allows you to then load any of your VST/VST3's inside Unify.

We do recommend VST over VST3, because we've found a number of cases where it works better, and also many cases where the size of the state-data blob which gets saved in the Unify patch is smaller with VST.

OK, thanks for the input.

I think I can say that I have now solve the performance part of the equation. I bumped the buffer to 512, which is probably a little overkill, but it runs smooth.

Also, I have now started using the standalone, which is a great match for most of my usage (I'm using it with an Akai EWI wind controller + some poly synths).

* I do, however, have frequent crashes in Logic (it just freezes with a waiting glass), usually when I adjust some setting while playing.

* The same Unify patch runs without any issue in the standalone version, though, which is where I'm going to "live" for the next weeks to learn how to use it.

@bep

I'm glad to hear you've found some effective work-arounds, but sorry to know that you're still struggling with crashes.

Anytime you find a crash/hangup that's reproducible, please let me know.

   So I came here looking for answers, I have the original M1 Air, so this "shouldn't" apply to me but I updated my old beta for Apple Silicon compatibility just earlier today and was still getting big CPU spikes in DP11. I tried finding your suggested solution of checking the "Max Thread Priority (advanced)" checkbox in Settings but as a plug in, Unify does not publish this checkbox! Closing DP11 and opening Unify the chackbox magically appears! and it works, spiking seams to have stopped and Unfy takes the normal amount of CPU for a complex plug in. Lol, you guys need to warn people, probably OP gave up and just came up with solutions that work for him when it seems that changing that setting in stand alone has an effect on Unify as a plug in. 

Posted by: @machinesworking

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I updated my old beta for Apple Silicon compatibility just earlier today

Do you mean, you replaced the beta with Unify 1.9.1? You're not still using a beta, right?

I tried finding your suggested solution of checking the "Max Thread Priority (advanced)" checkbox in Settings but as a plug in, Unify does not publish this checkbox!

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that having the checkbox only appear in the stand-alone was an oversight. However, this is at best experimental. The JUCE developers are working on a proper solution for this issue, so with luck, we'll be able to incorporate it into the next release of Unify, and then we won't need that checkbox anyway.

Yes, replaced the old Apple Silicon beta with the latest compatible version. IMO, it's a pretty important thing with how much of a change it makes, pretty much literally determined whether I would use Unify or not. The latest version spikes the CPU pretty hard if you don't have the box checked, around 50-65% for a single plug in hosted in Unify on an M1 Air here, down to less than 10% after.  

@machinesworking

Thanks for the update. This is consistent with what John has observed on his Mac Studio. One other thing he noticed, which you may see also, is that the spiking seems to be worst when the Unify instance is very lightly loaded, and improves when it actually has work to do.