[QLab] ibook performance thoughts

[Andy Leviss]

On Jul 2, 2007, at 7:12 PM, David Wilson wrote:

> I'm looking at buying a used ibook and something like a firepod to
> rent out on shows I design. I've used Qlab on an iMac and a G4  
> powerbook, but wonder
> if G4 ibook with 667 or 1ghz is capable of doing a medium sized show -
> say 5-8 outputs. What are the symptoms with Qlab when running on
> a slow processor- Latency? stutter? ?

I've currently got a show running 6 outputs on a MOTU 828 off of a  
PowerBook G3 Pismo (it's either 400 or 500 mHz, I'm not sure off the  
top of my head, and no idea how much RAM*), and a frightening one at  
that. The display is questionable, and after two aborted attempts at  
upgrading it to 10.4, I had to go for a full format and install to  
get it to take. Hey, when you've got no budget, you work with what  
you've got!

Editing is fairly tedious; I did the bulk of programming on my  
MacBook Pro, and then transferred it over as we got into runs. I  
could tweak cues on it, but there was a bit of lag opening up the  
Inspector, and the actual loading of the program is horrendously  
slow. Once up and running, though, it's reasonable. It seems a bit  
loose loading and playing tightly linked cues, but I haven't noticed  
anything too serious. Then again, the show I'm using it on doesn't  
have many processor/memory intensive overlaps, the worst being  
sequences of three or four overlapping/near-overlapping explosions.  
Haven't run into stutter at all, and I haven't seen noticeable  
latency on "go" cues provided the cue is loaded before playing.

FWIW,
Andy

*-Frankly, I almost didn't want to know. It was a, "If this beast  
works, awesome, if not, we'll punt and come up with a plan B". So  
far, knock on wood...