FS-What's the best cheap hardware specs for the nowadays?

[kortezzzz]

This question may be a little tricky, since there are lot's of new modern computer configurations in the nowadays market, especially when we are talking about tablets, "notebook" concept computers and laptops. That's why I would ask you to share some of your experience (if you have any) with cheap yet affordable processor based computers (like atom, celleron, bay trail, etc.) that can smoothly and reliably run FS based music applications (synths, effects) and support asio driver decently as well.

This post then would give a great indication to everybody which modern cheap computer system would give them the best value for money in terms of FS development and implementation. If you don't know the processor model of your machine, please at least mark it's brand and it's model.

Thanks

[Perfect Human Interface]

Well, there's a big difference between what will run on your machine and what will run as a plugin in the context of a DAW application running many other plugins and other processes simultaneously. As far as music production goes, the CPU needed depends on the user and their practices. 10 years ago people were successfully making music on home PC's that were much weaker than today's. But today's machines are of course faster and will give the user more freedom to do what they may want to do.

If you're talking about stand-alone applications then that's much easier to talk about "recommended specs." Still, it will depend on what you develop. I don't believe Flowstone has that much inherent overhead.

So, you're talking about "cheap computer systems" and you're talking about "best value for money." Not sure what exactly sparked this question, but checking CPU benchmark websites can be useful. They will even rate CPU's based on value (price/performance). Benchmarks can't perfectly predict real-world performance but they can give you a ballpark and that's usually the best you can do.

For general music production work I'd recommend a passmark of 4,000-5,000 minimum, with 10,000 being probably as much as you could need. That's not to say you couldn't do work with less.

[kortezzzz]

If you're talking about stand-alone applications then that's much easier to talk about "recommended specs

Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Sorry for not clarifying that point. The goal of this post is finding the most affordable **minimum** required hardware specifications for running a single FS based application on stand alone mode (exe project) with the machine, while getting a enough performance from the CPU\RAM+full decent ASIO driver support.
The "master goal" is (as you can guess) making a cheap musical hardware machine based on the computer and the FS software; it won't run anything but the software and the ASIO.

So far, in my tests, the Intel Z3735F (with 2GB RAM) has failed to give those benefits, so those nowadays popular affordable processor is out of the list. Tested it in "intel stick pc" configuration, but it maybe might work in other formats (like tablets, small laptops). That's why I'm looking for some comments from users.

For general music production work I'd recommend a passmark of 4,000-5,000 minimum, with 10,000 being probably as much as you could need. That's not to say you couldn't do work with less.

This comment is very useful. Thanks
I'll take a deep look at the passmark reviews.

[tulamide]

Even with the additional info it is still very difficult to say something. There is still so much to consider. For example, streaming audio is cheap, so an application that acts as kind of a mixer would not have much issues with cheapest processors. Back in the old days, on my Macintosh that ran at 200 MHz with 32 MB RAM, I had no issue to run Cubase with 48 tracks in parallel.

Realtime calculations, e.g. to simulate synths, are dependent on their algorithms. The better you work, the less are the requirements.

Highly optimzed code, a description you read a lot here, means that the processor needs to support certain features, especially MMX and SSE2.

The Intel Atom you talked of, does not have MMX which renders it pretty much useless.

And so on. It is really hard. Way easier is to have a certain applictation and then find the minimum requirements for that one.

[Spogg]

It might be better to start off with a budget. What's the maximum core hardware cost to be?

One of the issues will be native ASIO support for the motherboard soundchip. Otherwise it would need ASIO4ALL support guaranteed or, obviously, a soundcard with ASIO support. A separate card will add to the cost and size of the project. You could reduce the size issue by going down the USB interface route I guess.

Interesting project idea

Cheers

Spogg

[kortezzzz]

Even with the additional info it is still very difficult to say something. There is still so much to consider. For example, streaming audio is cheap, so an application that acts as kind of a mixer would not have much issues with cheapest processors. Back in the old days, on my Macintosh that ran at 200 MHz with 32 MB RAM, I had no issue to run Cubase with 48 tracks in parallel.

Yes, all true.

Moreover, I would prefer matching the processor to my hack system according to the CPU's features list and not only rely on passmark tests. I took a deep look at the tests list and I know with no doubt that some of the cheap processors there (under 4000 points) would do the trick because I'v owned some of them in the past or had the opportunity to work with them. Passmark tests are not the best scale for this question.

So... We'll have to be more specific to keep the subject discussable, so lets use some tidy filters:

What's the most reliable processor you've ever used with FS creation (synths, audio processing), under 100$ for laptop\tablet platforms?

[Perfect Human Interface]

The passmark scores I mentioned are more for typical music production using DAW software and plugins, not for stand-alone stuff.

I think it's better if you consider that Flowstone itself is a software programming environment/language, so it's pretty much entirely up to you and what you make with it that will determine your needed specs.

The only direct answer I can give to your question is that I've run FL Studio and some synths on an i3 330UM processor, which I believe is literally the slowest "i3" processor Intel has ever released. I wouldn't recommend it for any serious music work simply because it tops out much too quickly, but for light stuff, it works.

[tulamide]

an i3 330UM processor, which I believe is literally the slowest "i3" processor Intel has ever released.

I thought something in the line of that as well. The u-series, if I'm not totally wrong, was initially planned for small laptops/tablets, but then used for cheap desktop pcs. It is closer to the atom series than to the i3 series.

For AMD I can only say that the Athlon II X2 250 works flawlessly unless you try to work with one of Spogg's Quilcoms within Flowstone. But that's a desktop cpu as well. But it may serve well for comparisons with cheap cpus, since it is quite old. Never tried on any laptop, so no info regarding them.

[kortezzzz]

an i3 330UM processor, which I believe is literally the slowest "i3" processor Intel has ever released

Athlon II X2 250 works flawlessly unless you try to work with one of Spogg's Quilcoms within Flowstone

Well, that's good starting point comments

With those 2 examples, I can now put the passmark into the equation to get a clue. The Athlon's passmark is 1768 points, but it's quite old. The i3 330UM gets very low 1095 points, but it still makes the horse galloping somehow with noticeable limits.

I would then bet on a quite modern laptops quad core CPU with a minimum passmark of 3000 + the SSE support built-in. That would be definitely enough. I should consider some other factors like good cooling (that's why the newer models are better. some of the newest model doesn't even need noisy and clumsy fans to keep the temperature calm).

Unfortunately, That would surely pass the 100$ budget, but overall, it might be a much profitable. I'll give up on cheap solution and choose a reasonable yet powerful one for up to double the price.

Thanks for the comments, guys

[tulamide]

I would then bet on a quite modern laptops quad core CPU with a minimum passmark of 3000 + the SSE support built-in. That would be definitely enough.

SSE2 is the minimum requirement. But keep also in mind that Flowstone doesn't support multicores. If there are CPUs of roughly the same age, prefer the one with the higher clock speed against multiple cores. For example, an intel chip that comes in three flavours, 1 core at 3 GHz, 2 cores at 2 GHz and 4 cores at 2.5 GHz:
You will get the best performance from the chip with only one core.

This is true as of now. I'm not sure if Flowstone might be going towards multicore support, but if that happens one day, then the chip with 4 cores at 2.5 GHz would achieve the best performance.