MrRoland wrote:

Any idea why it's not working on a XU4?

Pianoteq 6.1.1 works perfectly on an Odroid XU4 with Armbian. It takes some tweaking like building a preemptible kernel and manually setting the core clocks and the core affinity to use the available resources in the best way possible.

I'm running PTQ on a XU4q (the 'quiet' version without a fan) at 44.1k with 96 voices and 2ms latency. This setup is extremely stable and I couldn't be happier.

The XU4 is also significantly faster than the Rock64 or the Tinkerboard. I would also strongly recommend against the Rock64 in particular, because it has a design issue with the power supply that takes some effort to work around for stable operation.

Andreas

So, I did buy a odroid-xu4 and after months of trying it I just can't get it to be as stable as it should. Sometimes a single note or chord is delayed enough to hear it.
I have a preemptive kernel, and followed all the recommendations from the Pianoteq readme.

Can you please post your modifications?
Or are you willing to share your image?

So, what difference did the preemptive kernel made to the performance?

It makes quite a difference. The shorter time slices and especially the realtime scheduled interrupts allow to get much better performance at lower buffer sizes. I can only highly recommend it. Modern kernels also support the so called rt-basic configuration that does not implement full preemption, but it turns out to be perfectly sufficient for audio.

There are HDMI touchscreens that work with the XU4. But I guess you want to use it with what you already have. I don't use any screen at all. I run headless and for configuration I forward the GUI to a remote X-server.

Andreas

The XU4 is on my wish list now, but I hate te fact that the i/os  use 1V8 levels... This makes my touchscreen useless without level shifters.
Fortunately I've got plenty parts lying around, so I'll be able to build some levelshifters.

Any idea why it's not working on a XU4?

Pianoteq 6.1.1 works perfectly on an Odroid XU4 with Armbian. It takes some tweaking like building a preemptible kernel and manually setting the core clocks and the core affinity to use the available resources in the best way possible.

I'm running PTQ on a XU4q (the 'quiet' version without a fan) at 44.1k with 96 voices and 2ms latency. This setup is extremely stable and I couldn't be happier.

The XU4 is also significantly faster than the Rock64 or the Tinkerboard. I would also strongly recommend against the Rock64 in particular, because it has a design issue with the power supply that takes some effort to work around for stable operation.

Andreas

Taking a desktop pc everywhere is just a no go.

In the meantime, inexpensive x86 CPUs are faster and keep getting better. The low-end Pentium N4200 has a PTQ PI around 30 and companies like Minix sell N4200 Mini PCs for around USD$300.

There are so many dirt cheap corporate off-lease windows desktops on the used market (kijiji, ebay, local resellers) that I can't even justify using any new NUC PC or mini PC, etc. I use a USFF Dell and a SFF HP, both have i5-3570, 8GB DDR3, hard drives and legal win10 licenses for CAD $120 each (under $100USD). Good enough for any general work, VST, and/or Pianoteq.

If you need ultra-small for your application, I get it, but for me I can't waste the money or time to get things working right on an ARM when an old $100 computer will still overperform.

Seems like the only advances made in consumer-level processors are in power consumption, i.e., phones. If / when there is a version of ptq that can run on an old Nexus 5 or similar used phone (although stock Android has terrible audio latency built-in), then things might get interesting (using iGrand on Android is not amazing).

For my orangepi I use a tiny 5 inch hdmi screen, this worked instantly after setting the right screen resolution.

Any idea why it's not working on a XU4?

See this thread ... https://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=5405

MrRoland wrote:

What processors did you compare the XU4 to?

You can compare systems on Geekbench 2.

Here’s a comparison between a MacBook Pro (i3-3227U) and the older XU3 running Ubuntu (same CPU as the XU4).
http://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2...90/2581032

Those are interesting numbers.
I might try a XU4.

Any idea why it's not working on a XU4?

I tried with a friend's XU4, there is an error message, I don't remember exactly, something about RGB

What processors did you compare the XU4 to?

You can compare systems on Geekbench 2.

Here’s a comparison between a MacBook Pro (i3-3227U) and the older XU3 running Ubuntu (same CPU as the XU4).
http://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2...90/2581032

Also,"  (FWIW I compared the XU4 to the other CPUs in Mossy’s benchmark thread and it lands around a PTQ PI of around 30)."

What processors did you compare the  XU4 to?

I don't see any comparable processors in that list.

In the meantime, inexpensive x86 CPUs are faster and keep getting better. The low-end Pentium N4200 has a PTQ PI around 30 and companies like Minix sell N4200 Mini PCs for around USD$300.

It should get interesting in the next few months. Several Mini PCs are scheduled to be released using the Celeron J4105, N4100 & N4000, all of them have similar performance to the N4200 and are priced from under US$200 on up.

I have been running Pianoteq on a Raspberry Pi 3 for a few months now. I have had to turn the internal sample rate down from 48K to 36K, and usually get a performance index around 12. All of the Pianoteq instruments sound lovely on my i7 laptop, but only a few are that good on the pi. There is a big gap between a Pi 3 an i5 NUC; I wonder where some of these other ARM boards fall in it.