Need advice on a new Pianoteq-friendly laptop!

No wonder. So can you enable it? Is it a problem?

Yes multicore rendering does not work at all inside pro tools, at best it creates crack and pops, and at worst the computer just locks, that's why it is disabled.

Just to add 2 more things:

You'd benefit _greatly_ from using the new Logic Pro 9 or Ableton Live 8 (which I _love_) instead of Pro Tools.  I invested a _ton_ of money in RTAS plugins (thank goodness not TDM and the uber-ridiculous hardware!!!) on my old Power Mac G4 "Quicksilver," and I finally just grew sick and tired of Avid's continuous milking of their customers (with unsatisfactory system/hardware upgrades).  The only "professional" thing about their junk is that they are a "professional" pain in the rump who force you into a narrow corner. 

Fortunately, many of those plugins have, by _now_, been produced in AU or VST form (or I just used a wrapper for non AS/RTAS things anyway) -- I'm only missing a few Bomb Factory, McDSP, and Serato plugins with maybe a genuine _hint_ of regret.  (Especially the McDSP...)

Also, you'd benefit _greatly_ from multicore rendering.  Too bad they don't have a quad-core laptop yet...  (It would be quite the furnace, anyway, until -- hopefully -- Intel's next die-shrink.)

:-)

just to clarify: pro tools can take advantage of dual-core cpus and more (there is a switch for that in its preferences) : when you have many plugins it can spread the load on the many cores/cpu you have. So if you have two pianoteq instances, they will probably end up being run in parallel on two different cores. But when a single pianoteq instance has multi-core enabled they are basically fighting for the same resource, and pro tools does not like that.

My answer:  abso-freakin'-lutely!!!

If I disable the multi-, then performance drops (er, activity climbs) considerably in either Logic, Live, Sibelius, or standalone, especially with super-duper-high polyphony.

And the folks on Digidesign's forum _would_ have a lot to say, I'm sure.  ;^)

From what Julien says, Pro Tools' use of multicores is about as efficient as that of the current version of Photoshop -- in other words, not very!  The number of cores should, ideally, be transparent to the software, and the host/system should do all the overhead, but such is largely not the case -- yet!

Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself, because I'm referring to Logic 9 (Logic 8 isn't so smart -- in fact, it's quite stupid!) -- haven't tried it yet myself, but the buzz has been outstanding!  Maybe _I'm_ the one on "special sauce" for letting the cat out of the bag (before I knew it was a Snow Leopard ;^).

I primarily use Pianoteq in Live 8 for now, and when I enable multiprocessing _in_ Pianoteq:  yummy!  I see a significant improvement, especially as the polyphony increases and with multiple instances (I can use about 3-4 without reaching craptacular land, though the _total_ polyphony can't be too nuts.)

Sorry to drag this off-topic, but my _main_ answer still is:  get that _faster_ processor!  It's definitely worth the extra moolah, even if it still isn't going to give you performance like a quad (or octo) setup.  And, using, Pro Tools, you'll need the horsepower!

I am running a dual core 2GHZ macbook pro with 2GB of RAM.  I cannot, I repeat, cannot max out the CPU's with Pianoteq.  I can mash all keys at once, punch myself in the face (I mean the keys), kick the side of the POS midi keyboard I have, slap my girlfriend and spill beer on my laptop and still not max it out .

Honestly though, I run Pianoteq in Logic studio 8, with the laptop mentioned above and it's just amazing.  Absolutely hands down worth the money.  It's the only piano sampler I  have ever owned that hasn't failed me once during a recording or playback session.  It's solid as a tank on a Macbook Pro with Logic 8.  (It's also perfect in Mainstage for live paying, I do that too).  Logic 9 will be just as good most likely.  But I can't vouch for that yet sorry.

If it were me.  I would go for the one with the faster processor if I could afford it.  Because, you need to compensate for 64-bit coming soon.  New OS coming soon, Updates for Logic coming soon.  Updates to Pianoteq and a pro version eventially.  Nice thing about Pianoteq is that it uses almost no memory at all.  But it makes up for it in CPU.  So by having your other samplers and logic using up the Memory, but less CPU, it leaves more CPU for Pianoteq.  The other samplers are more picky about hard drive read speeds and bottlenecks of that sort.  For Pianoteq, concern yourself with bus speed and CPU speed.  Also, once you record your parts, you can freeze them in Logic which will take your CPU usage down to about 2-4% per track.  (not down 2-4%, but all the way down to literally only using 2-4% of the CPU total).

If you can't afford the higher one right now, trust me that the lower one will do the trick because it's more specs then mine is.  So get the one you can afford.  They both will work.  The higher one will simply let you do more long before you hit the wall.  I went for the most expensive version 3-4 years ago.  Here I am still using it and no where close to needing to replace it yet.  It still does all my recordings and mixes perfectly.  I will run it until it dies.

Maestro2be