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Performance

The Mastering Suite consists of multiple modules, each of which performs different amounts of processing. Each module's processing cost is dependent on its configuration. The following sections detail the processing costs of various configurations of the Mastering Suite.

Note that the Mastering Suite processing cost measurements were obtained using the Advanced Profiler CPU tab in Wwise. Wwise was connected to the Integration Demo application (supplied as part of the Wwise SDK) with a Mastering Suite Effect instanced. The measurements were taken on the Windows platform with an AMD Ryzen 3700X CPU clocked at 4.0GHz.

Performance per Module

The following table lists the Mastering Suite's performance cost for an Audio Device with a mixed output channel configuration of 7.1.4 (12 channels). The performance cost is measured as a percentage of CPU usage. The Effect is processed on a single CPU core. Two Mastering Suite module configurations were used (listed below). The performance cost was measured with all modules active, and then with a single module active at a time.

As mentioned, the Audio Device is configured for a mixed output; that is, it does not process Audio Objects. The performance cost of an object-enabled pipeline will be detailed in a subsequent section.

Configuration 1: Parametric EQ active, 6 bands; Compressor active, 4 bands; Volume active; Limiter active, Soft mode.

Configuration 2: Parametric EQ active, 3 bands; Compressor active, 2 bands; Volume active; Limiter active, Soft mode.

Active Modules Config 1 CPU Usage Config 2 CPU Usage
All modules 1.15% 0.57%
Parametric EQ only 0.30% 0.20%
Compressor only 0.75% 0.34%
Volume only 0.10% 0.10%
Limiter only 0.23% 0.23%

Limiter Modes

The following table lists the relative processing costs of the different Limiter module modes. The measurements were taken under the same conditions described in the previous section.

Limiter Mode CPU Usage
Hard 0.16%
Soft 0.23%
Advanced 0.23%

Audio Object Processing

This section details the performance cost of the Mastering Suite when the Audio Device is configured for an Object-based pipeline. The Mastering Suite now has to process three streams of audio:

  • Main mix: The channel configuration of the final mix.

  • Stereo Passthrough: Stereo channel configuration.

  • Audio Objects: Individual Audio Objects to be sent separately to the Audio Device.

The processing cost for Audio Object processing is higher and directly proportional to the maximum number of Audio Objects supported. The following table lists the performance cost for different maximum Audio Objects supported.

One important difference when processing an Object-based pipeline is that there is additional processing done when profiling to produce the metering values (Compressor and Limiter) for each Audio Object (see the following image). This additional processing is reflected in the measured performance cost displayed in the Advanced Profiler's CPU tab. This value does not reflect the true performance cost of the Mastering Suite; the release build of the Mastering Suite does not contain the profiling code. To obtain the true performance cost without the additional processing, the Release build of the Mastering Suite was used. The following table lists these values.

Configuration: Parametric EQ active, 6 bands; Compressor active, 4 bands; Volume active; Limiter active, Soft mode.

Maximum Audio Objects CPU Usage With Profiling CPU Usage Without Profiling
40 5.30% 4.30%
20 3.90% 2.90%

Configuration: Parametric EQ active, 3 bands; Compressor active, 2 bands; Volume active; Limiter active, Soft mode.

Maximum Audio Objects CPU Usage With Profiling CPU Usage Without Profiling
40 2.80% 2.00%
20 2.00% 1.50%

Conclusion

Clearly, the Parametric EQ and Compressor modules are the most costly in terms of processing, especially when all bands are enabled. Depending on your processing budget, it may be beneficial to reduce the number of bands in these modules.


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