[16:08] <acid-bong[m]> Good evening, fellow Linuxoids. Would a Live USB version of Ubuntu Studio powerful enough for me to play guitar with FX and low latency? Or is it as powerful as the installed US and only my hardware matters?
[16:18] <Eickmeyer> acid-bong[m]: Depends on the hardware, to be honest. If you've got yourself a decent rig with a dedicated GPU and a professional audio interface then you should have no problem. Internal audio cards are notorious for latency.
[16:19] <acid-bong[m]> GPU, not CPU?
[16:21] <acid-bong[m]> i've already ordered a guitar and an interface, gotta bring them overmorrow
[16:23] <Eickmeyer> Yes, GPU. If you have a dedicated GPU it keeps the graphics process off of the CPU which lets the CPU handle audio with less overhead.
[16:27] <acid-bong[m]> i have Core i3-7100 and integrated Intel HD Graphics 😦
[16:29] <Eickmeyer> acid-bong[m]: Ok, if you're only handling one channel from a guitar, you should be fine. I'm used to handling 32+ channels in a live production environment and a dedicated GPU made all the difference to take the graphics load from the CPU.
[16:30] <Eickmeyer> Also, running from the USB does add to the CPU overhead which can interfere with low latency processes.
[16:30] <Eickmeyer> So, install to hard drive for best results.
[16:34] <acid-bong[m]> my goal genre is metal, so i won't handle more than (probably) 4-5 guitars + bass + 1 track of programmed drums [+ 1-2 synth tracks]
[16:35] <acid-bong[m]> i've tried some similar mixes, and my PC can handle such amount of tracks with 3-4 VSTs of effects on each
[16:36] <acid-bong[m]> FX monitoring is what worries me
[16:38] <acid-bong[m]> btw, how heavy can graphics be to bring additional load on a CPU? Reaper and Ardour don't look that graphic-heavy
[16:40] <Eickmeyer> acid-bong[m]: The goal is to reduce CPU overhead as much as possible with the GPU. The less CPU overhead, the lower your latency can be.
[16:40] <Eickmeyer> At least in theory.
[16:41] <Eickmeyer> You should be fine with what you've got, but I'd upgrade to at least an i5.
[16:42] <acid-bong[m]> it's a laptop 😫
[16:42] <Eickmeyer> Yeah, you might consider upgrading your laptop if you don't get desired results. But, you'll never know until you try.
[16:43] <acid-bong[m]> i also have 4GB of RAM, which can also limit me (but again, 8 tracks with 4 plugins each is flawless for it)
[16:43] <Eickmeyer> Another resource for this is #opensourcemusicians:libera.chat or #lau:libera.chat (Linux Audio Users). Those channels are more active, and your questions aren't directly Ubuntu Studio support questions.
[16:44] <acid-bong[m]> got it, thx
[16:45] <acid-bong[m]> what about kernel and TPM conflict, where can i ask about it (except askubuntu)?
[17:02] <Eickmeyer> acid-bong[m]: Hmmmm... I don't know about that one. You could try #ubuntu:libera.chat, but you might not get an answer (meaning nobody knows).
[17:03] <Eickmeyer> Never run into that issue myself.
[17:03] <Eickmeyer> Newer kernels might have no trouble, meaning Ubuntu 21.04 and later.
[17:03] <Eickmeyer> But I'm just speculating.
[17:40] <acid-bong[m]> weird thing is in my case newer kernels don't load
[17:40] <acid-bong[m]> but that's not for here
[17:40] <acid-bong[m]> thx anyway
[19:09] <rgh> acid-bong: ardour can(could?) have some trouble when you have many regions (say 100+)
[19:09] <rgh> the UI might be slow to update then
[19:09] <rgh> however, with a properly configured system that should hardly inpact the audio performance
[19:10] <rgh> I've had ardour UI almost grind to a stop but the audio was happily playing
[19:10] <rgh> there are some settings you could flip to test graphics performance
[19:11] <rgh> most important are proper gfx drivers, in case of nvidia, use the (non-free) nvidia driver
[20:04] <OvenWerks> I have not had any trouble with the intel graphics chip in my i5 affecting lowlatency audio... each mother board is different though. The old amd gpu as part of the cpu were known to be problematic but I think everyone has learned that the gpu can't hog the memory bus for too long.