Compared to my old Galaxy S10 from 2019, my new Galaxy S23 Ultra with 12GB of RAM has hugely better performance in other apps and gaming. However in Cubasis 3.5.2, it performs significantly worse, according to the DSP usage metre. When I play the exact same 16-track VST stress test on both phones, the DSP usage is about twice as high on the S23 Ultra (avg. 60%), with both phones set to single-core mode. Multi-core usage is closer, but still worse on the S23 Ultra.
If it helps, the latency in single core mode is about 15ms for the S10, and about 6ms for the S23 Ultra. The maximum latency in multi-core mode is about 48ms for the S10, and about 32ms for the S23 Ultra. Could this be causing the problem in any way?
This performance anomaly is shocking and shouldn’t be possible, because the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is far more powerful than the much older Snapdragon 855, as other apps have clearly shown. In fact, this is the exact opposite of what I was expecting. I thought the S23 Ultra would perform at least twice as good, not half as good. Is there any way to fix this? Can this be fixed in a new update?
Samsung’s overheating protection is very strict, and only the Game launcher allows some regulation, but it is not enough. It’s causing me problems too. With certain settings, the system causes stutters, sound disturbances, and Cubasis shutdown in the event of speed changes. I can use the daw in priority mode, in this case I don’t know what happens, but there is enough power, on average 60% 20-30 frozen track. Using another mode frees up a significant surplus of performance, but only until I press the display. If I release the display, the DSP jumps 30%-70%. If there is somehow a solution for Cubasis to work more optimally with the overheating protection, I would also appreciate it, because I think Samsung handles it poorly. ( S20 )
Here comes the feedback from our engineering:
As you guessed correctly, the difference in latency is causing this. With multi-core off, the displayed latency value is the system’s buffer length. Apparently, on the S23 it is 2.5 times shorter than on the S10, which is a good thing for latency. However, this means that for each buffer, Cubasis has less time to do the rendering. The DSP meter shows the time it takes Cubasis to render a buffer, compared to the buffer length. It is not surprising that the faster CPU takes 60% of 6ms = 3.6ms to render a 6ms buffer, whereas the slower CPU takes 30% of 15ms = 5ms to render a buffer. Both CPUs have 8 cores but the S23’s CPU has more faster ones, which is why it excels when multi-core is on. Unfortunately the system’s buffer length cannot be configured on Android, because if you could set the S23 to 15ms latency, you would clearly see the x2 performance difference.
So there is truly nothing that can be done about this? The difference between 6ms and 15ms latency is imperceptible to my ears, and probably everyone else’s too. This seems like a pointless and silly waste of processing power. A top fuel dragster needs a 1/4 mile to reach top speed. 1/12 of a mile isn’t enough space. Who is making these engineering decisions?