HQplayer 4 and Mac-mini M1

[camott]

Here is htop for same track gauss-xla 48k -> DSD256 in 4.15.0 and 4.16.2 (and likewise all versions since 4.15.1).

 

4.15.0 has efficiency cores around 65% and power cores running around 85%.

4.16.2 has efficiency cores around 45% and power cores maxed out just below 100%.

 

I don't actually use gauss-xla anymore so it's not a concern for me ... but might be helpful for others.

 

 

[sworksone]

I figured out my issue.  I’m running HQP through Roon so didn’t see it, but had a “doh!” moment today when I realized in the HQPD control app that the output was at 48X256 on 44.1 sources.  I changed it to 44.1X256 by unchecking the 48k DSD capable DAC option or by setting the rate limit to 11.3M Hz (I’m assuming either way is effectively doing the same thing?) and can now run xla even at ASDM7ECV2 without any dropouts.  I didn’t do enough listening to decide whether I prefer it but it’s nice to now have the option for comparison.   

[camott]

And just like that, 4.17.0 release with EC modulator optimizations have solved any performance concerns with gauss-xla on M1. If you run with multicore fully checked it behaves like recent versions, but if you auto/grey check it then it has much improved performance. nice work @Miska!

[MikePid]

With the release of HQP 4.17 (and now 4.17.1 - hard to keep up with Jussi!), there are lots of spare CPU cycles just sitting idle while comfortably doing 44>DSD256/ECv2/xla (1x, and guass-hires for Nx).  Something I never expected!  So I wanted to see if the MMM1 could handle running HQP and Roon together.  I have been running Roon Core on my 2012 rMBP for years, but it meant I had to leave my laptop open and awake while listening to music.  A while ago I had started to shop for a NUC for Roon, to possibly run ROCK on it, but I back-burnered that while I went down the MMM1 LPS rabbit hole 🐇.

 

It took me all of about 15 minutes to move Roon Core over to the MMM1 (drag and dropping a fresh backup and my limited local music files (about 20GB) to get it up and running.  Easier than I expected!

 

Then I hit the Play button and watched Activity Monitor with my fingers crossed.  No sweat - the MMM1 hardly noticed that Roon was running (even under Rosetta)!  Roon is a pig with memory, taking over 3GB (maybe due to the Rosetta wrapper?), but total memory usage is under 6GB, so my 8GB MMM1 is handling it well.  No swapping either.

 

I haven't had much of a chance yet to do much critical listening but my initial impression is that it does sound better.  Seems to be more front-back space, and more detail. Maybe just my imagination, but another proverbial veil lifted.  (How many veils are there anyway??? 🤣)

 

I know that generally people recommend running Roon and HQP on different machines, but for me running them both on the same machine simplifies my system.  It means Roon is sending stuff directly to HQP rather than doing a 2-hop round-trip across a BJC Cat6 cable to my SPMS-powered laptop (and also means I can now run my laptop on wifi and not have a dongle hanging out the side with an ethernet cable attached to it).  Plus it means that Roon is running on a machine that is powered by an LPS with an Orange fuse at no extra cost.  So no Roon NUC is needed now!  Maybe a ROCK-based NUC could improve sound, but not sure the improvement would offset the overhead of additional ethernet traffic.  I'd probably be better off putting all that money into a better LPS (I would have put an LPS on a NUC anyway).

 

Thanks @Miska for another surprise gift! 🎁

[Miska]

17 minutes ago, MikePid said:

Then I hit the Play button and watched Activity Monitor with my fingers crossed.  No sweat - the MMM1 hardly noticed that Roon was running (even under Rosetta)!  Roon is a pig with memory, taking over 3GB (maybe due to the Rosetta wrapper?), but total memory usage is under 6GB, so my 8GB MMM1 is handling it well.  No swapping either.

 

Just be careful to set Roon's background activity to lowest priority. And if you add new content, let the Roon's background crawler to settle before initiating playback. Biggest risk for reliable playback is mostly posed by background activities involved. HQPlayer's library scan is always manually initiated, so HQPlayer is never running any such background activities by itself.

 

OTOH, macOS is very good at prioritizing things that actually matter.

 

[MikePid]

Thanks Jussi.  Is there way in MacOS to set background priority?  I think "nice" just sets the process priority.

[Miska]

15 hours ago, MikePid said:

Thanks Jussi.  Is there way in MacOS to set background priority?  I think "nice" just sets the process priority.

 

In Roon settings you can make those changes:

 

[Schafheide]

Re (How many veils are there anyway??? 🤣)

I think that, unfortunately for our wallets, there are an infinite number of veils.

[musicjunkie917]

20 hours ago, MikePid said:

Then I hit the Play button and watched Activity Monitor with my fingers crossed.  No sweat - the MMM1 hardly noticed that Roon was running (even under Rosetta)!  Roon is a pig with memory, taking over 3GB (maybe due to the Rosetta wrapper?), but total memory usage is under 6GB, so my 8GB MMM1 is handling it well.  No swapping either.

 

So a $699 Mac mini (256GB storage, 8GB RAM) can run the Roon Core and HQplayer Desktop all while upsampling PCM 44.1 and DSD to DSD256/ASDMEC7v2/poly-sinc-gaus-xla? Have you tried upsampling 24/192 to DSD256/ASDMEC7v2/poly-sinc-gaus-xla?

[Account Closed]

1 hour ago, musicjunkie917 said:

 

So a $699 Mac mini (256GB storage, 8GB RAM) can run the Roon Core and HQplayer Desktop all while upsampling PCM 44.1 and DSD to DSD256/ASDMEC7v2/poly-sinc-gaus-xla? Have you tried upsampling 24/192 to DSD256/ASDMEC7v2/poly-sinc-gaus-xla?

I cannot get PS Gauss XLA on my MMM1, but I can get PS Gauss Long with all formats going to DSD256/ASDM7EC.

[MikePid]

6 hours ago, Miska said:

 

In Roon settings you can make those changes:

 

Ahh, the setting is in Roon rather than MacOS.  Thanks!  It looks like my defaults settings were Throttled and Fast, so changed the second one to Throttled too.

 

44>DSD256/ECv2/xla plus Roon is only about 50% CPU (performance cores about 75% each), so still lots of spare horsepower on the MMM1!  Unbelievable 😃

[MikePid]

54 minutes ago, bobflood said:

I cannot get PS Gauss XLA on my MMM1, but I can get PS Gauss Long with all formats going to DSD256/ASDM7EC.

gauss-hires works fine for me on 24/192.  A bit more CPU usage than 44/xla but not much more.  I set xla for 1X and hires for Nx.  Still playing with which hires I like best - they all sound great!

[MikePid]

DSD64>DSD256 with XFi and ECv2 takes less CPU than PCM>DSD256.

[creativepart]

I'm new to HQP and installed an evaluation copy to my M1 iMac this past week and then bought a license on day two. When I downloaded HQP is saw an ARM64 version in the download list, but I was unsure about which download was right for my iMac. Now, I'm starting to think I downloaded the wrong version.

 

Should I uninstall my current MacOS 64bit version and then download and install the ARM64 version? And will I be able to just reapply the license from the other version to the ARM version?

[Account Closed]

3 minutes ago, creativepart said:

I'm new to HQP and installed an evaluation copy to my M1 iMac this past week and then bought a license on day two. When I downloaded HQP is saw an ARM64 version in the download list, but I was unsure about which download was right for my iMac. Now, I'm starting to think I downloaded the wrong version.

 

Should I uninstall my current MacOS 64bit version and then download and install the ARM64 version? And will I be able to just reapply the license from the other version to the ARM version?

The ARM64 version is the correct one for the M1 chip Mac. You should be able to move the the MacOS 64 version (which is for the Intel chip versions of the Mac) to Trash and re-load the correct one. You may not even need to re-apply the license. I made the same mistake and I don't remember that I had to re-apply the license but I can't remember for certain. As a precaution, put a copy of the license file into your iCloud account so that it is not just on your computer and store it on your computer in a place where you won't accidentally delete it. Also, always keep a copy of the most recent HQP version on both your computer and in your iCloud account so that you can revert if a new new version gives you problems.

[creativepart]

Thanks Bob, I have made the change and you're correct, I didn't have to do anything but trash the App and install the new ARM64 version of the app. The license carried over and so did all of my settings. So, everything was playing again in a matter of minutes.

 

I noticed the download page said "ARM64 MacOS" and I swear it just said "ARM64" just last week when I downloaded it. If it didn't them I'm pretty daft.

 

Thanks again.

[Account Closed]

3 minutes ago, creativepart said:

Thanks Bob, I have made the change and you're correct, I didn't have to do anything but trash the App and install the new ARM64 version of the app. The license carried over and so did all of my settings. So, everything was playing again in a matter of minutes.

 

I noticed the download page said "ARM64 MacOS" and I swear it just said "ARM64" just last week when I downloaded it. If it didn't them I'm pretty daft.

 

Thanks again.

Glad to hear that you are up and running.

[rah50]

Hi All:

 

First post to this thread. I bought an MMM1 off eBay this weekend and it's on its way. I was going to wait for the new versions this spring but not being able to run past HQP v4.14 on my old server and with Roon killing my system with it's upgrade I thought I should go ahead.

 

I've read the entire thread and have to thank everyone for the learning experience, especially MikePid. I've never used a Mac but I'm sure it will be a fun and I'll have a few questions for sure.

 

I'm also lucky to have a spare HDPlex 100 laying around, so the Teradak ps upgrade is going to happen!

 

Bob

[creativepart]

43 minutes ago, rah50 said:

I've never used a Mac but I'm sure it will be a fun and I'll have a few questions for sure.

Bob, I was a total Windows guy until Win 8 was introduced and I made the switch to Mac. In general, the switch was super easy and I found MacOS to be a better Windows than Windows.

 

I'll tell you what stymied me more than anything right out of the gate was installing programs. And, with a new computer that's what you'll be doing is installing a lot of new programs. Installing programs on a Mac is actually easier than installing them on a PC and that's what threw me. I thought, "it can't be that easy" but it is.

 

One more thing to be aware of... the M1 MacOS is an ARM64 based RiSC chip CPU so not ALL old MacOS programs work, most do, but it's just something to keep in mind.

 

Lastly, it is possible to install a program called Parallels and with it run a ARM-based version of Win10 or 11. It's easy but a bit advanced for a newbie with MacOS. Parallels is a Virtual Machine program that lets you run separate OSes directly and safely within your MacOS.

 

Here's a video on installing programs and if you have more questions with your new Mac just search YouTube and no doubt someone has a help video.

 

 

[rah50]

3 hours ago, creativepart said:

Bob, I was a total Windows guy until Win 8 was introduced and I made the switch to Mac. In general, the switch was super easy and I found MacOS to be a better Windows than Windows.

 

I'll tell you what stymied me more than anything right out of the gate was installing programs. And, with a new computer that's what you'll be doing is installing a lot of new programs. Installing programs on a Mac is actually easier than installing them on a PC and that's what threw me. I thought, "it can't be that easy" but it is.

 

One more thing to be aware of... the M1 MacOS is an ARM64 based RiSC chip CPU so not ALL old MacOS programs work, most do, but it's just something to keep in mind.

 

 

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed. VERY helpful.

 

I'm going to run the MMM1 headless, for just Roon and HQPlayer. The only other things I will need to figure out are:

1. How to RDP/VNC into it.

2. How to stop processes/programs that aren't needed.

3. How to  setup autorun for Roon and HQP.

 

[creativepart]

I ran a 2010 Mac Mini headless for exclusive audio use and used VNC on a Windows desktop to choose albums, etc. But I don't remember how I did it. I remember that I I found it slow and clunky and ended up getting a small external monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse to make it easier.

 

As far as quitting programs, etc you can right click the app icon and hit Quit, or you can click the Apple icon top left of the screen and click Force Quit. That will show a list of all application that are running and you just pick one and click quit. With an Apple you can quit but if the app doesn't respond you click force quit and it is killed no matter whats going on with it.

 

Basically, if I understand what you're looking for with "auto run" you just leave roon and HQP running. Period. All the time.

 

Instead of using VNC or any remote access you can just make your ipad the wireless monitor for your mini with the Sidecar feature built into the mini. Bingo. Done

 

 

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, rah50 said:

1. How to RDP/VNC into it.

 

This is built-in feature of macOS. It includes both ssh server and remote desktop functionality.

 

[Louisiana]

12 hours ago, rah50 said:

3. How to  setup autorun for Roon and HQP.

 

Hi,

Screenshot is in german, but i think its ok :)

"Bei der Anmeldung öffnen" means autorun.

 

If you want to run the Mac headless, you should also activate the automatic login and of course deactivate the screen saver and standby.

 

I was also a "Windows-Fanboy" since Windows95, but since I bought the Mac Mini M1, I only use my Win PC for gaming. 😉

[rah50]

No iPad here, :(

 

Looks pretty easy to setup RDP or VNC and the autorun and login.

 

Mostly I'll just be lost looking for things in a very different GUI. I think I go back to Windows 3, that was a very long time ago!

 

MMM1 should arrive tomorrow, but I have cataract surgery Thursday, so maybe I'll have it up this weekend.

 

Thanks all for the help.

[creativepart]

33 minutes ago, rah50 said:

I think I go back to Windows 3, that was a very long time ago!

I have cataract surgery Thursday....

I go back to Windows 2.1. Compared to that version Win 3 Workstation was a massive upgrade. (I'm 72 this month.)

 

Good luck with the cataract surgery. I had my left eye done last November and the right eye the year before that. Easy peasy stuff. Take a nap and wake up with perfect vision.

 

But I don't know how anyone functions without an iPad. That's a shocker to me.