Request: Add System Requirements to Manual

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eriklharper
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:31 am

Request: Add System Requirements to Manual

Post by eriklharper » Thu Mar 12, 2020 10:56 pm

The official Aerodrums manual lacks any concrete information about optimal computer system requirements to run Aerodrums sufficiently. I've been using Aerodrums fairly successfully with these hardware specs for that last couple of years:

Model: MacBook Air (13-inch, early 2015)
Processor: 2.2 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
Memory: 8 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 6000 1536 MB
Storage: 250 GB Flash

Now I say "fairly" successfully because I usually run Aerodrums alongside other software, such as GarageBand for triggering samples over MIDI with the MT PowerDrumkit 2 VST sounds. I've also used it with EZ Drummer 2 when I trialed it for a week. I also a lot of times run Music/iTunes to play along to songs that I don't feel like importing into Aerodrums.

Not only is Aerodrums resource-intensive all by itself, but throw in all these other programs running at the same time and what was a decent experience has quickly become unworkable under certain hardware situations.

Also, in even the standalone Aerodrums scenario, using the most graphics-intensive display mode still wasn't as optimal as it could be, the frame rate suffering a bit here and there.

So, to conclude what I'd like to see Aerodrums add to the official manual and put it somewhere prominent on the website is a clear set of minimum system requirements that can ensure a good experience, and ideally these system requirements can take into account having other necessary software running alongside it, since this is a common way that I and I'm sure a lot of other serious Aerodrummers want to do to enhance the experience.

Another question I have regarding performance is what the relationship is to Processor Speed & Memory with Graphics Card performance. Does Aerodrums work better on a computer that has upgraded processor/memory with an average graphics card, or does it work better on a computer that has average processor/memory with an upgraded graphics card, or both?

Richard
Posts: 1012
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:45 am

Re: Request: Add System Requirements to Manual

Post by Richard » Mon Mar 30, 2020 11:43 am

Thanks for your feedback. The manual does list what we consider to be minimum computer specs and minimum OS versions. We have been looking at revising this specification and making it more detailed but it is tricky. In particular, taking into account what other software (DAW, VSTi, etc.) might be running at the same time makes it very tricky to set a minimum required spec since all DAWs, for example, will themselves have different memory and processor requirements.

Regarding graphics card performance, Aerodrums only uses the graphics card to visualize the drums on the screen. It does not use the graphics card for any other computations so the type of graphics card is not really significant (as long as it supports OpenGL 2.0 which will be the case for any recent graphics card). That said, Aerodrums may not run at the required 125 frames per second if the graphics card is too slow but in that case you can switch to one of the degraded visualization modes that will reduce the load on the graphics card.

eriklharper
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:31 am

Re: Request: Add System Requirements to Manual

Post by eriklharper » Mon Mar 30, 2020 4:41 pm

Where exactly in the manual does it list "minimum computer specs" and "minimum OS versions"? I had trouble even locating that.

Richard
Posts: 1012
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:45 am

Re: Request: Add System Requirements to Manual

Post by Richard » Mon Mar 30, 2020 5:26 pm

Here: https://aerodrums.com/manual/#getting-started
Like I said, we hope to make this specification more comprehensive in the future.

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