UAD and Digital Performer

vichush · Post by **vichush** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:40 pm

Wondering why my Digtal performer CPU is being drained by the more UAD plugin i implement in my session?

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:26 pm

What is your computer's CPU?

How much RAM?

What version of OSX and the UAD-1 driver are you using?

How many instances of UAD-1 do you have loaded at once?

Have you increased your buffer settings? If latency is an issue, then you probably should wait until your mixing phase to increase the hardware buffer as high as it will go.

If you are running DP 5.x, have you made any adjustments to Work Quanta, Max Work Percent, or Prime Seconds?

Are you using a lot of firewire devices? You could be experiencing firewire bus clog-- it may not be your UAD-1 per se, but even a better drive such as eSATA could improve performance immensely.

Have you tried saving, quitting and restarting DP?

Have you taken note of your Activity Monitor in OSX and in the UAD-1 console to determine how hard UAD-1 may be hitting your CPU?

The UAD-1 has it's limits-- depending on the plugin, you could run 6 or more instances or only one instance. Different plugins require different amounts of CPU resources.

The UAD-1 card also relies on the CPU and is not 100% independent with the power it needs.

Resonant Alien · Post by **Resonant Alien** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:54 pm

Sounds like you have a G5 with the dreaded AMD chipset? Just guessing, but this sounds like the problem they had with those controllers in the G5s - they had to rob som

vichush · Post by **vichush** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:08 pm

Hi Frodo,

thanks for the reply. my computer is :

Dual 1.25 GHZ PowerPC G4
1 MB L3 Cache per processor

memory: 1GB DDR SDRAM

MAc OS 10.3.9

im using digital performer 4.61

im using the laest drivers for the UAD card

Maybe I need more ram to get more plugin poer?

Frodo wrote:What is your computer's CPU?

How much RAM?

What version of OSX and the UAD-1 driver are you using?

How many instances of UAD-1 do you have loaded at once?

Have you increased your buffer settings? If latency is an issue, then you probably should wait until your mixing phase to increase the hardware buffer as high as it will go.

If you are running DP 5.x, have you made any adjustments to Work Quanta, Max Work Percent, or Prime Seconds?

Are you using a lot of firewire devices? You could be experiencing firewire bus clog-- it may not be your UAD-1 per se, but even a better drive such as eSATA could improve performance immensely.

Have you tried saving, quitting and restarting DP?

Have you taken note of your Activity Monitor in OSX and in the UAD-1 console to determine how hard UAD-1 may be hitting your CPU?

The UAD-1 has it's limits-- depending on the plugin, you could run 6 or more instances or only one instance. Different plugins require different amounts of CPU resources.

The UAD-1 card also relies on the CPU and is not 100% independent with the power it needs.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 9:16 pm

vichush wrote:Hi Frodo,

thanks for the reply. my computer is :

Dual 1.25 GHZ PowerPC G4
1 MB L3 Cache per processor

memory: 1GB DDR SDRAM

MAc OS 10.3.9

im using digital performer 4.61

im using the laest drivers for the UAD card

Maybe I need more ram to get more plugin poer?

Yes-- more RAM would help. Also, upgrading to Tiger will provide many performance improvements as well. The latest drivers for UAD-1 are most likely taking advantage of the latest version of Tiger and not Panther.

I also dare say that DP 5.11 is the best version of DP for OSX.

You may also want to ask UA support about the chipset in your computer. Resonant Alien makes a good point about UAD-1 working better on certain Macs than others because of specific architectural limitations.

Yiannis · Post by **Yiannis** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:18 am

I have noticed the same thing here.
I have the same mac,but I am on Tiger 10.4.8/Panhter 10.3.9,2g ram,DP 5.11 and UAD 4.51.
All the latest updates but my cpu is drained by the UAD.
Its very strange because I have 2 UADs to help my computers CPU.
When I use 2 plate 140....the CPU (mac) is increasing!

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 2:25 am

Yiannis wrote:I have noticed the same thing here.
I have the same mac,but I am on Tiger 10.4.8/Panhter 10.3.9,2g ram,DP 5.11 and UAD 4.51.
All the latest updates but my cpu is drained by the UAD.
Its very strange because I have 2 UADs to help my computers CPU.
When I use 2 plate 140....the CPU (mac) is increasing!

Here is some useful information you may want to read carefully.

Optimizing Your OSX DAW for UAD-1:
http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2004/november/index5.html

Important questions about the G5 and UAD-1, including the ill-fated AMD-8131 chipsets:
http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2005/may/index5.html

Plugin Instances: How many and Why:
http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2005/july/index5.html

acro · Post by **acro** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 2:43 am

I own a PowerCore, and find that DP CPU usage grows exponentially the more plugins I have displayed. There's a pretty dramatic difference when I close the plug-in windows. I don't see the same behavior with other hosts, so so it may be worth a try.

FYI: I'm on a Quicksilver 1G/dual.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:16 am

Frodo wrote:Yes-- more RAM would help.

I feel your excitement, Hobby.

acro wrote:I own a PowerCore, and find that DP CPU usage grows exponentially the more plugins I have displayed. There's a pretty dramatic difference when I close the plug-in windows. I don't see the same behavior with other hosts, so so it may be worth a try. .

Interesting observation, acro.
Looks like PoCo gives the graphic work over to the Mac.
Talk about stating the obvious. Sorry.

I find it interesting, though. I wonder if this makes the card more efficient when coupled with DP.

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:45 am

I seem to remember something about the "limit cpu load" button in the UAD meter application. Can't remember if it needs to be checked or unchecked, but it's worth looking at.

Phil

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 9:29 am

I'd also recommend closing the visuals and see if the load decreases. While the UAD card does all the processing for you, it does not handle the graphics for you, that happens inside the DP code space. So, in that line, an external accelerator is not going to help you in situations where graphics are concerned. This is even more prevalent on older machines that run graphics a bit slower.

On my G4, I used to have a bunch of masterworks EQ's going and my system would be DOG slow. Turned off the GUI and it was great. The FFT was killing my system, which had NO relevance on the audio.

1 Gig of RAM is quite small. Even my smallest sessions of DP with no plugins loaded seem to sit around 350M, not including other things in the OS going. When I jumped from 1G to 2G the difference in performance on larger projects was VERY evident.

Also, tiger worked better than panther for me WITH more RAM. Tiger seems to be a bit hungrier.

DP5.11 is the best version I have used to date, hands down, on both G4, G5, Macbook and MacPro.

That said, my recommendation, save up and get a MacPro stock unit and dump the G4. It's stable AND it absolutely amazing. I just got someone I work with to upgrade his G4 Sawtooth (dual 667Mhz) to a MacPro and he cannot believe what he can do on it with DP. He's like a kid at christmas.

conleycd · Post by **conleycd** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:27 am

For some reason I thought 10.3.9 was not compatible with DP 4.61 (I seem to remember having to purchase Tiger when I bought DP 4.6).

I did have the same problem though with DP 5. What I put it down to is the "bypass AU" in the UAUDIO CPU meter. When audio started playing through unused UAD plugins my computer started going for a crash (CPU maxing out). Now, I have 6.5 gigs of RAM and that does not seem to change the stability.

CC