CPU spike when soloing one track

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:58 pm

I don‘t know if this has been discussed, but I get CPU spikes to the point of interrupted playback when I solo a track in DP5.11.

The session is 10 audio tracks with a few busses and some motu plugs + freebies.
Funny enough the CPU meter shows only a hint of green when playing back more than 1 track, but as soon as I solo 1 track the meter climbs up till playback suffers.

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:20 am

vier-personen wrote:freebies

What happens when you pull the "freebies" out of your plug in folder?

I had freebies that very negatively impacted me in DP. I am real careful about them now.

--

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:43 pm

thanks for the suggestion!

I observed the problem further:

btw, I have a white MacBook C2D 2.0, 1GB stock Ram, OS X 10.4.8, DP5.11
I should also say that I am testing this with Internal Audio only, because I don‘t have the RME fireface with me right now. will repeat testing with the FF tomorrow.

I made a new project from scratch, with one soundfile that I copied to other tracks, changed random things (cut a few seconds, changed bite gain, etc.) and merged the bites to get new soundfiles (10 audio tracks).
than I added some busses and random plugins on each track - I got to 8 inserts on almost each track and bus, than the problem appeared - CPU spike when soloing one track.
Activity Monitor shows me ca. 80% CPU when playing back all tracks enabled but the DP cpu meter is at 1 third in the green range-
When I solo one track, I get overloads in the DP CPU meter while Acitivity Monitor shows me 120% CPU and more.

When I stop playback I get 160%-195% CPU after a few seconds and the fans start to work hard - it doesn‘t matter if a track is soloed or not here.

BTW, Activity monitor tells me theres is about 500MB of Ram unactive, so it shouldn‘t be a not-enough-ram issue?

I then put all plugins I have that aren‘t MOTU or Apple to a folder called "disabled" on the desktop and opened the session again, replaced all empty slots with random motu and apple plugins.
Besides the fact that I can now run 120 plugins I have the same problems, with minor variations though - It looks like I can drive the CPU harder till this effect comes (I am now at 115-150% CPU with all tracks, and 190-198% with one track soloed), but it‘s definitely there.

Hmm??

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:30 pm

just want to tell you that I have the same behaviour when using the RME Fireface, CPU % doubles when I solo a track.

I guess I will contact MOTU....

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:43 pm

vier-personen wrote:just want to tell you that I have the same behaviour when using the RME Fireface, CPU % doubles when I solo a track.

I guess I will contact MOTU....

that seems like a good idea -- this does not sound like normal behavior.

Keep us posted as to what you learn

Matcher · Post by **Matcher** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:20 pm

I have experienced similar problems:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18785

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 5:24 pm

Matcher wrote:I have experienced similar problems:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18785

I read through the thread... you didn‘t find any solution yet?
so at least 3 people have had this problem... I get the feeling this is a bug.

as mentioned before, my project has 10 stereo tracks, 2 busses and 120 motu and apple plugins, this shouldn‘t be any problem for my macbook, should it?

I e-mailed motu tech-support today, if they reply I‘ll let you know.

Matcher · Post by **Matcher** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:18 am

No solution here. I'm not happy at all to hear others have this issue too, I wished it was a corrupted project.

I'll e- mail MOTU too and let you know what comes up.

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:25 am

Matcher wrote:No solution here. I'm not happy at all to hear others have this issue too

me neither. great!

Matcher wrote: I'll e- mail MOTU too and let you know what comes up.

great!

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:26 am

MOTU‘s reply to my question I got 2 or 3 days ago:

"What hard drive are you playing files from? Does the problem occur if you set your audio playback to the built in speaker? If not, then try setting the Work Priority to Low in the Configure Hardware Driver screen of DP 5. Also, try adjusting the Host Buffer Multiplier to 2 or 3. If you are playing files from the internal drive, try moving a project to an external drive for testing."

I didn‘t have the time to try anything yet (other than it also happens with internal audio). I will report back when I will be able to test.

Matcher · Post by **Matcher** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:49 am

Interesting, I'll do some tests too and report back.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:10 am

vier-personen wrote:Activity Monitor shows me ca. 80% CPU when playing back all tracks enabled but the DP cpu meter is at 1 third in the green range-
When I solo one track, I get overloads in the DP CPU meter while Acitivity Monitor shows me 120% CPU and more.

When I stop playback I get 160%-195% CPU after a few seconds and the fans start to work hard - it doesn‘t matter if a track is soloed or not here.

BTW, Activity monitor tells me theres is about 500MB of Ram unactive, so it shouldn‘t be a not-enough-ram issue?

I then put all plugins I have that aren‘t MOTU or Apple to a folder called "disabled" on the desktop and opened the session again, replaced all empty slots with random motu and apple plugins.
Besides the fact that I can now run 120 plugins I have the same problems, with minor variations though - It looks like I can drive the CPU harder till this effect comes (I am now at 115-150% CPU with all tracks, and 190-198% with one track soloed), but it‘s definitely there.

Hmm??

Do you have a multiple processor machine? I think (but am not sure) that Activity Monitor measures percentage in terms of 100% per processor. 120% is only possible if two processors are both running at 60%. If CPU meter says 80% in DP, then both processors are running at 160% in Activity Monitor.

Can someone else confirm this? I remember having this discussion about 3 years ago, and I think that's what we determined.

Shooshie

vier-personen · Post by **vier-personen** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:32 am

Shooshie wrote:
Do you have a multiple processor machine? I think (but am not sure) that Activity Monitor measures percentage in terms of 100% per processor. 120% is only possible if two processors are both running at 60%. If CPU meter says 80% in DP, then both processors are running at 160% in Activity Monitor.

Can someone else confirm this? I remember having this discussion about 3 years ago, and I think that's what we determined.

Shooshie

I have a Macbook C2D, so 2 cores. This would explain the difference in metering between activity monitor (AM) and DPs audio performance window (AP).
but my main concern was that CPU usage doulbes when I solo a track - both in the AM and the AP in DP...

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:43 am

Understood... just being clear about the seemingly-bizarre percentages. I don't know what's happening with that. I don't generally have that experience, though once in a while I'll hit play and the whole thing stutters and peaks, and coughs, and red-lines. So, I hit stop, rewind, wait a second, and hit play again. Then it works just fine. So, I don't know what's happening. Is it possible that your Solo setup actually enables a virtual instrument, or something of that nature?

Solo in DP isn't always as simple as on, say, a Mackie mixer. Solo can act as a 2nd play setup, so that you can A/B two groups of tracks. Is it possible that you're enabling some big plugins or VI's when you hit "Solo?"

Shooshie

Matcher · Post by **Matcher** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:23 pm

Shooshie wrote:
Solo in DP isn't always as simple as on, say, a Mackie mixer. Solo can act as a 2nd play setup, so that you can A/B two groups of tracks. Is it possible that you're enabling some big plugins or VI's when you hit "Solo?"

At least for me, that hasn't been the case.

I'll have to troubleshoot more..

MOTUnation.com

CPU spike when soloing one track

CPU spike when soloing one track

Re: CPU spike when soloing one track