7.22 sluggish performance issues

[Mikenutmeg]

So having many issues with the spinning ball.. one issue that I am having is I cannot copy a couple of bars of my whole sequence and paste it earlier in the sequence. I am able to copy and repeat.. snip but paste is not working.. In general, 7.21 and then 7.22 seem very sluggish.

Made a previous post about WAVES plugins taking forever to load with the spinning ball happening..

Just upgraded from 5.13 running on leopard on a PPC dual 2.7 to a DP7 12 core 2.66 with 16 GB Ram running latest Snow Leopard 10.6.5 Sorry to say I was much happier on the 5 year old machine.
Anyone have any tips, would greatly appreciate it.
Mike

[James Steele]

Not sluggish here on a much older and slower Mac Pro. Go figure.

[Mikenutmeg]

thanks James, are you working on Snow Leopard and if so what version?

[Phil O]

I have no idea what could be causing your problem. I'm running DP7.22 on an Intel Mac with OS 10.6.5 and it screams. Just something worth checking, though. Get Info on the DP application and make sure "open using rosetta" is not checked. Just a hunch.

Phil

[mesaken]

I believe that machine default boots to 64bit and you may need to boot up to 32bit if you haven't already. I'm not even sure if DP would run if you booted to 64, so this is a wild
guess.

[Killahurts]

I believe that machine default boots to 64bit and you may need to boot up to 32bit if you haven't already. I'm not even sure if DP would run if you booted to 64, so this is a wild
guess.

Wow, is this true? I have a new 12 core coming myself next week- hope I don't have these problems..

So I'll have to hold down 32 before I boot up each time?

[Shooshie]

So having many issues with the spinning ball.. one issue that I am having is I cannot copy a couple of bars of my whole sequence and paste it earlier in the sequence. I am able to copy and repeat.. snip but paste is not working.. In general, 7.21 and then 7.22 seem very sluggish.

Made a previous post about WAVES plugins taking forever to load with the spinning ball happening..

Just upgraded from 5.13 running on leopard on a PPC dual 2.7 to a DP7 12 core 2.66 with 16 GB Ram running latest Snow Leopard 10.6.5 Sorry to say I was much happier on the 5 year old machine.
Anyone have any tips, would greatly appreciate it.
Mike

That does sound a little alarming, Mike. Did you JUST upgrade before experiencing this? There are several things that can cause sluggish behavior on a new machine. Here are three that I can think of:

• Time Machine is copying data to your back up drive.
• Spotlight is indexing your files for quick lookup
• DP7, when opening files created in earlier versions, converts audio, fades, and analysis files to a new format, which can take anywhere from a few seconds to 20 minutes or more, depending on how many minutes/hours of audio are involved.

Finally, there is a strange phenomenon that many people, including myself, have reported in DP when running versions that are newly-installed directly from the DVD. There can be initial anomalies that are a little alarming at first, but they never seem to happen again. It's like DP has to "feather its nest" a little, getting itself unfolded and adjusted to its new existence on your system. I don't know why that can be possible, unless it is writing preferences as it performs various operations, but I've noticed it on a number of occasions after a new install. It's very real.

My recommendation is to let your computer run overnight until all the backups and indexing are done, and each time you open a new file in DP, give it some time to do the conversions. Then just keep working in DP for a few days and see if it gets better. If it does NOT get better, then you might spend some time in your System Preferences, and also check all your drivers and plugins for current versions.

Some plugins, like Audio Ease's Altiverb, can use either the AU version or the MAS version. Choose which one you want and disable the other one in the Plugin Preferences in DP's prefs window. They can cause odd behaviors when both are enabled. I don't know if that's still a problem or not, but it definitely cleared some things up for me several versions ago.

Of course, there's the old warhorse: repair permissions. Normally, that doesn't solve much, but on a brand new machine, after dozens of installs, it very well may be an issue.

Also, you might consider your hard drive strategies. If you are using one hard drive for everything, it can slow down DP's potential performance speed, dramatically, especially if you use a lot of VI's. I keep VI's distributed across several SATA drives, including two WD Raptors with 10,000 rpm. I run my files off of another drive, usually not shared with the VI's being used. I keep all the above separate from my System/Applications drive. In total, I have five internal SATA drives -- four in the bays, and one in the 2nd optical drive bay, but connected to the motherboard via a Serial ATA cable. For storage, I have several Firewire 800 drives externally connected. This setup keeps the potential for "drive collision" almost non-existent. By that, I mean the problem that occurs when OSX, DP, several audio files, and thousands of samples attempt to access the same disk for reading/writing simultaneously. The Mac's system is free to do whatever it needs and access its drive without worrying about audio or samples. DP is mostly run from RAM, so I don't worry about it so much, but when it needs to access the drive for loading application features it's generally not a problem sharing the drive with OSX. But reading & writing audio files for a given DP project can amount to a significant strain on a hard drive, and I probably do not need to explain what samples can do to a drive. Give your VI's their own drives as often as possible. Consider which ones might be running together and load them on separate drives to the extent possible. A VI like Ivory II can draw an incredible amount of data from a disk when all samples and layers are turned on.

Lastly, for now, check your buffer. If you're running a large project with a buffer of 128, you probably should shift it up to a higher number, depending on how much strain it's experiencing. Small buffers are great for tracking and reducing latency, but when you're mixing, bump them up to relieve the system's strain.

Sorry for the long post, but there are so many things that can factor into a mysterious problem like this. I probably have covered half of them, but I'm sure there are more.

Shooshie

[mesaken]

This is further info:

New Mac Pro's (Not MacBook Pro's) boot 64-bit by default - the tower systems.

64-bit kernel definitely won't run 32-bit extensions/drivers (drivers are called 'extensions' on MacOS). It will of course run 32-bit userland processes (apps, daemons) without issue.

[James Steele]

thanks James, are you working on Snow Leopard and if so what version?

See my sig.

[Killahurts]

This is further info:

New Mac Pro's (Not MacBook Pro's) boot 64-bit by default - the tower systems.

64-bit kernel definitely won't run 32-bit extensions/drivers (drivers are called 'extensions' on MacOS). It will of course run 32-bit userland processes (apps, daemons) without issue.

Man, looks like this might be a seriously tough transition for me.. so much stuff, I don't know where to start..

Hey Mike, hope your problems are getting worked out! Be sure to keep us up on how things are going there.

Finally, there is a strange phenomenon that many people, including myself, have reported in DP when running versions that are newly-installed directly from the DVD. There can be initial anomalies that are a little alarming at first, but they never seem to happen again. It's like DP has to "feather its nest" a little, getting itself unfolded and adjusted to its new existence on your system. I don't know why that can be possible, unless it is writing preferences as it performs various operations, but I've noticed it on a number of occasions after a new install. It's very real.

Thanks for this Shoosh, I thought I was crazy! It is a very real phenomenon. Only explanation I have for it is that these operating systems and apps have become so complex in the last years that they border on artificial intelligence, or at least mimic it somewhat. It's like breaking a horse- it bucks and kicks and protests, but after a while it settles down into a quiet resign.

[Mikenutmeg]

Thanks for all the tips.. this was a new machine that I just purchased and upgraded to 10.6.5 when I booted and registered the machine.. then I did a migration from my Power PC G% dual 2.7 running DP 5.13. ONce that was completed, upgraded to DP 7 and downloaded the updates getting me to 7.21.. Upgraded Waves, NI complete and all the MOTU Vi's. The interaction between WAVES and DP 7.21 and then 7.22 seem to be the issue.. went through all the thoughts that were suggested.. open in Rosetta is not checked, I have 4 internal drives i the new machine so running software off a separate drive than audio.. Did the boot up in 32bit mode rather than 64 and did not notice any change.. going to trash all waves and preferences, repair permissions etc and see how DP runs without WAVES. will try just booting machine and then rebooting in 32Bit mode.. I am able to work but the slow response is difficulty after having a much less powerful machine work much better..

Last thing i am going to try is pulling our 12 MB of additional RAM that I installed in the machine and see if there might be something screwy with one of the RAM modules.. Although they all test OK.. But willing to try anything at this point..
Again thanks for all the responses and tips.. I will update as I have more info or If i happen to figure out what is causing this.
Mike

[daniel.sneed]

DP7.22 works just fine here.

[Mikenutmeg]

Hey all, just wanted to say thanks again for all the helpful tips and thoughts.. with that said, just have to say that I have been working on a MOTU platform since Performer 1.. quite a while...Even with the little hiccups that I am now experiencing, it is still the best DAW I have ever worked with and I own and work on a number of others at my studio in NYC.
DP rocks.. I know that I will work this out and will share whatever makes things work the way I expect they should.. With a new computer, DP upgrade and multiple other PLUG in and VI upgrades happening all at once, I was hoping for a simple transition.. But happy to work it out and stay with it as I dig this platform and would never change.
Happy Holidays
Mike
Powermac 12 core 2.66, 16 GB Ram, OSX10.6.5, DP 7.22, Waves 7

[amplidood]

The migration is the worst thing Apple has ever come up with. Yes it's nice for people to try and have all their prefs come up in their apps so it's like nothing ever left. But it's a very, very, very bad solution. I'm now convinced Apple doesn't do things to make their systems iron clad. It's called planned obsolescence, but that's another rant...

I've fixed numerous systems where people had bought brand new machines and did the migration. The problem is that it brings over all preference and system related files from the old machine. These files are not meant to be on the new machine, but Apple doesn't care about that. These poor folks' computers ran slower and worse than the old system did. Every time I had them do full backup of the old system with CCC, and then start from SCRATCH with a new install of MacOS. This is a longer process, but you get a machine that actually works.

It's not so bad with careful planning, it just takes some time to do it right. Every system I've done this on (along with my dual partition repair setup, and rigid backup plan) sails on smoothly and I rarely hear any more technical complaints. I've been thinking about going into business setting up people's Macs to run the way they were meant to. Apple's no different than any other company. They like people to keep buying services and hardware.

[Timeline]

Is there a way to force 32 bit from Mac Pro?