CPU Playback meter Spikes

ernie5 · Post by **ernie5** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:12 am

It didn't happen when I first upgraded. Bizarre. I don't really want to go back to 4.12.

ernie5 · Post by **ernie5** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:35 am

This is really strange & I'm not going to be cocky about it, but I MAY have fixed the CPU spiking problem in 4.6 when I went to a consolidated window set-up. For reasons that remain mysterious (to me -- I'm an idiot), in songs that had previously spiked (some of them a mere 2 audio tracks) the CPU levels stayed low once I went to a consolidated window. Prior to 4.6, I used 4.12, so the consolidated window is new to me. I'll let you know if this continues to make a difference.

dynamix · Post by **dynamix** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:30 am

For me, running all my plugins - happens first play every time, just as the cursor hits the data in the tracks and the music starts. That CPU overload message comes up. I just hit continue. Then, never again.

Still, a pain. Its as if the computer is just lazying around and "Whoa, holy cow, you mean I have to do some work now?" Then it snaps out of the lazy spell and is pretty much ready to handle the work load throughout the session.

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 11:57 am

Heat can cause it.
UAD-1 can also load it up.

If your computer is too slow after streamlining OSX, just wait about a week. New quad processor macs are coming out.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:30 pm

ernie5 wrote:This is really strange & I'm not going to be cocky about it, but I MAY have fixed the CPU spiking problem in 4.6 when I went to a consolidated window set-up. For reasons that remain mysterious (to me -- I'm an idiot), in songs that had previously spiked (some of them a mere 2 audio tracks) the CPU levels stayed low once I went to a consolidated window. Prior to 4.6, I used 4.12, so the consolidated window is new to me. I'll let you know if this continues to make a difference.

There are a number of things that temporarily fix the CPU spiking problem, but for most people they eventually come back. My problem with that goes away when I change the hardware setup, but returns about 5 minutes later. It has only begun doing this (again) in 10.3.9 and Tiger, and in DP 4.5. While I was using 10.3.2 or so, with DP 4.12, the problem went away for a long time.

Another "fix" was to use the Aggregate Device setup in Apple's Audio-MIDI Setup, but this caused some strange bugs to emerge for a lot of people, myself included. I had to reinstall my entire OS and software on a clean disk to get past those bugs.

I'd love to know your complete setup, and how your prefs are set, especially hardware, buffer, work priority, host multiplier, and other audio setup prefs.

Shooshie

bhagert · Post by **bhagert** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 1:36 am

I confess that I have played WWII online and those people there are really optimizing that game. The discussion here reminds me about that game. Spikes and CTD and eventually they fixed it. It was some kind of memory management problem. It was fine a while and then the game started to act jerky.

Getting a faster computer will quite likely not fix this if your computer runs at 30-40%.

Just my thought.

ernie5 · Post by **ernie5** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:39 am

From MOTU:

Check your Background Processing. I'd recommend setting your preferences to:
- Wait until analysis is needed
- Mute old soundbites
- Show both high & low priority tasks
- Disable automatic beat & tempo detection
- Never look for beat & tempo automatically

Josh Hetrick
MOTU Tech

I'll have to check all of this stuff when I get to my studio computer tonight. I believe my buffer is set at 512, though.

bhagert · Post by **bhagert** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:13 pm

Thanks!

And they say that the tech support is bad.... I haven't even written to you about it an you pop in to help!!!!

Thank you very much Josh I will try all this!

ernie5 · Post by **ernie5** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 5:49 am

That was actually me, forwarding the message from MOTU to me on to the board. MOTU help is spotty, but not non-existent. I sent them an email on 10/13 and got the resonse from Josh yesterday -- so it took five days, but they do generally get back & I believe they honestly try to be helpful.

bhagert · Post by **bhagert** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:27 am

Oh OH

Sorry I thought YOU where Josh!

papisax · Post by **papisax** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:31 am

FYI: I have the UAD-1 card, with the 4.0 version of the software. I have a dual mirror 1.25 GHz G4, 2 GBs of RAM, DP 4.6, running Altiverb 5.1, Waves, Kontakt, Trilogy and I have no problems.

I hope this is helpful.

I do have Mach 5 and it is a CPU hog. I get spikes with it and the TC Firewire powercore.

Take care,
Papisax

bhagert · Post by **bhagert** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:18 am

Mach5 running at very high sample is one source. I also have BFD, GPO and Altiverb and I will make some tests and see what bogs it down.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 12:10 pm

Quit Apple Dashboard

bhagert · Post by **bhagert** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:47 pm

Harry wrote:Quit Apple Dashboard

I have optimized the system so Dashboard is disabled. Along with startup apps. File / printer sharing and firewall (I have a hardware Firewall). Discs defragged and I have run Onyx scripts and system optimiser. The energy saver is disabled. I did reset nvram and repaired permissions and all of the stuff that you need to get a mean lean system.

Quitting dashboard made the system faster, no doubt about it.

TnMike · Post by **TnMike** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 11:44 pm

How do you disable Dashboard?