DP11 using >200% on Activity Monitor?

[James Steele]

Hey all… my system specs are in my sig, but here they are if you're on Tapatalk...

MacPro 5,1 3.33 12-core, 48GB RAM, Radeon HD 7950 3GB, macOS 10.14.6, DP 11.02, MOTU HD192, 24 I/O, UAD-2 Duo

So I took delivery of a 43” Samsung 4K TV today that I’m using now as my main monitor. Working awesome here with my graphics card and Mojave/Metal. So today, I decided to take a peak at Activity Monitor while playing back a project that was hitting about 40-45% on DP 11.02’s Audio Performance (Real time) meter. Activity monitor showed DP using 197% of CPU?! Sometimes over 200% as is on the screen shot. Project playing back fine. How does that happen? Is there some kind of disconnect now between Activity Monitor and DP that I don’t understand. Is it a Mojave thing… or the fact that my MacPro5,1 was originally an 8-core MacPro4,1 that was upgraded to a 12-core? Here is screen grab:



Just scratching my head here. It seems to be working fine, but I don’t understand what I’m seeing on Activity Monitor. Thanks in advance!

[HCMarkus]

The relationship between the figures displayed in Activity Monitor vs DP Performance Meter has never been clear for me either. That said, with your 12 core 5,1, you could theoretically display up to 1,200% in Activity Monitor, as each CPU core is mapped as up to 100%.

One thing to note: Activity Monitor polls the computer at intervals (you can adjust this in the app), so it doesn't reflect instantaneous values. My guess is DP's Performance Meter is more sensitive to those bothersome momentary peaks in CPU demand that we hear as dropouts, clicks and pops.

[James Steele]

The relationship between the figures displayed in Activity Monitor vs DP Performance Meter has never been clear for me either. That said, with your 12 core 5,1, you could theoretically display up to 1,200% in Activity Monitor, as each CPU core is mapped as up to 100%.

One thing to note: Activity Monitor polls the computer at intervals (you can adjust this in the app), so it doesn't reflect instantaneous values. My guess is DP's Performance Meter is more sensitive to those bothersome momentary peaks in CPU demand that we hear as dropouts, clicks and pops.

Ahhhh... thank you for this, good sir! I thought it might have to do with the cores... doh!! I don't know why Apple would choose to display it like that? I guess there's a good reason. I just never really looked at that before.

Launching Activity Monitor did, however, remind me that the OCD part of me really wants to do some housecleaning regarding various what used to be called TSRs... Terminate and Stay Resident. I think that's what they were called. I don't know why I have XLR Audio Cloud service going in the background. I don't want AvidLink going in the background. Makes me even think of shutting off the various menubar status apps like TG Pro that shows temperature and fan speed, and MenuMeters. Or even my Typinator Macro program. All those little apps taking their tiny slice of CPU makes me paranoid that sometimes they're the little glitch in the system that might cause an overload or something. I even have an old app called Blotter that's nice as it shows your upcoming calendar on the desktop, but that sucker is showing it's using 4.2%. Although I suppose if my theoretical ceiling is 1200% I shouldn't worry about it.

Digging this 43" monitor. Glad in my case I went with 43"... it's Samsung. I enabled the gaming mode too. I guess that's what to do. I'll mention that in the other thread.

[Michael Canavan]

So DP's performance meter shows a combination of all tracks in DP as a percentage with 100% being red peaks etc.

Activity monitor shows on a 12 core, a potential 1200% total. Apple does not treat all cores as a single power source.

Back to DP, DP's audio performance will look much more hungry than Activity monitor will show because it will react to a single overloaded with plugins etc. track that's potentially going to spike the audio engine. It's not a bad idea to open the Effects Performance window to look at what DP is dealing with on a per plug in basis to see how this pans out.