Hi CPU use with Kontakt 5 and DP7

JZilla · Post by **JZilla** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 6:04 pm

Hi there. I'm setting up an orchestral template in DP 7.24 using mostly multiple instances of Kontakt 5.0.1.5371. I'm running into all sorts of CPU issues while placing what seems like a very manageable load on the machine. DP's CPU monitor hovers between 40 - 50% while not playing, although it spikes up around 75% on a regular basis (around once a second) while at idle. When I'm actually playing something, it only takes a few notes being played for it to spike into the red. I'm running it with the buffer at 512, it's a little better at 1024 but the problems are still there.

I've loaded eight instances of K5 into DP, and populated them with a fair number of instruments, totalling 5.56 GB showing in the Memory Server display. In the Activity Monitor, I'm currently showing 2.22 GB of free memory, and 3.3 GB of inactive memory. I've turned multiprocessor support in K5 off, and increased my preload buffer to 192 kb (after trying it at the default without too much success). I have everything routed through aux busses into subgroups and stems, but the only processing that I have in place is one instance of QL Spaces on one track, enabling or disabling it makes no difference. I've tried offloading two of the K5 instances into VE Pro 5, but it's the same problem.

My computer is a 2007-era Mac Pro Quad 2.66 GHz, so it's admittedly a little on the old side, but I've got 16 gigs of RAM in my machine, and have the KMS engaged, so I was hoping to do a little better than the performance that I'm getting. I should be able to offload the balance of memory to CPU more to the RAM side since I've got room to spare, but I'm not quite sure the best way to do that, or if it'll help the problem.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Jeff

spirit · Post by **spirit** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:51 pm

Check if the instruments loaded have convolution or other effects enabled in Kontakt.
You can also experiment with whether disk streaming is on or off.
If you are talking about 8 instances of Kontakt with 4 or 5 instruments per instrument that could be quite a bit to ask a 2007 mac, depending on the instruments.

You could see if the same problems occur with simple small instruments<40meg> as further trouble shooting.

JZilla · Post by **JZilla** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 5:41 pm

Hey, thanks for the reply. There isn't any convolution on the patches I've got loaded, and I've turned the Kontakt Memory Server off in VE.

So after MUCH trial and error, I think I may have tracked down where part of the problem is, although I haven't figured out the best way to fix it. I've moved all the Kontakt instances into VE Pro, leaving DP empty except for one instance of Omnisphere (which I've left disabled for the time being). The CPU meter in DP was still around 40% at idle, so that wasn't it. And everything's running in real time, no pre-gen enabling.

For the last while I've tried to do lots of routing within DP to make it easy to quickly print stems. To do this, I've run things through a couple of layers of Aux channels. For example, my LASS strings in one group, EW in another, Symphobia in a third, so as to be able to reverb/EQ them individually before sending them into through another Aux into a Strings Bus audio track (which is Input Monitored while working, then record enabled to print stems). The stems are then sent out a Master bus into one more audio track for printing the mix, for a total right around 25 busses.

I decided to try deleting some of the busses to see if that helped. I deleted about half of the busses, with a negligible difference in the CPU meter, then kept deleting one by one. With one bussed track still enabled, no real change, but when I deleted that one, the CPU meter dropped down to next to nothing. After rejoicing mightily (and prematurely), I reassigned everything out my main output, and sadly watched it spike back up to around 35% at idle. This is a little better though, so it's starting to border on usable.

Now the odd part is that with nothing loaded into DP itself except the MIDI tracks, a few busses without any processing, and everything sitting at idle, no MIDI recorded into the tracks, no audio files, DP's still hogging 53% of my computer's CPU, according to the monitor in MiniUsage. When I disable the VE tracks, theoretically freeing up the resources, DP is still using 28%. Quitting VE altogether and leaving DP open the meter is around the same.

The only other application open is Safari (so I can type this), and that's it. With the DP session project closed and nothing loaded in VE, DP uses 2.2%, and in an empty session it's around 4%. It seems strange that a bunch of empty MIDI tracks and a couple of Aux busses take that much computing power, so I'm not really sure what to make of it.

Another bit of progress made thanks to another thread on MOTUnation. I disabled Eucon in the Control Surface Setup, which cut the idle CPU overhead in half, down to around 15-20% at a buffer setting of 512.

It seems like the problem lies somewhere in the output stage. With the instances of Kontakt all loaded into VE, everything sent through the auxes into stems, and then into the outputs, the CPU load is around 25% at idle. Deleting only the final outputs, which leaves everything else loaded and only removes the output stage, drops it down to 5% or less. Of course without it eventually coming to an output I don't get any audio or see anything show up in the meters, but it isn't unloading the instruments like it would if selected "None" in the Output for the channels. I've also tried bypassing all the fancy routing and just sending everything out the outputs, and the same problem's there.

At least now I'm back to work, although without being able to use my MC Control. There's a Eucon update that I'm downloading now, I'll give it a try.

Stuartfox · Post by **Stuartfox** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:41 am

Hi there,

What version VE Pro are you using to hose Kontakt 5... have you run the latest K5 update?

There is a memory leak bug with the K5 / VEP 5 combination... it can cause unwanted audio artifacts and CPU spikes, I belive it will be fixed soon... just make sure you keep checking for k5 / VEP updates.

Stuart

JZilla · Post by **JZilla** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:35 am

Hey Stuart, that's good to know. I'm on the most current version of Kontakt and VE Pro 5, so if that is the problem on my system hopefully it gets resolved soon.

theaks2002 · Post by **theaks2002** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 5:15 am

Hi.. I just picked up both DP7 and K5. Similar issues with an iMac i7. Are you running studio drummer? It itself takes about 50% of the processor. The default kits load with all kinds of processing on them (comp, reverb, eq, transient master). Just a thought..
~john

JZilla · Post by **JZilla** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:45 am

Hey John. I've got Studio Drummer, but haven't loaded it in this template at all. The template is mostly LASS 2 (without the ARC), Cinebrass, Spitfire Percussion, and Albion.

bad andy · Post by **bad andy** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:43 am

I am also seeing higher than expected DP7 cpu usage when Kontakt player is loaded. I need to spend a bit more time troubleshooting but machine spec is good, and I would/should not expect this much bite out of my resources.

iMac (most recent) i7
4gb Ram
1TB drive

kgdrum · Post by **kgdrum** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:19 am

So far for me K5.02 seems to be slightly more efficient on my setup than K4 was.
But I don't do the heavy lifting you are attempting and I don't use VEPro

Stuartfox · Post by **Stuartfox** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 3:25 am

VEP 5 build 10068 is now on the website: http://www.vsl.co.at/en/68/428/2022/1709.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I believe it will fix a lot of your issues relating to Kontakt 5, VEP 5 and VEP. It also fixes some PLAY 3 stability and CPU usage issues (for me at least).

Keep us updated.

Stuart

JZilla · Post by **JZilla** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:38 pm

Well, after installing the latest VE Pro build, and trying a bunch of other stuff, I'm still having the problem, although I may have narrowed it down a little.

I now have no instruments at all loaded in DP, everything's in VE, and to this point all the instruments are in instances of K5. The only plugin I'm using is one instance of QL Spaces on my LASS Strings. I've got my buffer set at 256, and am metering my CPU in DP and with MiniUsage.

With my template loaded, but the transport stopped, DP's CPU meter fluctuates between around 40-50%, and MiniUsage shows a 56% overall load (with DP taking 77%, I'm assuming that's of one core). If I disable the Spaces instance, DP shows around 30-40%, and MiniUsage shows 50% (with DP taking 58%).

Where it gets a little interesting is after I quit VE Pro entirely. DP's CPU meter is still showing about 15% of a load, and MiniUsage shows 17% overall (with DP being 37%). That's with only empty MIDI channels, no plugins, the transport not moving, and Vienna instances that aren't connected to anything. Is it just me, or doesn't that seem a little high for a computer that's essentially not doing anything?

If I take it a step further and remove all of my stem channels (stereo audio tracks that are input monitored), leaving everything sent out aux channels that don't end up anywhere, the load drops dramatically (DP down to 5-10%, MiniUsage at 11% with DP taking 15%). Re-routing things to there's no busses involved at all, and just sending everything out my main outputs takes it back up to the levels in the previous paragraph.

So it seems to me that the problem's coming from the busses. Even though they're just passing the audio through, it's at the cost of a (relatively) large amount of CPU power. I'm grudgingly accepting that I'm going to have to offload as many of my instruments as possible to a slave computer, but even with doing that the CPU load's much higher than I would've anticipated. Granted, the Mac's five years old now, but it used to be able to handle quite a bit without cracking a sweat.

So, after all that, anyone have any ideas?

Wibe · Post by **Wibe** » Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:32 pm

Hi.

I am having the exact same problems as you have. we´re also on a very similar setup. I run VE pro on a slave computer, and I have a similar stems routing as you have with everything going through busses - Stems audio tracks in monitor mode for print and finally a master track for output.

I´ve also tried to temporary delete different stuff to narrow it down. When removing 8 Altiverb instances and all plugs in my template it hardly makes any difference at all on the cpu load. Today I did some testing and fine tuning of settings in K5 and play on my slave computer and guess what.. The bottleneck of my system was actually DP CPU spikes when running 6 miditracks with notes. Tomorrow I will spend the day trying to figure this out. Let us know if you find anything. I´ll post my own findings too.

toodamnhip · Post by **toodamnhip** » Sun Jul 08, 2012 5:21 pm

JZilla,
Hmm, you have given me some food for thought with the busses info.
I recall doing similar experiments yrs ago and seeing that just having simple things like aux busses available ate cpu power.

Some around here seem to have fewer problems than I do. I do indeed route through busses heavily and maybe that is some of the difference between the “blessed” forum members without crashes/problems, and myself.
If you ask me, in some ways, DP really seems to suck “code-wise". It sucks in ways that often equate to a veteran user knowing the amazing capabilities of the program and trying to just effing USE these capabilities, only to find that DPs whacky code, inefficiency etc, blocks the cool feature one is trying to use.

I route busses heavily, creating mini work spaces such that even a guitar reverb or tight space for guitars will be under it’s own master guitar bus so that if I pull down the master of all guitars, I don;t end up with a bunch of guitar reverb left over..etc.
This is experience, this is ABILITY and this should Not be something that has a “big price”.
“IF” this is what is happening, This is our DAW canceling our abilities, experience and knowledge....that sucks..lol

I hate hearing you have to alter how you work because DP dies on you when you use something that SHOULD be a usable feature.

I bought VE Pro only to find out DP doesn;t latency compensate properly. Again, one step forward, one step back.
DP 8 will be fixing that particular problem, let’s hope it will become efficient such that adding busses doesn;t eat 25% of it;s power in some strange way. My long forgotten experiments seemed to indicate that it didn;t matter so much how MANY busses or auxes I added, it was that the very fact of adding ONE dragged the computer down immediately. That is just ridiculous.

FutureLegends · Post by **FutureLegends** » Sun Jul 08, 2012 6:35 pm

I have the exact same issues.
Mostly using EWSO in PLAY though.
I tried Bidule to no avail.

Holding out to see what improvements DP8 will bring before trying VEP.

The weird thing is also that the activity monitor shows very low CPU usage while DP is spiking like crazy...

Gravity Jim · Post by **Gravity Jim** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:21 am

This thread is of some concern to me.

For the first time since I starting using DP, I'm not going to be among the first-day updaters. Because the price of upgrading DP and the price of Logic Pro are the same, I'm going to have to wait-and-see if these CPU issues disappear for others before deciding what to do.

I know that a lot of you guys on this board are power users, delving deep into the capabilities of DP and have come to love certain editing features, transcriptions features, and so on. But I'm not that guy... I use DP as a computer-based tape recorder, placing MIDI recordings alongside wave-form audio. I edit that audio minimally, and am more likely to replay a part than get into time stretching and tuning. For me, the work is all about composition and arrangement, getting a good sound to "tape" and creating a clean mix of that performance. I barely scratch the surface of DP's features. And now that my MOTU audio hardware is gone, I'm less concerned than ever about compatibility.

So it just about didn't matter what DAW I used. Until now, when more and more and more of my work is based on VI's, most of them played through Kontakt. It just doesn't make sense that a computer with as much horsepower as my 8-core MacPro starts choking on a handful of VI's (yes, even with Kontakt Memory Server engaged).

I've invested many years and dollars in DP, but if DP8 doesn't fix this CPU/Kontakt stuff, I will be unhappily forced to learn a new DAW. I just about bailed over the metronome problems in DP 6, but this is becoming almost as unworkable, and I have no good reason to start using VEPro just so I can continue to work in DP.

Not looking for a fight: just dropping in my $0.02.

MOTUnation.com