Ableton Forum

buj818 wrote:

H20nly wrote:as far as a cause for this issue goes... that sounds like a good one. if a cache is too full you often get odd behavior. this is true of temporary internet files too, which is a good every day example of a similar issue.

i would not be surprised at all if this change fixes the issue for you buj818

*fingers crossed*

good luck

I went ahead and followed all his advice, as well as deleting a lot of unused recordings and such. Cleaning out about 600MB of junk I don't use anymore. Organized everything and am left with only 1 project I'm currently working on. I ran and compared the difference. CPU usage, on average, dropped only 5-6%. Doesn't peak at 103% anymore, however it still peaks in the low 90s, more than enough to experience the crackling. Ugh. Thanks for all the input guys, but it looks like my only hope is for a Live 10 update that addresses (hopefully) many of these high CPU usage issues.

bummer. i'm assuming you already went the uninstall-reinstall route. if you haven't, that's the last trick i can think of before it gets back to hoping the Abes find the cause.

having said that, i'm not surprised that it helped. too bad it wasn't an extra 25-35% though

[/quote]

bummer. i'm assuming you already went the uninstall-reinstall route. if you haven't, that's the last trick i can think of before it gets back to hoping the Abes find the cause.

having said that, i'm not surprised that it helped. too bad it wasn't an extra 25-35% though [/quote]

Did a complete re-install. Only took about 4 seconds to open Live. Got all excited. Loaded up a project, hit play, still crackling and near Max CPU usage. Closed Live, reopened, about 5 seconds to reopen. I mention this because although I'm still having the CPU issue, the program itself opens much faster than ever. Ill take that as a win for now and keep pecking away at it.

Does anyone have anything to report about their progress with Ableton support with this CPU spiking issue?
I have nothing new to report - still going through the paces with them.

In my own troubleshooting, these are my open questions:
• Is it graphics related? It often seems that graphics heavy 3rd party plugin GUIs precipitate the issue. I've particularly noticed it with FabFilter plugins that have a spectrum analyzer.
• Since (in my case) the same sets that run smoothly in Live 9 experience the spiking in Live 10, and I've done the all the trashing of prefs and resetting of Live, etc... what other factors (besides the code of the Live 10 app) could be responsible?

Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone having this issue without FabFilter or UAD plugins? Without ANY 3rd party plugins?

soundsliketree wrote:Does anyone have anything to report about their progress with Ableton support with this CPU spiking issue?
I have nothing new to report - still going through the paces with them.

In my own troubleshooting, these are my open questions:
• Is it graphics related? It often seems that graphics heavy 3rd party plugin GUIs precipitate the issue. I've particularly noticed it with FabFilter plugins that have a spectrum analyzer.
• Since (in my case) the same sets that run smoothly in Live 9 experience the spiking in Live 10, and I've done the all the trashing of prefs and resetting of Live, etc... what other factors (besides the code of the Live 10 app) could be responsible?

Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone having this issue without FabFilter or UAD plugins? Without ANY 3rd party plugins?

Reaktor Blocks is almost unusable in v10. Lots of glitchy audio. While it was a hog in v9, I didn’t have pops and clicks.

jlgrimes wrote: Reaktor Blocks is almost unusable in v10. Lots of glitchy audio. While it was a hog in v9, I didn’t have pops and clicks.

The CPU requirements — stated or not — of Reaktor 6 was the reason I didn't update at its release. But isn't this something you simply can throw hardware at? For example, if you move from a quad-core to an octa-core? Or just a faster quad-core.

For whatever reason with my selection: the instruments TyrellN6, Massive, Reaktor 5 incl. Razor and Monark, Tremor, Heartbeat, Aalto, Element and processing plug-ins like Waves NLS, VEQ-3, MmultiAnalyzer, Free-G, Dub Machines, Convolution Reverb (MFL) and EAReverb, all seem to only run somewhat more effectively on my quadcore in Live 10 compared to Live 9. macOS 10.12.

The Live audio engine load can go up towards 90% before there is any crackling and most tracks go between 50-80%. In Live 9 at 70% sometimes there's crackling.

I had similar problems, loads of popping and scratching, unusually high cpu percentages. I sorted mine by reinstalling my audio interface driver and reinstalled my serum. Works fine now.

Rob Owen wrote:I had similar problems, loads of popping and scratching, unusually high cpu percentages. I sorted mine by reinstalling my audio interface driver and reinstalled my serum. Works fine now.

Interesting re-installation helped. I've had to do that three times with Live 9, though I forgot now for what reason.
I think you mean audio engine load as per the Live meter though? Which is not the same as CPU meters, like those of the OS. You can have low CPU load and still have crackles.

***update*** Ableton does say "CPU Load Meter" or "CPU meter", which is somewhat misguiding as a name given the emboldened parts in the quote from the manual :

"The Control Bar’s CPU meter displays how much of the computer’s computational potential is currently being used. For example, if the displayed percentage is 10 percent, the computer is just coasting along. If the percentage is 100 percent, the processing is being maxed out — it’s likely that you will hear gaps, clicks or other audio problems. Note that the CPU meter takes into account only the load from processing audio, not other tasks the computer performs (e.g., managing Live’s user interface).

Audio calculations have the highest priority in Live. Therefore, even if the CPU shows a high percentage of processor usage, the audio stream should remain uninterrupted. However, non- critical functions (such as screen redraws) might slow down because these tasks are handled only when the audio processing “lightens up“ a bit.

>>Quoted from 31.1 Managing the CPU Load

I assume here that "computational potential" is whatever CPU resources are available to Live. If you have many background processes using CPU you will have less CPU power for Live to make use of.

I ran 54 instances of Reaktor 6 and two drum racks on the iMac Pro. I hit 51% CPU

v00d00ppl wrote:…on the iMac Pro. I hit 51% CPU

Surely using the Intel Xeon W processors must be considered cheating and be held inadmissible? Please…

Stromkraft wrote:

v00d00ppl wrote:…on the iMac Pro. I hit 51% CPU

Surely using the Intel Xeon W processors must be considered cheating and be held inadmissible? Please…

True . I gave up with my MacBook Pro 2014 i7 so I went and upgraded. It's overkill I know.

v00d00ppl wrote: True :D . I gave up with my MacBook Pro 2014 i7 so I went and upgraded. It's overkill I know.

It's unfortunately my firm belief there is no such thing as "overill" when it comes to computer power and music production.

Hi Mates,

here the reason why i have the same problem with a new win 10 and ableton 10 installation.

Follow things:

deactive any CPU stepping features like Intel Speed Step Technology.
deactive Turbo Boost
deactive Same Performance on all CPU Cores.

Thats it, now it works fine how Ableton 9 on my win7.

Normaly i have this deactivated, but on any reason it was after reinstall my complete System Activated. Check it on your Systems, maybe it works for you.

And if you dont want rewire change the Name Ableton Live Engine.dll to Ableton Live Engine.dllBACKUP or something. Because Ableton dont load the dll if you rename it.

Good Luck.

Greetz!

Ablesound wrote:
deactive any CPU stepping features like Intel Speed Step Technology.
deactive Turbo Boost
deactive Same Performance on all CPU Cores.

Thats it, now it works fine how Ableton 9 on my win7.

But this is a discussion about how Live 10 seem to cause performance issues for some users compared to Live 9. So while those may be wise general advice for some machines neither really concern the focus of this discussion.

Stromkraft wrote:

Ablesound wrote:
deactive any CPU stepping features like Intel Speed Step Technology.
deactive Turbo Boost
deactive Same Performance on all CPU Cores.

Thats it, now it works fine how Ableton 9 on my win7.

But this is a discussion about how Live 10 seem to cause performance issues for some users compared to Live 9. So while those may be wise general advice for some machines neither really concern the focus of this discussion.

Yes, i use also before Ableton 10 Ableton 9 and after installation Ableton 10 was this the reason why i have performance problems with 10. And this is why i say "maybe can helps". And maybe for Ableton 10 is this more important do this optimisations on your Systems.

Ablesound wrote:
deactive any CPU stepping features like Intel Speed Step Technology.
deactive Turbo Boost
deactive Same Performance on all CPU Cores.

–
Yes, i use also before Ableton 10 Ableton 9 and after installation Ableton 10 was this the reason why i have performance problems with 10. And this is why i say "maybe can helps". And maybe for Ableton 10 is this more important do this optimisations on your Systems.

My point was that those suggested actions, while potentially beneficial, are highly unlikely to affect the performance of Live 10 more than Live 9. However, you do still have a point if a user hadn't tried those types of actions before. Always good to try at least.

It's also possible, though not very likely, that certain plug-ins or native devices are more susceptible to certain performance issues in Live 10. I seriously doubt this is a common problem, however. Not that there aren't cases with lesser performance in Live 10, mind you, but the relationship to those hardware settings specifically.

That said, any of those actions could also worsen the performance of Live. So one should be prepared to undo.