Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Badpixel
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by Badpixel » Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:51 am

Same issue here. i7 workstation, 32gb, 2tb ssd, apollo twin, w10, power settings pinned to performance. running sessions in 48k with nothing else in BG.

I can state with confidence this is NOT a metering issue. Performance is beyond brutal on a tried and tested machine.

I moved from 9 last week. 11 is unusable for me. Stability issues, dropouts, UI hangs, etc etc. 27% average useage with 4 tracks and a few native plugins. I was running sessions with 30-40 tracks with tons of plugs and native fx in v9 and I rarely touched 35%. Performance was always snappy and never had a single dropout. Now I see a session idling at over 20% in 11! Was actually seeing much smoother performance with a 2009 MBP on v9.

From what I can tell, 11 doesn't seem ready for primetime and I'll have to shelf this until there's a patch, update or workaround. Workstation is part of a production pipeline so bios updates are not really an option over here.

Have had nothing but amazing experiences for many years with Ableton....until now.

MKB1
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by MKB1 » Thu Jul 08, 2021 12:23 am

Just installed 11 on two different computers; both with i7 processors and 32G RAM with SSD's. One is a Dell Precision laptop workstation (quad core i7), the other is a new Intel NUC (i7 six core). The Dell was tested with a Maschine MK3 as the audio interface, the NUC is using a UAD Apollo over Thunderbolt. Both are set to 44.1kHz and buffer set to 512.

Using the help demo set of 11, the Dell plays it with dropouts, and the NUC won't play it at all when the vocals start. Very heavy CPU usage. I find it strange that Ableton would include a set in their help section that is so taxing of CPU right out of the gate; not a good thing to have the first help tool open on the new software barf on a very capable computer with far more capabilities than the stated minimum requirements. BTW I did everything I could find on the Ableton site to speed up operation of 11 on the NUC; after this optimization the Windows usage of the system was around 11% while it choked on the demo set. BTW the individual track CPU usage was very helpful; freezing a few tracks allowed the set to play properly on the NUC.

For a comparison I went through the Ableton 10 test posted in the forum, and both computers passed with an apparent peak of around 81% CPU with only a few CPU or drive warnings. I then saved the 10 test set and opened it in 11, and repeated the test. The results were very similar, however the cpu average load in 11 appeared to be a bit lower for each of the computers as compared to 10. I'm not sure if the average CPU load as depicted in 11 is comparable to the load as shown in 10, but if so, it almost appears as if the performance of 11 is a bit better than 10.

I would love to try opening the 11 help section set in 10, but 10 won't open it, and 11 does not appear to have an option to save the set in 10 format (which in itself is unusual). There might be other ways around such a thing but I haven't looked too hard. I am a real newbie in Ableton BTW, but have over a decade of experience with other DAWs.

Tarekith
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by Tarekith » Thu Jul 08, 2021 12:41 am

Do any of these ideas help you Windows users running into issues?

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/artic ... Farticle_1

Just saw this posted on Reddit, and it seems to be helping a lot of Live 11 users there.
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KiraCura
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by KiraCura » Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:22 pm

Ableton 10 was king for me. but Ableton 11? it's going bonkers and it just isn't cuttin' it.
-Problem: I'm getting that same High CPU indicator reading that everyone else is. and its causing audio pops every once in awhile when it decides to spike for absolutely no reason. (really its no reason. task manager says everythings fine.)
-Reasoning: See I have an extremely versatile Gaming Desktop that I myself custom built a little while back and its still very capable.
-Important Specs: GPU RTX 2080 Ti, 32GB DDR4 Corsair dominator RAM, i7-7820X CPU @ 3.60GHz (8 core with 16 threads).
-Unimportant Specs: ROG rampage VI omega black edition motherboard, 13 mag lev fans, liquid cooling to CPU, and a 1000w corsair PSU.
Do I need to be any more specific than this? My rig should be able to handle Ableton with flying colors... AND IT DID BEFORE 11.
My PC can currently run the latest games on high-ultra settings with ease, can even work with 3D animation related stuff pretty well, and other heavier computing programs like ableton quite darn well.. until 11. The thing that baffles me too is.. I know I don't have the most efficient CPU for gaming actually... but it is much more efficient for things like Ableton. So I just do not understand why this update is just blatantly lying about CPU usage. Especially if compared to the task manager.
I have no doubt in my mind Ableton 11 is very unstable performance wise... that or something really isn't playing nice with it.
I have also been reading various other comments where people have pretty decent rigs and they too are struggling so much to get Ableton 11 to work with them.. I really hope the Devs do something about this.. I just can't imagine a life without Ableton as I love this program so much and I'm highly sure so many others do too.
Hopefully with enough people posting about issues like this.. the devs may notice and come up with a plan to put everyone's minds at ease.

AbletonMASCHINE
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by AbletonMASCHINE » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:08 pm

KiraCura wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:22 pm
...
Hopefully with enough people posting about issues like this.. the devs may notice and come up with a plan to put everyone's minds at ease.
Hopefully every affected user contacts support and provides the affected project as an example.
Dev Teams need facts not complaints, only. If they have no facts they won't be willing and able to reproduce that issues.

I'm confident that you've already got a support ticket. :wink:

KiraCura
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by KiraCura » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:21 pm

So I don't exactly know what fixed the psycho CPU usage (on Ableton 11 at least) for now.. but I'll list what I did.
Forced VST's to only rescan. (did not uninstall them cuz reinstalling too much work) [but Ableton still wasn't being nice at this point]
Updated GPU driver to latest (nvidia)
Uninstalled Overwolf program (since it was just taking up stuff while idle N i didnt need it) {basically close out idle background programs}
Ran Razer Cortex program and used the Boost function (to clear up anything taking extra ram away (though I have 32GB and only free'd up like 2GB))
Razer Cortex auto closed Google Chrome (cuz I know it's also a resource guzzler) {although as I am typing this and ON chrome once again.. and running ableton alongside it.. no issues.. so I don't know if closing chrome matters.)
Set Priority to Realtime - under Details in task manager for ableton 11

and... voila... suddenly ... Ableton 11 is being nice again. No idea why but whatever. Hope this helps.
(also ive been monitoring my CPU usage via task manager under the Performance section. Here I can view all 16 of my logical processors (8 core but 16 threads) and see how they react to ableton 11. really it only looks like 'CPU 4' goes insane on one of my songs but the rest of the threads stay kinda chill. It just makes me wonder how Ableton distributes workload amongst the threads... not sure if anyone else is curious on this too. )
Last edited by KiraCura on Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

KiraCura
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by KiraCura » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:34 pm

AbletonMASCHINE wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:08 pm
KiraCura wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:22 pm
...
Hopefully with enough people posting about issues like this.. the devs may notice and come up with a plan to put everyone's minds at ease.
Hopefully every affected user contacts support and provides the affected project as an example.
Dev Teams need facts not complaints, only. If they have no facts they won't be willing and able to reproduce that issues.

I'm confident that you've already got a support ticket. :wink:
LOL dude you are so right. I forgot they had a support button X'D I'll definitely make a ticket if something comes up again though cuz i kinda fixed my issues

slow.robot
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by slow.robot » Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:12 pm

KiraCura wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:21 pm
So I don't exactly know what fixed the psycho CPU usage (on Ableton 11 at least) for now.. but I'll list what I did.
Forced VST's to only rescan. (did not uninstall them cuz reinstalling too much work) [but Ableton still wasn't being nice at this point]
Updated GPU driver to latest (nvidia)
Uninstalled Overwolf program (since it was just taking up stuff while idle N i didnt need it) {basically close out idle background programs}
Ran Razer Cortex program and used the Boost function (to clear up anything taking extra ram away (though I have 32GB and only free'd up like 2GB))
Razer Cortex auto closed Google Chrome (cuz I know it's also a resource guzzler) {although as I am typing this and ON chrome once again.. and running ableton alongside it.. no issues.. so I don't know if closing chrome matters.)
Set Priority to Realtime - under Details in task manager for ableton 11

and... voila... suddenly ... Ableton 11 is being nice again. No idea why but whatever. Hope this helps.
(also ive been monitoring my CPU usage via task manager under the Performance section. Here I can view all 16 of my logical processors (8 core but 16 threads) and see how they react to ableton 11. really it only looks like 'CPU 4' goes insane on one of my songs but the rest of the threads stay kinda chill. It just makes me wonder how Ableton distributes workload amongst the threads... not sure if anyone else is curious on this too. )
do you have auto update turned on? I think the newest version just came out in the last couple of days.

tomasmark79
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by tomasmark79 » Mon Jul 19, 2021 2:02 pm

I also have a nuclear submarine and I think the CPU load is the same. Maybe a little bigger. But I started using more objects on each top and it's fine.

I've really dealt with beta, speed, etc., and I can say that when it comes to CPU usage when playing, it's fine.

All problems are mostly related to Windows itself, the third-party plugin, the latency of the sound card driver, the size of the buffer.

The live itself runs otherwise great.
CPU AMD 9 3900X / CHIPSET AMD X570 / 32GB RAM 3200Mhz / GPU Nitro+ SE RX6900XT16GB / SSD 3TB, HDD 4TB / WIN10 20H2
https://music.debianium.com

.marc.
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by .marc. » Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:57 pm

tomasmark79 wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 2:02 pm
The live itself runs otherwise great.
... not really... also mac-users have the same problems.. not windows only...

[jur]
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by [jur] » Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:53 pm

AbletonMASCHINE wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:08 pm
KiraCura wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:22 pm
...
Hopefully with enough people posting about issues like this.. the devs may notice and come up with a plan to put everyone's minds at ease.
Hopefully every affected user contacts support and provides the affected project as an example.
Dev Teams need facts not complaints, only. If they have no facts they won't be willing and able to reproduce that issues.

I'm confident that you've already got a support ticket. :wink:
Exactly what I was about to post! And to do so, write to support@ableton.com
thx
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[jur]
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by [jur] » Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:56 pm

KiraCura wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:21 pm
It just makes me wonder how Ableton distributes workload amongst the threads... not sure if anyone else is curious on this too. )
Each track gets assigned to 1 core incrementally. You can read more about it here
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Angstrom
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by Angstrom » Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:11 pm

[jur] wrote:
Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:56 pm
KiraCura wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:21 pm
It just makes me wonder how Ableton distributes workload amongst the threads... not sure if anyone else is curious on this too. )
Each track gets assigned to 1 core incrementally. You can read more about it here
hopefully not derailing this topic but in the context of tracks and cores it's important to notice the section about routing. If a track is routed through effects, then to another track as a "bus", then the bus is routed through more inline effects then that's a single audio stream. additionally if more tracks are routed to the bus they are collectively one stream, and calculated as such. Equally, the example is given:
If two tracks are "chained" by routing, for instance by a side-chain routing, they are considered dependent tracks and count as one signal path.
In cases where people are sidechaining a lot of tracks then these are all on the one thread. If one of the sidechained tracks has some monstrous processing VST on there, then that's gonna crush that whole thread.

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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by Tarekith » Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:25 pm

Great reminder.
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Tipmaster1
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Re: Unusually high cpu usage in Ableton 11

Post by Tipmaster1 » Mon Aug 30, 2021 8:32 am

Hi guys,

I had the same issue, CPU always spiking on moderately complex projects, even though I have an i9 10900K.

check out this vid, step 3 fixed it for me (I know this vid was made for Live 9, still worked for me):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97vVx4isOQ

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