Grand piano and other EIC instruments hog CPU

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kineticUk
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Post by kineticUk » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:15 am

I am linking an original thread because it contains information which I think is relevant to these problems. Note the mention of loading times "from a second to a few seconds"
Something is wrong ? http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49200
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TheAnimal
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Post by TheAnimal » Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:55 am

I've never gotten the red D so far, but the problems could indeed be related.

After a first read burst of about 25MB/s for a couple of seconds (that's when I'm seeing the spinning beachball) the system reports constant disk reads around 5MB/s. As soon as the disk I/Os stop (after 5 or 10 minutes or so), Live's CPU usage goes back to normal.

But as I said before: disk I/O does not put a lot of load on the CPU because of DMA. And it's a kernel task.

So there must be a lot of processing going on in Live to explain the CPU load. Nothing that has to do with disk I/O but with processing the loaded data.

I just hope Live doesn't have to decrypt the sound libraries ...
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Matthias
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Post by Matthias » Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:03 am

hi all,

the first time you open an EIC instrument, live has to analyze all samples after the instrument was loaded (creating asd-files). this can take a while and can cause a 100% cpu usage you see in the task manager but not in live's cpu meter. live's cpu meter just shows the cpu usage required for audio calculation and the analysation is not included there. even with 100% usage seen in task manager, live should play audio because the analysation runs in background.

best wishes,
matthias
Matthias Mayrock
ableton development team
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kineticUk
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Post by kineticUk » Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:32 am

So there are no performance problems then Matthias? Your explanation makes sense thanks...but what about the problem with the disk overloads lighting up all the time?
I never had this before Live 6, is this to do with the .asd as well?
Thanks
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Matthias
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Post by Matthias » Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:49 am

kineticUk wrote:So there are no performance problems then Matthias? Your explanation makes sense thanks... but what about the problem with the disk overloads lighting up all the time? I never had this before Live 6, is this to do with the .asd as well? Thanks
at least there should be no cpu performance problems when playing the EIC. it also depends on the number of voices you play simultaneously. with enough voices played, you get even the fastest disc overloaded. this depends much on the average disc access time and the rpm. I think, a defragmented 7200rpm disc would be good.

the analysation should not have big influences on the playing performance but there may be a relation we have not discovered yet.

best wishes,
matthias
Matthias Mayrock
ableton development team
mayrock@ableton.com

TheAnimal
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Post by TheAnimal » Sat Oct 21, 2006 4:44 pm

Matthias wrote:hi all,

the first time you open an EIC instrument, live has to analyze all samples after the instrument was loaded (creating asd-files). this can take a while and can cause a 100% cpu usage you see in the task manager but not in live's cpu meter. live's cpu meter just shows the cpu usage required for audio calculation and the analysation is not included there. even with 100% usage seen in task manager, live should play audio because the analysation runs in background.

best wishes,
matthias
What do you mean by "the first time"? I'm getting high CPU usage whenever I start Live and then use the grand piano in a midi track. That did not only happen the first time I used it but always. And the .asd files should all be created by now (and not over and over again), shouldn't they?
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Pasha
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Post by Pasha » Sun Oct 22, 2006 6:08 am

Matthias wrote:
kineticUk wrote:So there are no performance problems then Matthias? Your explanation makes sense thanks... but what about the problem with the disk overloads lighting up all the time? I never had this before Live 6, is this to do with the .asd as well? Thanks
at least there should be no cpu performance problems when playing the EIC. it also depends on the number of voices you play simultaneously. with enough voices played, you get even the fastest disc overloaded. this depends much on the average disc access time and the rpm. I think, a defragmented 7200rpm disc would be good.

the analysation should not have big influences on the playing performance but there may be a relation we have not discovered yet.

best wishes,
matthias
So a 5400 RPM disk is not enough for EIC?
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Cryptic UK
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Post by Cryptic UK » Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:37 pm

This has got to be sorted out, how can something like this not be seen by ableton before they released it.

Did someones brain fall out?
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kineticUk
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Post by kineticUk » Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:40 pm

I'm still not sure about this EIC thing. It would help if I could install it to a seperate drive too.
Whats the current situation with others using this, is anyone else having problems ?
Thanks
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longjohns
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Post by longjohns » Sat Nov 11, 2006 11:43 pm

i was having some problems with the EIC, but it's working well now after getting a SATA drive and moving my ableton library there. (also upped to 2G ram)

I can now play the grand piano with full 32 note poly no problem, no dropouts. cpu meter tops at about 30% for this... maybe a bit high but that it a huuuuuge sample set

benlowther
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Post by benlowther » Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:22 am

Surely the .asd files should be on the CD!? Why does the computer need to waste time creating them?

klangsulfat
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Post by klangsulfat » Tue Dec 05, 2006 12:24 pm

benlowther wrote:Surely the .asd files should be on the CD!? Why does the computer need to waste time creating them?
Thats I'm asking me too.

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