ableton loads CPU while not playing

[kavabanga]

Hi everyone!
I have some strange problem with ableton. If i load some heavy project in ableton it starts to load the cpu up ot 30-40 percents depending on how heavy my project is. and i don't know how to solve this problem. reinstalling ableton doesn't helps. i use a lot of vst's and AU's
i use macbook pro. mac os 10.5.8 4gb memory, ableton 8.1.3
it would be awesome if anybody can help me! i appreciate it!

[Pitch Black]

That sounds like normal behaviour to me. If you have "lots of VSTs and AUs" in your Set, Live has to be running their processes in order to play them at any given moment upon receiving incoming, or sequenced, MIDI notes.

Live generally runs a higher CPU toll that other DAWs because of the gapless, non-linear, audio engine. It has to be able to do anything instantly - not just look ahead on the timeline and calculate the required CPU in advance.

As an experiment, try deleting the AUs and VSTs one by one and see if the CPU load falls.

HTH

[kavabanga]

a friend of mine told me that he doesn't have such a problem. his ableton shows about 0% of cpu load while it's stopped.

[Pitch Black]

Does your friend have exactly the same large Live Set loaded? On exactly the same computer configuration?, with exactly the same audio/MIDI hardware? Too many variables there... I reckon this still sounds normal.

Can you give us more of an idea of your Set: Track count / Scene count / total size of Samples used / what VSTs / what AUs / What native Live plugins are you using?

Also, what CPU load does a totally empty Set show on your computer?

[kavabanga]

he has the same macbook pro
about project - 35 tracks total
few send chanels
a lot of audio
i just realized that it's only two AU instruments - surge and ACE. and lots of eq's - apEq
on the master i have an ozone 4
when the project is stopped it shows 25%

[Pitch Black]

I have a MBP 2.33Ghz. In an empty Set I show 1% CPU when stopped. If I drop Ozone 4 on the master it jumps to 13-14% with playback stopped and all 6 Ozone modules enabled.

<edit> Check what your Audio Buffer is set to. If I make mine really small, it pushes the at rest CPU up to 20-24 %. If I make it as large as possible, at rest CPU goes down to 10%.

Just sayin' it seems like normal CPU loads to me. Are you actually having problems in playback/performance?

[kavabanga]

hmm. ok maybe it's normal
i just have strange movements of mouse when the cpu loaded more then 35%. only if ableton loads cpu more then 35. mouse cursor moves interrupted and it seems like it's moves faster. like ou increased sensitivity

[Pitch Black]

I believe Ableton always makes the audio stream the first priority, so graphics may slow down before the audio stream starts to choke.

[diogo_semedo]

I have the exact same problems kavabanga has. Its odd and I probably think it is NOT normal. Even with few vst/au. Why does this happen in L8 and not in L7?

[kavabanga]

I have the exact same problems kavabanga has. Its odd and I probably think it is NOT normal. Even with few vst/au. Why does this happen in L8 and not in L7?

does your mouse jumps unusually when the cpu loaded?

[[nis]]

As far as the CPU load is concerned, AU plugins will always consume CPU resources even when playback is stopped, whereas VSTs don't.

The mouse problems that you mention don't sound normal to me. Do you use the trackpad or an external mouse?

Best,
Nico

[kavabanga]

As far as the CPU load is concerned, AU plugins will always consume CPU resources even when playback is stopped, whereas VSTs don't.

The mouse problems that you mention don't sound normal to me. Do you use the trackpad or an external mouse?

Best,
Nico

it doesn't matter what i use. mouse jumps in both ways

[diogo_semedo]

I got the exact same text from Nico. Wonder if they have it some much that they have copy-paste-cenario answer?

Even people on Mac pro 8 cores have this - Abes, fix it!