slow and glitchy...

[sharpee]

Have used 6, 4, and 3 and loved the programme for several years.

Now I get a new laptop with double speed, double ram, twin processor etc and Live 8 suite is hitting 60% cpu usage and ticking and glitching with 4 midi tracks from 2 instrument rack sounds, and double the buffer...

what gives?

[Angstrom]

you need to provide some system specs, hard to troubleshoot anything based on what you have said. Not even a platform clue.
Bit of a pointless post really.

4 midi tracks is plain wrong unless the computer is from 1998

[sharpee]

oops sorry.

PC, dual core, 2.2GHz, 2 Gig ram, 32bit vista

Echo indigo I/O

[Angstrom]

and have you selected the echo indigo ASIO drivers in Live's preferences?

[sharpee]

yeah.

but there's something wrong. Ableton crashes as soon as I open Reason. (Which runs fine on its own.)

I have the latest versions and drivers...


Frustrating.

[Angstrom]

very odd,
you may as well get hold of the latest beta for 8.1.4 from the beta forum.
Although it is a beta, it does fix a lot of nasty bugs, I cant recall seeing one that involves only being able to run four midi tracks though.

My desktop is roughly the same power as yours, and I'd guess my usual song has 15 to 20 midi tracks with all manner of layered instruments, effects, etc.
So something is wrong with your specific set-up somewhere.

[sharpee]

downloading now...


I'll keep you posted...

[sharpee]

have uninstalled live 8.0.3, echo indigo DJ IOx, reason 3.0.4.

have re-installed: Live 8.0.4b, echo drivers, reason, plus the rewire patch from the propellerheads site.

have also fiddled endlessly with audio settings, restarted etc etc


SAME PROBLEMS!

Reason runs fine on its own - many tracks, effects, automation... (for example CPU meter runs about 20% on the demo song.)

Ableton still glitchy after just 3 or 4 midi tracks with CPU meter on 55-60%, and with the song stopped, CPU meter is 15% !!!

And opening reason second, makes both crash instantly!

This is beyond a joke. I have work piling up!

[dom]

Hi Sharpee,

it sounds like you don't make use of simnple midi instruments but big racks.
There are some contruction kits in there, that are pretty hard on the cpu - just take a look into those racks to see what's going on there.
Another test would be just to try 4 Operators or load the performance test set you can find in the perfomance test thread.

Regarding the crashes: Please send us the crash report files that Live mentions when starting it after a crash and we will investigate those crashes.

Best,
Dom

[sharpee]

Found it!... I think.

A faulty mains power board, believe it or not! I didn't notice it was puting the laptop in and out of battery mode which was on a power save/low CPU setting... My old machine used to beep loudly when you plugged in or unplugged the charger...

I feel a bit silly, but quite relieved! Was thinking about re-installing windows!

Threw away the dodgy power board, and re-ran the CPU test. Was 60% - about right for other Vista machines with similar specs...

Hasn't helped the reason rewire prob, though. They both still crash instantly.

I sent a bug report the other day... Is a crash report the same thing?...

[Angstrom]

thanks for reporting back (even though I'm nothing to do with Ableton)
most people come here with weird issues and we never see them again, it can be baffling. So it's good that you found the problem and told us what it was. Perhaps one day someone else might experience something similar to you, and now they have a clue.

You get ten internet points.
You can spend them in the lounge

[sharpee]

aw shucks...

Have reset all the battery profiles etc now too, for performance over battery life.... In that power saving mode, Ableton would barely run the two track part of the performance test with 80% CPU! Definitely not what you want if the stage power is a bit dodgey at a gig. I should have said too, that my old machine was XP, and I'm still finding all the stuff to tweak in Vista...

[nap0130ns010]

I should of spotted this thread before I posted mine!

I have more or less similar specs to you and I have the same problem. What settings did you try to change? Plus if in my case if a new power board is needed, how much did it cost you?

[dom]

Just as Angstrom already wrote: Thanks for the status!

Cheers,
Dom

[sharpee]

The powerboard was an old one and I guess the contacts in it were bent or worn - I plugged a lamp in and had to wiggle the plug to make the light come on. The other three points on the board seemed fine, but I chucked it out anyway. The laptop charger itself is fine.

In Vista (and XP, from memory), the battery settings can be accessed just by right-clicking on the battery and power plug icon in the bottom right-hand corner. Then click on "power options".