Discrepancies between Ableton CPU meter and the system CPU

[lalo]

Hi,
i noticed that the CPU meter in Live show far higher cpu consumption values that the one
i read in the system performance meter from the task manager in windows 7 professional 64 bit.ù
i am on a i7 quad core pc laptop witg 2.20 Ghz and i have activated the multicore option in the Live preferences.
i'm on Live 8.3.3 ( so 32 bit )

thanks and all the best

a.

[supamonsta]

I also noticed this a long time from now on mac os X, either dual core or i7.

I always wondered why, but never took time to search about this. Did you google that? I'll try.

cheers

[lalo]

hi i googled it..but not found any relevant info. i'll keep tryin'.
thanks
a.

[Mister36]

I believe (from what I've been told) that the Live CPU meter shows the highest load of any single core at the current time, whereas your OS CPU monitor will show the overall load of all available cores.

[xzusa8ky]

That also my experience in Live on OSX Lion.

[kitekrazy]

Hi,
i noticed that the CPU meter in Live show far higher cpu consumption values that the one
i read in the system performance meter from the task manager in windows 7 professional 64 bit.ù
i am on a i7 quad core pc laptop witg 2.20 Ghz and i have activated the multicore option in the Live preferences.
i'm on Live 8.3.3 ( so 32 bit )

thanks and all the best

a.

I think that exists in just about every DAW.

[Tone Deft]

it's a measure of the usage of available CPU, not overall CPU.

page 484 of the manual...

"The Control Bar’s CPU meter displays how much of the computer’s computational potential is currently being used."

http://downloads.ableton.com/manuals/80 ... ual_en.pdf

[lalo]

it's a measure of the usage of available CPU, not overall CPU.

page 484 of the manual...

"The Control Bar’s CPU meter displays how much of the computer’s computational potential is currently being used."

http://downloads.ableton.com/manuals/80 ... ual_en.pdf

thanks, but sorry i don't really understand what this exactly means and implies. In Reaper for example loading the same plugins in an audio track, the daw cpu meter is identical ( more or less ) to the system one.
maybe there is some strange thing in Live about multicore processing?
thanks
a.

[Mister36]

maybe there is some strange thing in Live about multicore processing?

Yes. In comparison to Reaper's implementation, it's crap.

[chilleddreams]

On my system it's quite opposite: Live's CPU meter is way lower than the OSX meter. I have a C2D 2,4 GHz .

I think Live measures only its own audio processing stuff but doesn't take care of 3rd party plugin CPU utilization (VSTs/AUs). For my experience the audio starts dropping when the OSX meter goes up to 90%...100%. But Live's CPU meter sometimes shows only about 60% in such situations.

Maybe it's not easy to calculate a real value. If one of 2 CPU cores is busy by 100% but the other one is idle, this might be shown as 50%. But dropouts will occur, since the the core which processes the stream is overloaded.

[H20nly]

it's a measure of the usage of available CPU, not overall CPU.

page 484 of the manual...

"The Control Bar’s CPU meter displays how much of the computer’s computational potential is currently being used."

http://downloads.ableton.com/manuals/80 ... ual_en.pdf

the problem with that ^ statement is when the meter spikes to 200% or... hell... anything more than 100%

how can it be using more than "all"?

[Tone Deft]

it's a measure of the usage of available CPU, not overall CPU.

page 484 of the manual...

"The Control Bar’s CPU meter displays how much of the computer’s computational potential is currently being used."

http://downloads.ableton.com/manuals/80 ... ual_en.pdf

the problem with that ^ statement is when the meter spikes to 200% or... hell... anything more than 100%

how can it be using more than "all"?

I take that to mean that it's dipping into using resources that other programs are currently using.

really, does it matter? if the audio is glitching that's all that matters. the CPU meter is just a vague guide to how hard you're basically pushing Live.

[H20nly]

agreed but giving it 110% is just an expression. if Live is stealing resources from other applications... then it's no wonder that people's systems would crash.

the only real benefit i have found from Live's CPU meter is that when it starts bouncing/jumping from a low number to a much higher number - back and forth... then i know it's time to reboot.

[andydes]

Actually, it's not really a percentage of cpu capacity.

It's the time required to process everything compared to the time available.

Ie. Time to process buffer divided by buffer length times 100.

Just don't ask where I got that from.

[Tone Deft]

Actually, it's not really a percentage of cpu capacity.

It's the time required to process everything compared to the time available.

Ie. Time to process buffer divided by buffer length times 100.

Just don't ask where I got that from.

me thinks it's someone dumbing it down for you.
it's about MIPS,
Millions Of
Instructions
Per
Second.