CPU overload with dual monitor

[djcyph]

been going crazy last few days figuring out why im getting CPU overload on tracks i never had in the past. turns out as soon as i disconnect my second monitor problem is solved. im on mid 2010 macbook pro. NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 256 MB graphics. any tips to help with this besides freezing/flattening? is there some tweaks i can do to the graphics card? driver?

thanks

[dualcitizen]

Have you tried increasing the buffer size under Preferences/Audio?

[Richie Witch]

Sounds like your graphics card doesn't really have the processing power for a second monitor, so it's forcing the CPU to take on the overload from the GPU. It wouldn't be noticeable until you also ask the CPU to run a processor-intensive application like Live. The technology on that graphics card is five years old and 256 MB is pretty light for handling a dual-monitor setup.

If this was a PC, I'd say it's time to upgrade your graphics card, but since it's an Mac laptop, I'm not sure what options you have.

You could try to reduce your screen resolution, but it might just cause more problems running your monitors at non-native resolutions. Worth a try though.

[djcyph]

yea buffer size increased all the way at one point. i decided to fix permissions in recovery mode, reset PRAM and SMC and it seems to be running a lot better.

[eyeknow]

Ima dive in here. When I used live, I had almost NO problems with CPU (compared especially to others) but one thing that was strange was that sometimes when using certain sites on the web, there would be a big hit.

I've also experienced this with other hosts so OBVIOUSLY it's a graphics/driver thing.

Now, I don't have a solution, but I'm pretty sure that that is a good place to start.