CPU Question

[p0ak]

Hello all,
I am running live 9 on a late 2013 Mac Pro [3.7 GHz Quad-Core with 32gb of Ram] with an Apollo Twin Solo Interface. I am upsampling to 96khz and I will adjust buffer size depending on the project ranging from 128 - 2048 sometimes.

The question is - How come Ableton's CPU meter will max out, and start dropping audio but when i tab over to my Desktop CPU meter It will say there is still 15gb of free ram and CPU meter reads 60-80% idle?

I have enabled the option for "multicore processing" in live's settings tabs, and have no other applications running. Is there anything I can do to allow live to take advantage of more cpu power? Or what would I need to upgrade to be able to run more tracks at 96khz.


Thanks all,

[p0ak]

also, I'm aware of all the cpu reducing options {lowering sample rate, freeze / flatten, ect}

[Stromkraft]

The question is - How come Ableton's CPU meter will max out, and start dropping audio but when i tab over to my Desktop CPU meter It will say there is still 15gb of free ram and CPU meter reads 60-80% idle?

You're not giving sufficient info on how your project is constructed here, but it could be you're over the limit on one core. That's not very easy to do, but if you use a demanding softsynths and plugins on the same track in a 96Khz project that can happen quite fast. One track is never on more than one core.

There's more info in the articles: Why does Live's CPU meter show a different load than the Activity Monitor/Task Manager? and High CPU load on one core when using multi-core machines.

But it could also be that you have an issue with your audio interface, like drivers that doesn't agree with your OS version or something like that.

[p0ak]

Hmm, I will check out your links and see if I can find anything.
I guess i'm just wondering if live can take advantage of my computers full potential because right now it seems to only be using 50% or less of its power. (even though live's cpu meter is maxing out)

Right now im running about 8 tracks within 4 groups, 3 returns all with about 1-2 plugins on them and 3-4 on the master, ( I am using Ozone though which is pretty intensive)