New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly (UPDATE: Possible Fix)

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
TLW
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by TLW » Fri May 03, 2019 2:21 pm

2018/19 Macs having problems with USB audio is a known issue - there are several threads about it on RME’s forums.

It seems Apple dropped the ball, but Mojave 10.14.4 seems to fix the problems.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.

chilleddreams
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Location: Leipzig/Germany

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by chilleddreams » Mon May 13, 2019 6:42 pm

Update from my side: I'm using an eGPU now with monitor attached to the external unit. Problems gone completely.
Mac mini 2018 i5 3 GHZ, 8 GB RAM, Sonnet eGPU
Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, Live 10 Suite, Push 2,
Maschine Studio, Electribe EMX/ESX, Pulse
UAD Satellite Duo

gunark
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by gunark » Mon May 13, 2019 6:57 pm

chilleddreams wrote:
Mon May 13, 2019 6:42 pm
Update from my side: I'm using an eGPU now with monitor attached to the external unit. Problems gone completely.
Interesting. I do wonder if my issues stem from a second screen on a USB C port. I’d rather not have to shell out for a mostly pointless egpu for audio though.

chilleddreams
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Location: Leipzig/Germany

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by chilleddreams » Tue May 14, 2019 7:00 pm

gunark wrote:
Mon May 13, 2019 6:57 pm
Interesting. I do wonder if my issues stem from a second screen on a USB C port. I’d rather not have to shell out for a mostly pointless egpu for audio though.
Then give it a try w/o second monitor. A guy from Ableton support also gave me a hint to try different screen resolutions. That also helped a bit. I'm using a single 4K monitor. It seems that the built-in Intel GPU from Mac mini has problems with high resolutions or scaling. Interestingly performance was better when I set the screen resolution to maximum (unscaled 4K). But then I wasn't able to read something. :)
Mac mini 2018 i5 3 GHZ, 8 GB RAM, Sonnet eGPU
Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, Live 10 Suite, Push 2,
Maschine Studio, Electribe EMX/ESX, Pulse
UAD Satellite Duo

tinmanjack
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by tinmanjack » Thu Jun 27, 2019 4:10 am

Have you tried this? It’s about reducing Live’s frame rate. I’m going to try it tomorrow, as I’m having dropouts if I go below 256 samples.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=230967

gunark
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:33 am

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by gunark » Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:37 am

tinmanjack wrote:
Thu Jun 27, 2019 4:10 am
Have you tried this? It’s about reducing Live’s frame rate. I’m going to try it tomorrow, as I’m having dropouts if I go below 256 samples.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=230967
Interesting! I’ll try that, and the Spotlight tip too.

Urgh, it’s like Windows 95 audio days again.

[jur]
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by [jur] » Thu Jun 27, 2019 6:32 am

Someone found a trick with monitor color's profile.
Read the 1st post from this page.
Ableton Forum Moderator

ffangio
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 1:58 pm

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by ffangio » Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:59 am

@op, did you have any luck?
I have exactly the same issue with my new i7 2018 Mini using a Focusrite Clarett 4 pre Thunderbolt through a TB3 to TB2 adapter (Apple).
Same issues with having to go to 512 samples to stop ridiculous clicking. None of my big projects will work without upping the samples even further.

Starting to think it's the adapter or just poor support for TB2 through the TB3 ports.

Had a weird one where latency on vst plugins was fine until I loaded the Access Virus Ti plugin, then the Virus was fine but all the software plugins suddenly had terrible latency. Turning off delay compensation in Live's Options menu solved the plugin latency but then the Virus became laggy. Exasperating.

TLW
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by TLW » Thu Jul 18, 2019 6:28 pm

If you've not already done so updating to OS 10.14.5 might help.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.

gunark
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:33 am

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by gunark » Sun Jul 21, 2019 1:53 pm

So here's a funny update. Opened a set of Omnisphere patches in Ableton, quite heavy, use some granularisation. In Live 10.1, as the only track with no other plugins loaded, I get 4-5 notes before it crackles. Focusrite Clarett Thunderbolt, 2048 buffer (512 buffer only allows 3). BUT load Omnisphere standalone, same patch and I get at least 10 notes with zero crackles, at 512 buffer and showing not ever 10% on the Omni settings CPU meter.

How is that right? Clearly the machine has horsepower to spare and the standalone shows that it runs fine. I get Live has overheads too but man, it KILLS my plugin performance. Seriously, I love Live but it's pretty much useless for me at present.

Mas OS fully up to date, Live up to date (no betas used).

Also, did check Live 9 and it's the same. Something doesn't like this chipset or setup.

gunark
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:33 am

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by gunark » Sun Jul 21, 2019 2:11 pm

Another funny update:

I have a 4K screen, set to scaled, recommended scale over DP. On the recommendation above to see if the scaling is the issue, I ran it at default for display.

Scaled: 4-5 notes
Default: 9-10 notes

While I'm still not convinced Live isn't causing some issues, there's clearly something afoot with the Intel video chipset in here and high resolutions...

UPDATE: 4K monitor swapped out for 1080p monitor, using the HDMI output - 512 buffer, at least 12 notes, ran out of fingers and face. I'm pretty certain that there's an issue either with the Mac mini and scaled from 4K resolutions over DP in general, or a conflict between that setting and Live and it's graphical handling.

[jur]
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by [jur] » Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:42 pm

I'm quoting myself, but did someone clicked the link and tried the explained trick with monitor color's palette?
[jur] wrote:
Thu Jun 27, 2019 6:32 am
Someone found a trick with monitor color's profile.
Read the 1st post from this page.
Ableton Forum Moderator

gunark
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:33 am

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by gunark » Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:10 pm

[jur] wrote:
Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:42 pm
I'm quoting myself, but did someone clicked the link and tried the explained trick with monitor color's palette?
[jur] wrote:
Thu Jun 27, 2019 6:32 am
Someone found a trick with monitor color's profile.
Read the 1st post from this page.
Ah that’s the one I meant to try too. Will give it a go. Odd though, you don’t expect the GPU to have that kind of effect.

TLW
Posts: 809
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 2:37 am

Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by TLW » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:22 am

gunark wrote:
Mon Jul 22, 2019 4:10 pm
Ah that’s the one I meant to try too. Will give it a go. Odd though, you don’t expect the GPU to have that kind of effect.
You wouldn’t expect Live’s standard screen refresh rate to cause problems for Macs with Intel graphics, but it can.

Back in the 90s/early 2000s gpus and their drivers were capable of causing all kinds of problems with low latency audio. Nowadays it seems Windows wi-fi adaptor drivers are a common culprit behind audio dropouts.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.

hipdeejay
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Re: New Apple machine with 8th Gen i7 (Mac mini) running badly

Post by hipdeejay » Thu Aug 08, 2019 7:05 am

chilleddreams wrote:
Mon May 13, 2019 6:42 pm
Update from my side: I'm using an eGPU now with monitor attached to the external unit. Problems gone completely.
Which eGPU and graphics card did you go with?

I've been experiencing similar issues as others in this thread and it's been driving me crazy. I'm using a maxed out 2018 Macbook Pro 15" with i9 six core, 32 gigs ram, etc, etc. So it should be powerful but when working on very simple sets in Live with not many plugins I kept getting crazy stuttering and glitching after a while. Changing the buffer did not help much, I also tried what others mentioned such as changing the color profile, display resolution, Live frame rate options.txt thing, etc and nothing worked

I should add that I only experience these issues when the Mac is connected to an LG 32" 4k display. If I unplug the display the CPU goes down and I can run the same projects perfectly fine without changing anything. So it's definitely a GPU problem. Mine has a Radeon 560 which if you google you will see many other users reporting issues with this card. Not sure if Mac mini's use the same GPU. The same monitor wouldn't even work at all when connected by a Thunderbolt 3 cable, I had to use a displayport to thunderbolt adapter just to get any signal to the monitor

It's good to know I'm not alone but yeah there's some serious issues with newer Macs and 4k displays, especially when trying to use Live at the same time. Closing other apps including firefox and turning off wifi help a bit but for some reason these computers are getting maxed out when using the 4k display when they should not be. Apple support and forums have been no help even though many others are experiencing similar issues

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