Live 12 cpu spikes - all good on 11...

[JD99]

Hi,
I get these crazy CPU spikes on Live 12, the same project plays fine on L11.. after a while that the project has been playing, say a minute or so, the spikes stop but unfortunately they start again when I stop and play again.
The same project on L11 has an average 11% CPU and absolutely no spikes.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
Processor 3,1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

Also I've noticed some projects with the buffer at 256 struggle to play even one single unwarped audio file with a few stock effects on it (eq, shifter, echo and a convolution reverb). I mean one single file.. this computer has 16 GB of Ram. I don't get it.

Test tone doesn't clip even with the CPU Usage Simulator at 80%.

Not much else is open on the laptop and anyways nothing is using much CPU at all as for Activity Monitor.

I'm at a loss.

[CH7]

The key requirement difference between Live 11 and Live 12 is that the CPU must support AXV2.

From your truncated description, I guess your i7 is a 5th-generation CPU, eg i7-5500U. If so, then you've passed this first hurdle but only just.

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... quirements

As it's a Mac that spike might be Apple's way of forcing you to upgrade. ;-/

In the meantime check your fan is clean and the ducts are clear, then i would set CPU usage on max/90% and not have it in some power-saving mode. This way Live doesn't have to ramp up the CPU each time it starts up, but has the CPU already at max from the get-go.

[vgmrmojo]

Mine does the same thing and it's an I7 12 generation AVX

[JD99]

In the meantime check your fan is clean and the ducts are clear, then i would set CPU usage on max/90% and not have it in some power-saving mode. This way Live doesn't have to ramp up the CPU each time it starts up, but has the CPU already at max from the get-go.

Thanks, valuable infos. How do I do that? Doesn't seem to be something I can do from the Live settings.

I mean it's definitely an issue with the spikes here cause average CPU is 30% on this live set I'm working on, there are barely any effects, it's mostly just audio (like maybe 5 clips at once) and midi going to external hardware, a bunch of drum racks with short samples in them which are activated by automation of the chain selector. It's really not a heavy set but sometimes I also get glitches when launching a scene. I mean I've done sets way more complicated than these like 12 years ago on way older computers..

[JD99]

From your truncated description, I guess your i7 is a 5th-generation CPU, eg i7-5500U. If so, then you've passed this first hurdle but only just.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro12,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3,1 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 16 GB
System Firmware Version: 489.0.0.0.0
OS Loader Version: 540.120.3~37
SMC Version (system): 2.28f7

[Lar-ZZ]

I had a big problem with 12 CPU high. Intel I-7. I was using an old 1st Gen Audio Interface. Switched to a new Behringer UMC, problem solved.
When I installed the Behringer, it came with a driver updater program. That identified 15 drivers on my PC that were out of date, and I updated most of those.
It's like a whole new system now , CPU use is really low.

[CH7]

From your truncated description, I guess your i7 is a 5th-generation CPU, eg i7-5500U. If so, then you've passed this first hurdle but only just.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro12,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3,1 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 16 GB
System Firmware Version: 489.0.0.0.0
OS Loader Version: 540.120.3~37
SMC Version (system): 2.28f7

Sorry about the delay. Under Windows, you would go to the battery settings and start there. I don't know how you would do this on a MacBook. Try searching YouTube 'Macbook performance settings'. eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0xuN0cWF8k

[xuoham]

Mine does the same thing and it's an I7 12 generation AVX

Same problem here too with Live12.
Sometimes fine for an hour, sometimes annoying random spikes and audio glitches at random places in a project.

Antivirus off, internet off, 3r party plugins off, CPU throttling off, fine tuned power plan ...

Windows11 Intel Core i7-8700 CPU@3.20GHz AVX2 supported 32G RAM AMD Radeon R7 430 GPU + Intel UHD 630 GPU

Live CPU meter shows "spikes" but at the same time everything is quiet on Task Manager, performance tab, CPU and GPU.

I first thought it was my Scarlett 6i6 1st gen audio interface that doesn't go with Live12, but i get the same
problem with other audio interfaces as well.

Really puzzling.
Really annoying ...

[xuoham]

I have to correct myself:

I upgraded to L12 at the same time that i got a new PC, with Windows11.

I said it was all good with Live 11, yes, but that was with my former PC with Windows 10.

Now, i have the same problem with Live11 as well.

I spent most of the day searching and it appears that Windows 11 is really horrible for audio in its present state and Live12 has nothing to do with it.

Threads like this one, where even IT experts chime in seem to show that Windows 11 is the real culprit here.

[xuoham]

Meanwhile, after quite some time searching, i learned something about CPU core parking and so far so good, it seems that it solved my problem.

Switching off CPU core parking enables all my 6 cores (actually 12 thanks to Coffee Lake i7) to work at their full potential.

So, to anyone with a multi core CPU that might be helpful.

However it seems to me that Windows 10 was much smoother with audio, regardless.