Taming my spiking CPU

Crealive · Post by **Crealive** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 11:43 am

Hi,

I'm fighting cpu spikes like many on this forum. I experience the spikes when my song is first playing (when it has to fire new clips - there's a thread on this at the moment) and also when i am looping a section of the song each loop will spike.

Yesterday I went through a lot of tweaking doing all the stuff at www.musicxp.net and installing new versions of my audiodrivers. I then tried out the 5.03b5 and was positively surprised that it seemed to run a lot better than any of the previous 5 versions I had tried. Though there where still spikes they where much smaller (liveable) and it seemed like the cpu was much more stable and not constantly bouncing 20-40 % up and down just because I would be looping or playing clips.

Today I installed version b6 and was so disapointed since it ran like shit again. First I got angry but then I thought - this is simply too strange. Either Ableton has crap programmers adding more bugs each time they fix one or else I have a problem with my system.

Investigating this I first tried to cool my computer down - it was getting a bit hot on the cpu. Still spikes, but it seemed better - maybe just wish thinking. I then re-installed my audiodrivers again thinking - you never know - maybe something is doing something to something somewhere in there. - It worked! Spikes was once again reduced and most important of all the cpu load would be constant and right. The CPU heavy sections of my song which would make Live sink to its knees now played with a very constant cpu read. The CPU had been tamed - no wild jumps!

So:
www.musicxp.net: done
Cooled my CPU down (lifting my laptop from my table giving it more air)
installed drivers again even though they worked: done

Note: I'm still having lagtime when working in arrangement view, but this is also better. (Should be since my cpu now has more resources). Still waiting 5 sec. when drag/drop/copy though.

Well, maybe this can be of help to someone.

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Fri Dec 16, 2005 10:56 pm

not me.
i basically did everything you did. i still get the glitches and cpu crazyness

Crealive · Post by **Crealive** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:06 am

Just an update.

Everything seemed to run okay and it did for a while. The cpu behaved a lot better and everything was a lot more responsive when working in arrange mode. However, after working with Live 5b6 - having a good time for a change - everything came crashing down. It went from good performance to absolutely critical and it did it without warning. Bam! Spike goes beyond 130% on a section that was just playing nice and smooth.

I hereby join the crowd of CPU-spike victims. Huge problem!!!

dpel · Post by **dpel** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:51 pm

Crealive wrote:Just an update.

Everything seemed to run okay and it did for a while. The cpu behaved a lot better and everything was a lot more responsive when working in arrange mode. However, after working with Live 5b6 - having a good time for a change - everything came crashing down. It went from good performance to absolutely critical and it did it without warning. Bam! Spike goes beyond 130% on a section that was just playing nice and smooth.

I hereby join the crowd of CPU-spike victims. Huge problem!!!

this issue seems to be "additive" in behavior. meaning, we all experience a similar
situatio where we establish a point where things are relatively working. then, the
cpu spikes happen with the interuptions and glitches in audio (usually after the program has been on for a long time)