Could bad performance be caused by this?

[Crealive]

Hi people.

I've been silent for a while. Not that my problems went away I just needed a break from this forum since all the bugfixing was killing me.

However, today I actually made some music for the first time in months since I got Live working enough to satisfy me.

To start with I was having really poor performance and all the spikes, cracle etc. The funny thing was that some days ago I started Live and it worked like a charm and I hadn't really do anything to my laptop in the meantime. Strange! So I tried lifting it from the table with some books so that it could suck more cold air in underneath. Rebooted, and Live worked again with pretty stable and fine performance.

So I'm thinking could there be something inside my laptop that is automatically adjusting something with my CPU. Maybe slowing it a little if it gets too hot and thereby freaking Live out??? I don't know - it's a long shot!

However it could explain why I have sometimes been able to work fine for 15-30 minutes without crackles and my songs playing nice in the beginning and then gradually worse. Maybe due to the pc slowly heating!

[icedsushi]

On mac there's an "energy saver" setting where it will try to save the laptop's battery by limiting power levels. And you should always set it to "highest performance" to make sure the processor is always running at top speed. I think it might also keep the fans running instead of slowing the processor to save battery when things heat up.

Perhaps there is a similar setting on PC?

[roby]

It could be the case. I'm able to play Doom 3 on my laptop but only after disabling all power management settings, thus making the fans run all the time to keep the cpu cool. If I leave the power management on, then after a while of playing, and when the laptop starts to get really hot, the graphics and game play start to suffer alot. Of course comparing Live to Doom 3 is like comparing a Honda to a Hummer.
So when I work on music, I always have PM off and the fans are always on (noisy as fuck though). I also have one of those laptop riser/podium thingies that lift the PC in an angle, so there's air flow underneath the machine. I've never experienced any spikes or audio glitches after a period of time with Live. Again, I'm not saying that this is your problem and that this is also the solution, but it is worth a try.
You could also see if you can clean your fans (and the inside of your laptop for that matter) with compressed air and a small vacuum. Dirty fans do not cool very well, and dusty electronics get hotter than normal.

Also (I'm too lazy to do a search), I wonder if the majority of the people with with this same problem are on laptops as opposed to desktops???

[henry ford]

Hi people.

I've been silent for a while. Not that my problems went away I just needed a break from this forum since all the bugfixing was killing me.

However, today I actually made some music for the first time in months since I got Live working enough to satisfy me.

To start with I was having really poor performance and all the spikes, cracle etc. The funny thing was that some days ago I started Live and it worked like a charm and I hadn't really do anything to my laptop in the meantime. Strange! So I tried lifting it from the table with some books so that it could suck more cold air in underneath. Rebooted, and Live worked again with pretty stable and fine performance.

So I'm thinking could there be something inside my laptop that is automatically adjusting something with my CPU. Maybe slowing it a little if it gets too hot and thereby freaking Live out??? I don't know - it's a long shot!

However it could explain why I have sometimes been able to work fine for 15-30 minutes without crackles and my songs playing nice in the beginning and then gradually worse. Maybe due to the pc slowly heating!

nah , live 5.03 is the only piece of software thats experiencing these problems with performance....and previous versions didnt....so I'm not about to put it down to the machine

(i've always got power management off , and i've got my system tweaked for audio performance...)

[henry ford]

Also (I'm too lazy to do a search), I wonder if the majority of the people with with this same problem are on laptops as opposed to desktops???

thats kind of like blaming the firewire (maudio?) interfaces for the audio glitches.... it defies sense , because as a product , live's implied use (or at least one of the major projected selling points) is laptops with external audio devices....

in my eyes , the fact is live 4 worked like a charm , under the same circumstances , and now live5.03 is problematic.... so i'm not about to go down that avenue of blaming hardware setups , that are very common and are infact part of the selling point of this software....

[Machinate]

Notice that Roby has the same problem on several pieces of software - thus making the problem software-independent.

The denominator would be the overheating laptop.

Crealive, it is not uncommon for laptops to lose performance over time due to overheating.

Henry, I think these people may be talking about problems different from the ones you're talking about?

[henry ford]

Notice that Roby has the same problem on several pieces of software - thus making the problem software-independent.

The denominator would be the overheating laptop.

Crealive, it is not uncommon for laptops to lose performance over time due to overheating.

Henry, I think these people may be talking about problems different from the ones you're talking about?

theres no doubt that overheating laptops cause problems with software. thats a given. Roby was just stating the obvious , I of course am speaking for myself and under the assumption that this has been ruled out...which i think it has. This is not an overheating laptop issue. not for crealive , and not for me. and not for other people with the same audio glitch problems.

it would have been noted a long time ago if it was , I'd rather find the root of the problem than waste time on these issues.

[quandry]

YES! My toshiba laptop has a somewhat poor fan/heatsink design, plus I keep it on 24/7 and never dust in my house (or clean, I live in a pigstye). Anyhow, every six months or so, my fans will be on at all times, and eventually my Live cpu will double soon after starting the program, and when this happens I get crackles. When I first found out the problem was heat a few years ago, it was so bad that whenever I rendered audio to disk, or rendered a view in my architecture CAD program, the computer would just instantly shut off to black screen while rendering. Since it did it with two different programs, both while doing very processor intensive tasks, I was able to do a bit of net research and confirm that I had a dust buildup on the backside of my copper heatsink, making the fans ineffective, and causing the processor to get so hot that the machine shuts down to protect it.

The solution is simply to remove the heatsink and clean the dust bunnies off of it. It makes a HUGE difference in performance across the board, and live goes back to working like a dream. I've posted this info here a lot, because I think that as laptops get over a year old and are used heavily, this is a common problem, and the results are often poor performance and crackles in Live. Since it gradually onsets and most ppl don't know about it, it is hard to diagnos and easy to blame the software or soundcard. If you feel comfortable doing it, anyone with these symptoms (i.e. Live has worked great in the past but now is crackling, or works for 5-30 minutes fine but then starts crackling) you should remove your heatsink and clean it off. If you want to, do yourself a favor and replace the heat-transfer grease that couples the heatsink to the processor with quality grease like arctic silver. Clean it whenever you realize that your fans are constantly on. Works great for me.

Ryan

[roby]

thats kind of like blaming the firewire (maudio?) interfaces for the audio glitches.... it defies sense , because as a product , live's implied use (or at least one of the major projected selling points) is laptops with external audio devices....

Actually, my point was that, if most problems were laptop related, and in relation with the original post, maybe it has something to do with laptop's default power management settings. I'm assuming that desktops have better power management and cooling systems than laptops...
Just throwing ideas at the table

Sure i'm stating the obvious, but it is not that obvious to many people still. In fact, I do take this for granted sometimes

[henry ford]

roby , i agree with you...but all that being said and done , I dont believe this is a hardware problem. and at the same time , overheating will cause problems etc...but lets not lose sight of the real problem , just because these well known documented issues can also cause the same symptoms.

[forgie]

Ok here's a thought for you: on my old Dell 2.2Ghz P4 laptop, iTunes would glitch everytime the processor changed speed. (Pentium 4s, and G4s have two or more speeds) When I manually set the cpu to lowest or highest (I used a handy utility called SpeedSwitchXP, which I'd recommend ALL windows laptop users install) the glitching and clicking went away. Note that you can force the highest CPU speed on a windows laptop by going into the "Power Management" control panel and selecting the "Always On" profile.

On a mac, you can do the same thing by choosing "Highest" for "Processor Performance" in the "Energy Saver" system preference.

henry ford, a LOT of people don't know about these things, and if the Abes inadvertently changed the way audio is handled in relation to CPU cycles, processor throttling could be causing problems (where it didn't previously). I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying maybe it could be one potential cause of problems in Live.

There's little to lose in theorising more and gathering more info on problems, but there is a lot to lose by dismissing potential problems because YOU don't believe it to be the problem that you're having.


btw here is that utility: SpeedSwitchXP

Seriously, this is one of the first things I install on windows laptops.

[henry ford]

unfortunately,
[more] time [and more complaints] will tell

[craw]

roby has an excellent point.

Some years ago I was into games, and was always trying to overclock my CPU, but I never had any success, until someone pointed out that I should probably be UNDERclocking my machine in order to stabilise it, and thus gain some real world advantage.

try it and see.


henri ford said:
thats kind of like blaming the firewire (maudio?) interfaces for the audio glitches...

henri, I respect your posts man, and I agree that this defies sense, and it aint maudio, but there is definitely a firewire issue (mabye not for everybody).

eg. 1 bar loop in complex warp mode with on board sound: 3% CPU
eg. 1 bar loop in complex mode wit maudio firewire audiophile: 20% CPU
eg. 1 bar loop in complex mode wit maudio PCI audiophile: 3% CPU.

the above test was performed on a PC (AMD 64; 1GIG RAM)

eg. 1 bar loop in complex warp mode with on board sound: 2% CPU
eg. 1 bar loop in complex mode wit maudio firewire audiophile: 30% CPU

this test was done on a mac G4 power book.

MAC or PC, firewire sucks for me (and my friends ... don't know about you guys)

my 2 points:

heat is an issue sometimes
sometimes firewire sucks

[henry ford]

thats a hell of a cpu price to pay to use a firewire interface....

the strange thing is tho , when i experience these audio glitches the cpu isnt pushed at all (a steady 7%). not only that , the 1 bar loops arent being warped and they're being played at their original tempo.....

someone else posted with the same problem [too lazy to search right now], and they're using a pentium 4 3ghz 1 gig (or was it two?...i dunno if two is possible..) desktop ....I mean to say , even if the firewire is gobbling cpu......doesnt it stand to reason that the audio should still have enough resources not to glitch ?

[quandry]

thats a hell of a cpu price to pay to use a firewire interface....

the strange thing is tho , when i experience these audio glitches the cpu isnt pushed at all (a steady 7%). not only that , the 1 bar loops arent being warped and they're being played at their original tempo.....

someone else posted with the same problem [too lazy to search right now], and they're using a pentium 4 3ghz 1 gig (or was it two?...i dunno if two is possible..) desktop ....I mean to say , even if the firewire is gobbling cpu......doesnt it stand to reason that the audio should still have enough resources not to glitch ?

I think there is more than just the cpu meter% that can cause spikes. On my system and a friends ibook g3, the slow speed of the internal hard drives can cause glitches when playing back (or recording) a number of tracks on the internal drive, even though the cpu meter is low. Then there's the soundcard, fw, or pcmcia/pci, or fw via pcmcia. On top of that there is the manufacturer of the interface, or the fw and/or pcmcia controller. The Maudio 410 may work for some, but just on this board I've read dozens of complaints from people on both platforms--clearly it is not as smooth of an interface as an RME. Not only that, but you have drivers for these interfaces that may or may not suck. Then there are heat issues such as I've had and others on this thread might have. Then you have latency settings, and general computer tweaks and setup. There are just so many variables, and for many of these, the cpu meter stays well within normal limits even though audio is glitching. With so many variables, it is really hard to pinpoint problems or to even compared most systems that aren't extremely similar. anyhow, just my 2 cents on things that can cause glitches, and yes, both desktops and some laptops can have 2 gigs RAM, some desktops even 4 or more.