One loop, no effects = 50% CPU?!

rgbk · Post by **rgbk** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 2:51 pm

Hi there,
What on earth am I doing wrong? I have one drum loop playing with no effects. stop = 6% cpu, Play = 50% and then it starts crackling.... other times i can play a couple of tracks with loads of efects and nothing... Its all so eratic and hard to work out what new problem is causing the latency.... it's unbelievably infuriatiung... Could anyone give me a tip ion what to do?!

• I'm on a G5 iMac 2 Ghz with 1gig ram
• Im using 5.2.2
• I have a crappy Steinberg MI4 with latest firmware and drivers. Recently reinstalled.
• I'm on Mac OS X 10.4.8
• I'm using a BCF2000 fader connected via LC xview
• Processor on Highest.
• Latency is set on 512 samples.
• No other apps except for finder, live and LC Xview are open.

These are the things I know I need to check, what else could be making my mac act like its a 286?

Thanks

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:28 pm

I never used 5.2.2 on a PPC mac. I used previous versions without any problems on a G5 system. I'd suggest going back a version if you can.

It's just my suspicion that Ableton has yet to iron out a version of Live that works reliably on both older and newer (Intel) macs.

I think version 5.2.2 and 6.01 are causing a lot of glitches and pops for people (even on PCs).

Sorry I can't suggest anything else.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:42 pm

I have a PC laptop which is fairly powerful (P4 3.2 Ghz, 1 GB dual channel ram, 7200 rpm HDD etc) which runs Cubase SX and Reason really well using my Echo Indigo IO pcmcia audio card but running the Live 6 demo I am encountering the same problems, really high CPU load, especially in Live's monitor (does this measure CPU or ASIO activitity, as when Ableton's CPU meter is showing 67%, win task manager shows 35%) however, the Live reading is accurate for glitching/pops/dropouts etc in that if I set it to 70% and it shows 70& you get the pop or drop out.

Usually I can get 2-3 loops playing only before it hits the ceiling. It does work a little better with MIDI tracks playing in simpler etc, can run several of those without issue but it's very disappointing. I can run 14-16 tracks audio track w/ effectss in Cubase at 256 samples (6ms latency) or more than 20 at 512 samples and not have any glitching occur. I try to play back 3 or more audio tracks in Live and it is an unbearable hash of dropouts. clicks and digital noises.

Maybe it is because the audio card doesn't work well but as the Echo Indigo is a well known and popular card for laptop recording on the go and works killer with Reason (which I can usually run at 128 samples 3ms latency if 10 racks or less) and Cubase, please advise what card works with Live 6. I have seem an Maudio 410 firewire interface bundled together for a not unreasonable price.

I think Live 6 needs a few bugs ironing out before I can consider purchasing or at least for tech support to find out why it is hogging the CPU so much, could be something as simple as a little tweak in a setting or working with audio card people to get drivers working, I don't know but I am truly disappointed, I was really looking forward to buying Live 6.

rgbk · Post by **rgbk** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 10:25 pm

I must say I get a lot of latency issues with cubase sometimes too. But With Live its inconsistent, it sometiems runs really smoothly other times its a mess.

Heres one for you, when I do the latency buffer / test tone tuning in the preferences panel, if I change the latency all audio stops completely. I have to switch to driver type: none, and then back to :Core Audio. Could anyone tell me what that problem could be? Obvisiouly its not right cos in the lessons it says i should move it till it stops popping.

Here's nother one: I get more pops on latency of 1800 samples then i do at 350?!

It all seems really odd. If any of you ahve had this latency weirdness please let me know, thanks.

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 1:39 pm

RGBK,

First off, too high a buffer can produce the same results as too small a buffer. Second: what kind of setup do you have?

Now, after extensive testing and communication with other people, I've just found out that Live 6 is much more dependent on the speed of your hard drive than you'd ever imagine. For latency issues make sure you're using either a 7200 rpm internal drive or (better yet) a separate firewire 400 or 800 drive for all your audio projects and samples (and I mean all of 'em, even th ones your sampler plug-ins access). Live 6 requires constant reading of your hard drive so this means that even if you are simply DJing tracks off Live you will need something faster than a 5200 rpm drive to simply get good results.

I got a macbook pro C2D with 2 gig ram but a 5200 rpm drive! I got constant pops and glitches until I moved all my audio projects and samples onto an external firewire drive. Now I can work on projects with a buffer size of 64 samples without any pops or glitches.

rgbk · Post by **rgbk** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 1:55 pm

wow that is pretty interesting.

I recently bought a 250gig freecom drive and its got a rpm of 7200

But It connects via USB 2.0... reckon that would be worse off or maybe even better then firewire?

Will be trying this out tonight, thanks.

Marc

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:17 pm

USB 2.0 can be quicker than firewire 400 if properly implemented. My Maxtor Ultra Touch III runs faster on USB 2.0 on my PC by a small touch. Firewire 800 is faster but not many drives are supporting that on PC at the moment.

Also win XP sp2 broke firewire and causes it to run at 1/4 speed. A patch is available from Microsoft which fixes it.

I have an internal drive running at 7200 on my laptop and the combination of this plus the external drive is totally fine for cubase sx and reason but live 6 is running like molasses in my computer, 3 audio tracks is the best I can get and any clip switching brings up the sandtimer, sometimes causing glitches, othertimes not. Something is not right, maybe it doesn't like my soundcard (Echo Indigo IO) but Reason and Cubase work fine with it. Maybe an update will address this as quite a number of Mac and PC posters are suffering these CPU load and latency issues with Live 6 right now.

leejones · Post by **leejones** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 10:42 pm

I recently built a new comp for DJ'in. Instead of lappy, I went for ASUS PUNDIT P1 AH1. I've put an AMD Athlon x 2 64 4600, 1GB RAM, 36gb RAPTOR 10K RPM SATA HDD. Presonus FIREBOX. WIN XP PRO. Live 6.

When I first built the system, I seemed to get very irratic spikes to 100% in both CPUs. I thought maybe 1GB RAM wasnt enough, but watching in Task Manager, I always have at least 275mb free.

Having setup Windows for peformance over graphics, windows itselfs and live both load lightning quick. I have however only the one HDD. The RAPTOR was recommended for me to get. Should I be running 2 though? 1 for Live and 1 for Data? The PC is being used for nothing else other than Live.

The spikes in CPU seemed to have stopped, but Live 6.01 does seem very irratic in how much CPU it uses. Also, even though DUAL CORE is selected, on Task Manager in windows, both CPUS look identical??? I'm not technical wizz, but shouldn't they be running at different rates doin different things???

vandeloow · Post by **vandeloow** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:32 am

rgbk wrote:...I have one drum loop playing with no effects. stop = 6% cpu, Play = 50% and then it starts crackling.... other times i can play a couple of tracks with loads of efects and nothing... Its all so eratic and hard to work out what new problem is causing the latency.... it's unbelievably infuriatiung... C

same here,

i use a song with 11 audio tracks. after certain time (around 1h), the cpu load in stop modus
is around 50%, in play mode about 107% (crackling).
before that effect, i can play the scenes without any problems (cpu in play mode around 60%)

my system:
os x 10.4.8
pb 1.67ghz 2gig ram
firewire 400 m-audio interface

rgbk · Post by **rgbk** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:50 am

I switched all my files to my usb 2.0 drive and it hasnt made thattt much of a difference. Im still suffering from bad glitches when using soft synths.

I think I'm just going to upgrade to 2 gigs of ram next month and see what happens then.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:24 am

2 gigs should help a bit (but may not be the amazing breakthrough you are hoping for) but there is more to it than that. Hell at the cubase forum a guy is complaining about cubase's performance (which is killer on my PC) yet on a 1.66 Ghz p4 with 512 megs he can run Live 6 much more successfully than me on my 3.2 Ghz pc and 1gig ram.

And Ableton don't care about it, I emailed them detailed information about the problems I experienced with all my hardware setup faithfully listed in detail and told them I want to buy if I can work through these problems.

Not a peep from them, they obviously don't give a cr*p about my potential custom or money I was really wanting to shell out. The live 5 demo ran a lot better on my computer and just as I was about to lay out the cash they upgrade to 6, excellent methinks. So far it is a huge disappointment because I really admire what Live is trying to do and how it could bring colour to my music. Oh well...

j24keys · Post by **j24keys** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:29 pm

leejones wrote: I have however only the one HDD. The RAPTOR was recommended for me to get. Should I be running 2 though? 1 for Live and 1 for Data? The PC is being used for nothing else other than Live.

No matter what the case, you should have atleast two hard drives running in your system. Never record to the drive what XP is installed on. That will severely decrease performance and increase latency. You can install your OS, Apps, and Samples to on drive, but record your sessions on temporary files on another drive. I ideal setup is to have 3 drives as follows: HDD1 (OS and Programs), HDD2(Session Files, Recordings, Renderings) and HDD3(Samples, Sound Banks). If there are only two hard drives, then the contents of HDD 1 and 3 described above should be on the first drive. This also prevents dropouts in audio.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:45 pm

On further investigation I found that my AC adapter was defective. SInce replacing it, performance has quadrupled, meaning I can get the 8 plus audio tracks at around 45% CPU usage - still higher then cubase sx or reason but acceptable for my needs.

One loop, no effects = 50% CPU?!

One loop, no effects = 50% CPU?!

2 HDD's?

Re: One loop, no effects = 50% CPU?!

Re: 2 HDD's?