Ableton Forum

Pasha wrote: ↑

Mon May 10, 2021 1:16 pm

I think I have reached a reproducible scenario with my tests and investigations.
Can a video be uploaded here?
If not is it legit to post on youtube and linking it?

Cheers
Thanks
Pasha

Yep, you could also quickly sum this up here, that might comes in handy for others.

I have been inspired by Tone Deft work 'Live 10 Performance Test'
I was trying to figure out a way to reproduce the issue ruling out VSTs and make it multi-platform.
Live 11 Demo Set at least on my computer does not run at all after tracks duplication.(audio glitches and distortion)
So I decided to use L10 Demo Set instead so I could also compare L10 and L11 load at the same time, as well as CPU spikes in Live 11 CPU Meter.
The L11 CPU Meter sometimes 'hides' Disk Overload so you have to take care.
That's what I did:

Take L10 Demo Live SET.
Load it in L11 (11.02 for me)
Play it
Observe the L11 CPU Meter compared to Activity Monitor there's is a significant difference.
Observe measure 7, 17, 29 those are the points of major challenge in the Project.
Duplicate tracks to reach 48 (or a number of tracks that you choose to be close to crisis. Crisis = Audio distortions / drop outs)
At 48 tracks when cursor reaches measure 7,17,29 observe CPU spikes and the more you go the more it happens (see my CPU temp raising). Towards the end of the song I had to raise the fan RPM.
The gap between CPU Live meter and Activity Monitor can be appreciated as Activity monitor is a permanent foreground window. I have also tried to reach 64 Tracks (which was possible in L10) and there the system exhibits instability (CPU Live indicator goes with spikes > 200%) I did not capture video as I didn't want risking to melt my CPU but I can if needed if I record the video with my mobile. (Here I have used Quicktime)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u3h-EB ... sp=sharing

Video has no audio as audio was fine with no glitches except when you see the bar count 'jumping'. At measure 21 a Spike occurs and thhere should be no reason for that to happen.

First thing to notice, when I press stop and Live is not playing, the CPU spikes at the start of the video. This happens on my other Mac and on Windows 10 Laptop. When reaching measure 7,17,29 L10 manages the load with less spikes while L11 seems 'unstable' compared to Activity Monitor. It seems that the unexpected load of more instruments makes the situation worse. It looks Live CPU calculation is based on a a different formula than Activity Monitor but this conclusion can be too simple. It really seems that Live measures itself not the system Load. That's why it spikes when you act on the GUI. Every action generates a load on the system but the measurement is not the system load (Activity Monitor stays quiet) is Live load. The Live set is rich of MIDI clips that L10 interprets as standard old MIDI but L11 has MPE and it might be that is partially the cause. One of my fav plugins G2M will introduce MPE in the next release so MPE is a great addition also for me, not being a pro. However if MPE could be switched off altogether maybe some spikes and loads could be managed better also by older machines. I do not know it there's a way or if it's easy to implement.

I have managed to superimpose the activity monitor on top of L11 CPU monitor to avoid seeing that 'restless' orange bar jumping around. I know L11 audio engine is solid and that spike won't affect my recording. (When I listen to recorded material it's ok). That's my stupid walk-around.

Hope this helps to uniform tests and findings. I spotted and reported the CPU Spikes thing during beta as well but it was too vague as an example. Now I think we can have a guiding methodology, thanks to Live 10 Performance Test and its inspiration.
As an enhancement request I propose to have a switch somewhere to make the CPU Load indicator behave as Activity Monitor does.

In any case, let's make music!
Cheers
Pasha

Edited : iMac 2013 2.9 GHz i5 quad core, 8Gb RAM, Live 10:35 and Live 11.02

[jur] wrote: ↑

Sat May 08, 2021 3:05 pm

hdrpbx wrote: ↑

Sat May 08, 2021 2:56 pm

I think the real problem is the new CPU meter showing short and fast transients, which I think it's distracting and not real useful information for the user, I'd rather see an average over a larger window of time.

This is true and many people are actually just experiencing this, visual distraction; no audio impact whatsoever.
You can right-click the cpu/disk overload indicator and deactivate it btw.

There's also known issue (that weren't present in L10) with some cracked plugins. Of course, this is everyone's own business but you can't expect Ableton to bother about this.

Uhm, not quite. As a user I'd still like to be able to see average CPU consumption that is not spiking from say 22% to 24% in the space of a few milliseconds, it's really not useful information for the human brain.

Hey Pasha, you should ad the version number of 11 to your original post and and the test post.
This way if in the next update it's fixed you're not sending people down rabbit holes.

Machinesworking wrote: ↑

Mon May 10, 2021 8:48 pm

Hey Pasha, you should ad the version number of 11 to your original post and and the test post.
This way if in the next update it's fixed you're not sending people down rabbit holes.

Deeply sorry...11.02, posts edited

Thanks Pasha.
Just a quick note as I read your post: indeed Live's CPU meter differs from Activity Monitor and it's documented here...
and providing/making deep analysis like you just did without knowing this proves once more that users can easily be confused because of the lack of knowledge in this area. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to minimise your effort, not at all, that's a general observation and I'm just using your post as an example. I certainly appreciate the time you took to share this to all of us!

I do remember doing L10 vs L11 tests using the L10 demo set and there wasn't any differences.

I know you checked the Max preference setting (event probe) I talked about earlier so it's apparently unrelated in your case. Still, if find it interesting that you're feeling like MPE could be involved here (which is exactly the case with this preference).

Don' forget to share any findings to [email protected], thanks!

Hi Jur,

Thanks for reply and explanation. I will read that more carefully. I work in Information Technologies and I like tech and learning.
I usually collaborate with Development when software shows less than ideal usability or behavior deviates from documentation.
I missed that document you linked. That will add to my knowledge. When I make music in front of Live I want to relax, free my mind and play but a good background is always welcomed.

The reason why I thought it might be MPE it's a simple logical deduction (which might prove wrong in some cases) because it wasn't there in L10. When I record in L11.02 some MIDI clips it gets worse even if I use Live native instruments (Live Suite here). The more MIDI Clips the more 'restless' the CPU monitor becomes. I am on 8 years old hardware so I keep an eye on it even if I shouldn't because my loads are usually less than 60%.

However with L11, the same things I do seem to tax the CPU more but I know now that the meaning of what I see is not what I thought.
Your article was issued for L10 but I have never felt the need to check it out against Activity Monitor.
Why now? Simply because L11 behavior is different and it caught my attention.
I think it's a fact that L10 and L11 CPU Monitor act differently and that the latter (albeit for me) is confusing and somewhat annoying as a User Experience.
I love Live and my next project will be based on L11. Personally I'd like to see 100% CPU as 'Hey Man, you have used all of your resources'. With time I will get used to new L11 CPU monitor but something in the back of my brain will always be firing warnings about a possible glitch as the 'restless' indicator will go.

Thanks again
Keep up the good work
make it even better whenever possible

Cheers
Pasha

11 does seem a bit hoggier.

I don't really have any big CPU issues on my system but I do get the CPU indicator LED to light up on spikes which I find annoying. There should be a bit more customization on this, (eg at what percent does it come on, should it go away on its on once load goes down or stay in alarm like a clip peak meter).



More disturbing though are some bugs:


1. Some projects wont load. My guess this is plugin related (Vocaloid I think). But if you save something, it should load.
2. Random crashes for various reasons.
3. Project might load but audio fails to load (occasionally)
4. Certain Ableton presets aren't loading in factory library. (Someone said these are old presets that were supposed to get deleted, but Ableton didn't delete them so it is annoying looking at presets you can't load).
5. When I drag folders in places, the library never find the files. Wav files usually are found but I haven't been able to find .mid files, and even my Ableton projects which can make transferring tracks to different projects annoying. I actually had to copy the project file manually into Ableton folder to force it to find file.

bump. still having cpu/disk overload issues even though windows task manager says i’m only using about half of my available resources. also, the GUI gets severely laggy when running large projects.

tjspurge wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:25 pm

bump. still having cpu/disk overload issues even though windows task manager says i’m only using about half of my available resources. also, the GUI gets severely laggy when running large projects.

If it's impacting performances with things like audio drop outs, then please contact [email protected] if you haven't already.

[jur] wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:45 pm

tjspurge wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:25 pm

bump. still having cpu/disk overload issues even though windows task manager says i’m only using about half of my available resources. also, the GUI gets severely laggy when running large projects.

If it's impacting performances with things like audio drop outs, then please contact [email protected] if you haven't already.

It's not causing dropouts, but it is definitely causing GUI lag/freezing. I opened a support ticket and the response I got was the usual "reset Live, etc". they also suggested it was because of my Midi devices, yet the problem still occurs without any devices connected. They also suggested I try recreating the problem with a blank live set LOL, if it's a blank set then nothing is happening which means there can be no problem.

TBH I'm looking at switching to bitwig, which is a shame because I've been using Live for 5 years.