Ableton Forum

I just upgraded to OSX Catalina. By CPU is at 80% and I only have this Chrome tab and the Activity Monitor open.

Obviously I can't use Live. It just chokes and plays noise.

Anyone else having this problem?

Thanks.

Aaron

since you have Activity Monitor open, what processes are using the CPU?

I've since restarted, and it seems to be better.

But when that was going on, there wasn't 80% of stuff going on in the activity monitor. Only about 10-15. There was some mystery process or processes that I couldn't see in Activity Monitor, hogging my CPU.

Is it possible Time Machine couldn't have been running a backup? I did have my external drive plugged in.

Thanks.

Aaron

So I take back what I said.

External Drive is unplugged. I started up fresh, then let it sit for 20 minutes before doing anything. Fan is cranking and CPU is up to 78%.

Also the Activity Monitor doesn't add up. According to it I'm using like 45%, but it says 78% used.

Also, Why would Activity Monitor take up 29% by itself?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dHq557 ... sp=sharing

PC user, but the CPU monitor in Live tells you how much of the remaining RAM is being used. so, if you're system is using 60% of your RAM, then Live is reporting how much of that remaining 40% is left. keep in mind that that remaining 40% changes constantly as your computer does what it does in the background.

read the HELP box for the CPU meter, or read the manual when you question these things.

GroverGrooves wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 18, 2020 12:20 pm

I've since restarted, and it seems to be better.

But when that was going on, there wasn't 80% of stuff going on in the activity monitor. Only about 10-15. There was some mystery process or processes that I couldn't see in Activity Monitor, hogging my CPU.

Live's performance meter isn't a cpu meter. It attempts to indicate the total load on the audio subsystem related stuff, including cpu, RAM, drive access.... It's possible your audio buffer setting is sending the cpu into Turbo mode which pretty much always kicks off an MBP fan but that sort of cpu load should be visible in Activity Monitor - though the Mac Activity Monitor reports cpu usage in a slightly odd way, on a quad core machine with hyper-threading full cpu usage = 800% (8 cores at 100% each). If you want to double check what processes are running on your Mac then, assuming your terminal shell is the default bash, open a terminal window and type ps aux <enter>. The output list is usually pretty long.

It is quite possible for live's meter to be high while cpu use is quite low because the measure somewhat different things. Activity Monitor should be giving you an assessment of actual cpu usage. Another useful tool for cpu monitoring is Intel's free Power Gadget.

It's possible you've been hit by whatever it is about Live 10 which can make the Mac WindowServer go into overdrive - there's a useful thread about that in the Tips and Tricks section of this forum if you search for it.

As for Time Machine, it tends to go berserk on a fresh install, and don't forget it does the hourly snapshots as well as major backups. Time Machine Manager is a useful tool to bring it to heel. Another possibility is that all the drives are being indexed by Spotlight, which can use a surprising amount of resources and take quite some time for its' first run through.

Tone Deft wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:54 pm

PC user, but the CPU monitor in Live tells you how much of the remaining RAM is being used. so, if you're system is using 60% of your RAM, then Live is reporting how much of that remaining 40% is left. keep in mind that that remaining 40% changes constantly as your computer does what it does in the background.

read the HELP box for the CPU meter, or read the manual when you question these things.

the Live CPU meter isn't a RAM meter.

digital audio is shuttled back and forth in audio systems in buffered chunks. according to Ableton the Live CPU meter is an audio processing meter that gives you an indication about how much of the time available to calculate each buffer of audio is being used up. this is important because when the buffers aren't processed fast enough, you get an audible glitch.

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

fishmonkey wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:56 am

the Live CPU meter isn't a RAM meter.

thanks, boot to the head appreciated. bad habit of phrasing I guess.