Live 12 - Serious Issues - CPU Overload

[Sid.From.Ice.Age]

I'm having serious issues since installing Live 12.

1. The CPU overload indicator in Live keeps lighting up with even with like 4/5 stock Ableton plugins running and Ableton effects. Average % is around 35% which is insane. I could easily run 30 channels with 3rd party plugins from the likes of Softube, Universal Audio, Slate Digital, SSL etc before. Now Ableton stock barley works. It's very stuttery / laggy even loading stock plugins.

I have tried literally every forum / YT tweak out there configuring Windows, Ableton settings etc. I've even stripped down the PC and applied new thermal paste etc. Absolutely nothing will fix the CPU overload issue.

On PC side - There's hardly any CPU or RAM actually being consumed running Ableton and any background Windows processes etc so not sure why the load is so high inside Ableton. This was never an issue before.

It's a fresh install of windows with upgraded hardware, only licensed 3rd party plugins and ableton installed (no bloat).

Any help getting this resolved would be very much appreciated. Thanks in Advance

Full specs below:

OS: Windows 11 Pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800H 3.20 GHz
RAM: 32.0 GB DDR4 3200mhz
Storage: 2TB M.2 SSD
Power Settings: High Performance (Turbo Boost Disabled For Cooler CPU Temps)
Tweaks: All Background & Unnecessary Services Disabled
All 3rd party VST Plugins etc are genuine

[Franksmusic]

I have the same problem. After instelling Ableton 12 a week ago all was fine. Now it's almost unusable. CPU spikes all the time....

[SundogIllionaire]

I had a similar issue in 11 a while ago that started happening after it automatically updated to a new version. All the live native spectral plugins and hybrid / convolution reverbs would make my CPU spike and overload almost instantly even when no sound was running through them.

I can't remember exactly how I fixed it but from memory I think deleting the preferences file and also fixing up my permissions setting in windows security fixed the issue because they were restricting Live.

I had some issues with Live 12 too with VST's, saving projects, cpu usage etc. Make sure Live is running as an administrator (right click on the application and go to properties; compatibility) and check in Windows Security if you can see any notifications of it blocking anything like folder access in Protection History. Make sure Live 12 is authorised in there too. And try deleting your pref file also (or moving/renaming it). This seems to have fixed all my issues, I've been using it for a few days since I did this with no issues as yet.

[[nil]]

I'm having serious issues since installing Live 12.

1. The CPU overload indicator in Live keeps lighting up with even with like 4/5 stock Ableton plugins running and Ableton effects. Average % is around 35% which is insane. I could easily run 30 channels with 3rd party plugins from the likes of Softube, Universal Audio, Slate Digital, SSL etc before. Now Ableton stock barley works. It's very stuttery / laggy even loading stock plugins.
(...)
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800H 3.20 GHz
RAM: 32.0 GB DDR4 3200mhz
Storage: 2TB M.2 SSD
Power Settings: High Performance (Turbo Boost Disabled For Cooler CPU Temps)
Tweaks: All Background & Unnecessary Services Disabled
All 3rd party VST Plugins etc are genuine

If you're fine with it we could record a performance trace, as they can sometimes reveal the source of the issue. To do this:

(This uses tools that Microsoft ships with their operating system, called ETW)

1. First, download and install the latest release of UIForETW at https://github.com/google/UIforETW/releases:
   Download etwpackage1.59.zip, extract all to a folder it, then inside that folder go inside etwpackage then bin then run UIforETW.exe. It will quickly install a small package from microsoft called WPT (Windows Performance Toolkit) then show its main window.
2. Inside the "UI For ETW" window, press the "Start Tracing" button at the top-left corner.
3. Then start Ableton Live, open the Set that causes you trouble, interact with it a bit until you encounter the performance issue.
4. Alt-Tab to the UIForETW window and press the "Save Trace Buffers" button at the top-left corner.
5. After some time, the UI for ETW window will show a new element in the "Traces" list on the left. You can click on it, press F2 to give it a name or even add some documentation about what you were doing in the "Trace information" section to the right.
6. Then right-click the trace, click "browse folder" in the context menu and you should find a .etl file and possibly a .txt file next to it.
7. Compress that .etl file (and any .txt file next to it) to a zip file (right click on the .etl file in Windows Explorer and choose "Compress to Zip file")
8. Send a link to it to me via direct message. As the file can be quite large, we have to use something like Google Drive, Dropbox or Wetransfer

If my instructions are somewhat not clear, here's how Google explains how to do the same thing: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/ans ... e-etw-data

Once I get the zip file with the etl I'll need to analyze it to see if it can tell us anything concreate about why the CPU load is so high.

[Franksmusic]

still looking into this problem. It seems like some VST's just take a lot of CPU...

[cparadisi]

Similar problems here on a Win11 machine with plenty of RAM. Getting CPU spikes and audio drop outs in Ableton. Only really started in the past week or so.

[[nil]]

Similar problems here on a Win11 machine with plenty of RAM. Getting CPU spikes and audio drop outs in Ableton. Only really started in the past week or so.

I haven't received any trace from the original poster, I could have a look at yours. Can you follow the steps in my post here? posting.php?mode=reply&t=249995#pr1823952