Problems with Cubase & Logic CPU Spikes/Overload on iMac Core 2 Duo (Leopard).

[wonna1]

Hi All,

I don't believe I am posting this....

I thought my hardware upgrade from Windows to an iMac Core 2 Duo Leopard with an Agogee Duet would give me a stable glitch free recording system with either Cubase or Logic but it seems that I have got more asio/cpu spikes than I have ever experienced under XpSP2 Pro & RME .

I was looking for a new preamp, as you have kindly responded to, but now I am about to return all my purchased hardware - revert to XP, RME and purchase the Avalon AD2022.

Do you have any advice to help a frustrated new Mac user?

Thanks for your valuable time, Martin.

 

[Toddskins]

Not to make you feel worse

But this post is just begging to be written.


Because according to all the MAC guys on here, what you describe is impossible. You're not dreaming this problem up, are ya?




a PC user

 

[dgatwood]

I thought my hardware upgrade from Windows to an iMac Core 2 Duo Leopard with an Agogee Duet would give me a stable glitch free recording system with either Cubase or Logic but it seems that I have got more asio/cpu spikes than I have ever experienced under XpSP2 Pro & RME.

CPU spikes, at least on Mac OS X, are usually largely an anomaly caused by low measurement granularity rather than an actual problem. I'm guessing that you are getting glitches accompanying those spikes, though.

You haven't tried to install any drivers, have you? Because Leopard comes with a newer AppleFWAudio driver than is available anywhere else, and installing the Tiger version that Apogee has posted on their website is asking for problems.... If so, PM me and I'll tar up the 10.5.2 version of the driver and send you install instructions.

Also, make sure you have enough RAM. Rosetta brings in an entire second copy of all the frameworks (and 64-bit Intel apps would bring in a third if you happen to be running any), so if you are running any PowerPC apps while running your DAW... well, don't.

I wouldn't even consider doing audio recording with under two gigs, and on Intel, because of Rosetta, I would recommend a minimum of three gigs of RAM---four if your hardware supports it.

Beyond that, no ideas. The new FWAVC driver in Leopard (and late 10.4 versions, IIRC) should be darn near immune to spiking problems. If it isn't, I know some people on the firewire audio team at Apple who would be most interested in trying to figure out what's different about your configuration....

Well, one bizarre thought. Have you run the Apple hardware test DVD to do a RAM check? Constant DMA to the same location is possibly more likely to make such problems noticeable. I very much doubt that's the problem unless you're also experiencing a lot of app crashes and/or kernel panics, but it's worth checking just to be safe.

 

[dgatwood]

Oh, just one more thing:

Apparently Cubase doesn't work very well in Leopard, particularly with Apogee Duet hardware. It has been suggested that you must make sure system audio is not routed through the Duet or you'll have serious problems.

Oh, and make sure you are up to date with the latest Logic patches. Leopard is basically brand new at this point, so it may take a little while for the Leopard-specific bugs in Logic to shake themselves out.

 

[wonna1]

But this post is just begging to be written.


Because according to all the MAC guys on here, what you describe is impossible. You're not dreaming this problem up, are ya?




a PC user

Hi,

I am not dreaming this up

I have always been a PC user but have had slight glitch problems but not as many as I am getting with the iMac and Apogee Duet!

On a mid spec PC & RME I was able to run 20 midi tracks of soft synths/plugins/fx (Kontakt, Guitar Rig, Superior Drummer) and record guitar in without too many problems. Now I get 4 tracks max!

Still thinking about it but I think the gear is going back

Info: I am running the iMac as delivered with Leopard and no other apps installed just Cubase, Logic, Kontakt & Apogee Duet drivers.

I will try all of your suggetions, many thanks for your time.

Martin.

 

[wonna1]

Oh, just one more thing:

Apparently Cubase doesn't work very well in Leopard, particularly with Apogee Duet hardware. It has been suggested that you must make sure system audio is not routed through the Duet or you'll have serious problems.

Oh, and make sure you are up to date with the latest Logic patches. Leopard is basically brand new at this point, so it may take a little while for the Leopard-specific bugs in Logic to shake themselves out.

Hi,

I have checked the system audio settings and they are not going through the Apogee Duet.

All patches have been applied and Leopard is up to date - very frustrating.

Thank you for your efforts.

Martin

 

[pipelineaudio]

On a mid spec PC & RME I was able to run 20 midi tracks of soft synths/plugins/fx (Kontakt, Guitar Rig, Superior Drummer) and record guitar in without too many problems. Now I get 4 tracks max!

Don't expect to get the same sort of performance from an apogee driver as from RME, especially if you are talking firewire.

Also check to see if you have the dreaded argere chip instead of the TI one in your system. There's another thread around here about it.

 

[wonna1]

Don't expect to get the same sort of performance from an apogee driver as from RME, especially if you are talking firewire.

Also check to see if you have the dreaded argere chip instead of the TI one in your system. There's another thread around here about it.

Hi,

Looks like you have it, the firewire chipset is Lucent

After doing a search I have found that most major manufacturers of audio interfaces say it is not compatible - What are Apple doing? - I wish I had not tried to 'join the club'!

Thanks anyway for all your help.

 

[pipelineaudio]

RME is saying for some mac's there are Expresscard's available that may fix this problem.

http://www.partsdata.de/Notebookzub...r_neuen_kleinen_Notebook-Steckplatz_shop.html

A lot of stereotypes and blind prejudices and hypes need to go away. Apple is using an absolutely religious belief and cult mindset, created by putting out some good products at some point in time, to sell some absolute junk to the gullible. The cultists then go on to INSIST that everything mac must be great and grand and that you have to be a retard if you use anything else.

There are great macs out there, but dont assume theyre ALL good

 

[dgatwood]

Looks like you have it, the firewire chipset is Lucent

After doing a search I have found that most major manufacturers of audio interfaces say it is not compatible - What are Apple doing? - I wish I had not tried to 'join the club'!

LSI (formerly Lucent/Agere) is NOT a buggy FireWire chipset. The buggy ones are built by NEC and somebody else, though I forget who... maybe Via... Lucent is one of MOTU's recommended chipsets, and is also recommended by many hard drive vendors. If there were some fundamental problem with the Lucent chipset, MOTU definitely would not be recommending them.

I'm not sure what the problem with this configuration is, but I can guarantee it is not the fault of the Lucent FireWire chipset. It is probably a Leopard compatibility bug. A -lot- of people have problems with Cubase and Leopard. Logic should straighten itself out soon, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Cubase not to suck on the Mac platform. Most people have been waiting for several years and it still does.

 

[dgatwood]

On further reading, it looks like a number of people are having problems with CPU spiking in Logic 8 in Leopard who did not have problems with previous versions of Logic or the OS.

http://logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=82802&sid=9913d1137d029aea5a21fc98c41020d4

If it isn't too late to return the Duet, you might consider buying something from MOTU, as their gear comes with a copy of AudioDesk, which is a lite version of Digital Performer. DP (5.13) reportedly works well in Leopard.

 

[pipelineaudio]

LSI (formerly Lucent/Agere) is NOT a buggy FireWire chipset.

Its hard to believe, but it seems like most are planting this specifically on the feet of the Argere

Not sure what else is changed, but identically softwared macs (though the drivers of course can be different) are showing problems on the argere chipset and no problems on the TI

Could be there is other hardware differences in there as well, but the fact at the moment is (whether or not it is actually the chipset at fault) if your system indicates that you have one of the argere equipped mac you are in the problem category.

 

[dgatwood]

Not sure what else is changed, but identically softwared macs (though the drivers of course can be different) are showing problems on the argere chipset and no problems on the TI

Could be there is other hardware differences in there as well, but the fact at the moment is (whether or not it is actually the chipset at fault) if your system indicates that you have one of the argere equipped mac you are in the problem category.

Do you have two otherwise identical configurations that behave in this way? If so, let me know what specific hardware is giving you trouble and I'll file a bug for you.

Oh, one more thing for the original poster. A lot of the folks having trouble seem to be using virtual instruments, and I notice that you are as well. Try doing some tracking without using any virtual instruments and see if the problem goes away. If so, that would rule out hardware entirely and would point to either a bug in CoreAudio's Audio Unit layer or in the VIs themselves. Worth a shot, anyway.

Make that two more things. ISTR some firmware bugs in some AVC-based FireWire audio gear that caused problems a while back. Make absolutely sure you're running the latest firmware on the Duet.

[Edit: I'd like to emphasize that last statement. Other people on the Apple discussion boards have reported using the Apogee Duet on Agere-based machines with minimal issues (except a panic if you hot plug the thing, apparently). Get the latest version of Apogee's drivers/firmware from their website. Do not bother with the discs that came with the device. ]

 

[pipelineaudio]

Do you have two otherwise identical configurations that behave in this way? If so, let me know what specific hardware is giving you trouble and I'll file a bug for you.

Thats the point, we dont know. There could be other differences than just the firewire chipset, but as usual apple is pretty tight lipped about it.

Its not like Im the only one seeing this. RME, MOTU, Line 6, Echo, Maudio, Focusrite, Alesis, and others are reporting the same deal. The identical symptoms are happening on argere macs and not the TI ones.

 

[dgatwood]

Thats the point, we dont know. There could be other differences than just the firewire chipset, but as usual apple is pretty tight lipped about it.

Its not like Im the only one seeing this. RME, MOTU, Line 6, Echo, Maudio, Focusrite, Alesis, and others are reporting the same deal. The identical symptoms are happening on argere macs and not the TI ones.

Quit spreading disinformation. MOTU has said no such thing. RME claims MOTU is affected. MOTU has made no such claims, and in fact, state the opposite, going so far as to explicitly recommend Lucent/Agere chipsets. They also say that they have tested their entire line of interfaces with this specific Mac hardware and say that they have found no problems.

DICE II hardware vendors (Presonus FireStudio Project, TC Konnekt hardware, and a couple of others) are reporting problems. On the other hand, their drivers suck massively, and can be problematic even with TI chipsets. Nothing new there.

It should be noted that M-Audio does not even have Leopard-certified drivers for many (all?) of their FireWire devices, and AFAIK, none of these machines ever shipped with Tiger. That said, several people have reported that their M-Audio FireWire gear does work correctly on this hardware, so again, no, those don't seem to be problematic, either.

I've seen very few reports of Echo or Focusrite at all, but I did see a couple of folks saying that Echo's hardware worked with these machines.

What I've read about Focusrite suggests that their drivers are horribly buggy in Mac OS X, randomly going silent (and crashing during hot plugs in Leopard) even on machines with TI chipsets, so I would put zero stock in any claims that the Agere chipset is known to cause problems for Focusrite hardware. Trying to determine the cause of those problems is about like trying to determine whether the chicken or egg came first. Until those are reliable with TI chipsets, nobody will know anything. Oh, yeah, BTW, I would not recommend their hardware based on what I've read.

The bottom line is that as far as I can determine from spending many hours today searching for more info on this issue, RME's hardware is the only non-DICE II-based hardware that has been shown to have problems specific to the Agere chipset, and as such, I'd be very, very surprised if this didn't all turn out to be bugs in RME's firmware.

Also, see the comment I added in my previous post about the Apogee duet. I'm about 99% sure that's a bug in their older firmware versions, and that downloading their latest drivers/firmware should fix it.

 

[TerraMortim]

But this post is just begging to be written.


Because according to all the MAC guys on here, what you describe is impossible. You're not dreaming this problem up, are ya?




a PC user

nope, of course it's not impossible. a Mac is a computer just as any, and it can have issues just as any. Macs are generally more stable than windows boxes, but it's silly to say they never crash, ever have any issues..etc... however the statement is absolutely true that macs don't have viruses. I don't care what some guy in a lab was able to do to prove a point, OS X is based on UNIX which uses permissions to change important settings, alter important files, or even install new software. So, you pretty much have to agree to a virus to get one...

anyway...

 

[TerraMortim]

Are you getting CPU or Disk spikes in Logic? I don't know Cubase that well, but I'm something of a Logic maniac. BTW...there is def. something up with your system, because that's not normal, unless you get huge track counts or whatever. I can at 24bit 96kHz get something around 45-50 some odd tracks with very heavy plugin use, before I start having to down-mix anything to stems. It's actually normally my drives that cack out first, because of freeze files.

Did you get the computer new? If it was used, I would suggest just installing from scratch, as you never know what someone did to it.

What version of Logic are you running? Logic 8 is really nice on CPU, Much better than Logic 7. How much ram is in it? What's the clock speed vs. the PC you had? I wouldn't recommend anything less than 2 gigs of ram (at the very least for recording with Logic, unless you want to have frustrations with dropouts. What speed of drives do you have in your machine?

Oh, btw, just to let you know ASIO is the Windows system for audio. OS X uses what they call Core Audio.

I can def. promise you that you're issues aren't the norm.

Hi All,

I don't believe I am posting this....

I thought my hardware upgrade from Windows to an iMac Core 2 Duo Leopard with an Agogee Duet would give me a stable glitch free recording system with either Cubase or Logic but it seems that I have got more asio/cpu spikes than I have ever experienced under XpSP2 Pro & RME .

I was looking for a new preamp, as you have kindly responded to, but now I am about to return all my purchased hardware - revert to XP, RME and purchase the Avalon AD2022.

Do you have any advice to help a frustrated new Mac user?

Thanks for your valuable time, Martin.

 

[TerraMortim]

Thats the point, we dont know. There could be other differences than just the firewire chipset, but as usual apple is pretty tight lipped about it.

Its not like Im the only one seeing this. RME, MOTU, Line 6, Echo, Maudio, Focusrite, Alesis, and others are reporting the same deal. The identical symptoms are happening on argere macs and not the TI ones.

My MOTU works perfectly, without a single hiccup...EVER.