CPU overloaded, help!

Alejo

Alejo

New member
Hello to all,
I have now 13 audio tracks on my SX project. All of them filed with plug-ins and EQ´s. The hardware I am using now is quite reliable, but I always get the CPU overloaded to 80% and more when playing and recording. I got a high CPU load even when stopped. The response is getting slower every time I add an audio track, and it starts to make funny noises.
I am recording with a format of 16 bits at 44100 Hz. Pretty comfortable for the PC, I guess... The specs of the Pc are:
1Gb RAM, PIV 2.4, 2Hd (one for Sx and the other for recording the projects)
The buffer size in SX is 256k. The DMA buffer size on the sound card is 512 samples.
Only one thing: all the tracks are stereo.
Any advices to make the system smoother?
Thanks in advance.
Alejo.
PS: To avoid further logical quesions: I run a legal version.
 
Is this a deidcated daw? If not you may want to check what other programs are running in the background and shut down any that aren't required for recording.
 
Thanks for the message Easto.

No, it is not a Pc for Sx only. But I have "insolated" the program as much as I can and the CPU load is still very high.
Even if I delete all the audio tracks, I will get the same results. Therefore I guess the problem comes from the plug-ins taking many resources from the Pc (when I delete the track, the Eq´s and plug-in for the track stays)

Apparently, my hardware should be able to withstand 13 tracks. is this normal or not?

The reason behind this question is to discard a virus or a trojan from some free plug-in.
 
Try loading your plugins slower and paying close attention. Is it a single plug in hogging a lot of your resources? Certain plugs are very demanding, and I would guess that it is possible that a corrupted plugin could wreak a little havoc.
 
Thanks a lot for the answers.
Sharp: I will try to do what you said. This means going back again to the tutorials.
Xstatic: You are right. There are plugins absolutely forbidden for me after recording many tracks, like Steinberg Karlette. Reverb and Magneto are also conflictive. But I cannot skip them during recording.
 
Hey Alejo, i'm thinking this is going to be related to either plugin's or the fact that it's not a dedicated DAW. I have a 1.9 ghz, with a gig of RAM and in my last project I was up to over 30 tracks, with loads of plugin's and some EQ's and I was only hitting 40-50% range.

Are you using vsti's that havn't been converted to audio yet? Some vsti's can use a lot of resources. Also, like other's have suggested, if you have several tracks that use the exact same verb, or delay, or whatever with the same settings, using it as a send, rather than an insert can save CPU.

Also, if any of your plug in's are free ones off the net, you have to watch real close because those can also be CPU hogs. Loading them one at a time and seeing if you get a big jump when you use a certain one is a good idea.

If none of these help, there is background programs running that are probably sucking up resources.

Good luck.
 
Once again, thanks a lot for the answer and your help, Bass Master.

I am using no VST´s, only pure audio (Bass, guitars, tambourine, voice) The drums come from an external MIDI device and converted inmediately to audio.

Question: Does the stereo double the load on the cpu for every track?

And regarding to the "sends": I am afraid I don't know how it acts and how to use this feature. I have read so far that the "sends' are related only to MIDI, that's why I didn't care too much so far. I guess I was wrong.

And sure, I have groups of tracks with the same reverb. May be you can show me in two lines where to start. Once I have the right keywords, I will be able to search on the tutorials. So far i haven't been lucky with them.

Again, thanks a lot.

Alejo.
 
I am not sure about the whole stereo tracks thing. I do see it as being quite possible that stereo tracks do double the load of mono tracks. Not only would they be twice as large szie wise, but would require stereo processing by all plugins. People seem to forget, but a 5 minute uncompressed wav file of silence is just as demanding size and processing wise as 5 minutes with an RMS of -6.
 
No prob's Alejo, if you don't mind working with me away from my DAW...you might have a bit of looking to do :) But sends are an easy way to save CPU.

First you want to find the Master Send box...you can get to it by hitting the right F-key (ie F1, F2, F3, ect...) I can't remember which one (I told you you'd have to look ;) ) or else I think you can find it in the menu under Windows, I think. It's along with your VSTi window, your Soundcard input window...that area.

When you find the window, select your effect that you use for more than one track. Set up the settings you want for the effect just like you were doing an insert. Then go to a track that you want to use the effect and instead of clicking on the Insert section of your track manager, click on the Sends and it will open up like 8 slots. You should see your effect listed at the top of the Sends column. Choose your effect and then use the slider to determine how much of the effect you want applied to your signal. When your done, open up the next track to use the same effect, click on Sends in the track manager and just keep repeating.

What happens is (as I understand it), if you have...let's say six drum tracks, and a guitar part and you want them all to have the same reverb (exact same specs on the reverb for all tracks), you can do it either with inserts or sends. If you use inserts, you are opening up 7 instances of the exact same reverb and so it is taxing your machine for 7 reverbs. Useing a send, you are sending these 7 tracks through ONE reverb effect, the one you want them all to have, so your machine is only being taxed by the one reverb effect that is being used.

So anyhow, anytime I have more than two or three tracks that are going to use an effect I usually use them as sends to save on the CPU load. Obviously if you only are going to use a specific effect for one track only it would make no difference if you inserted or send it.

If you get real desparate for CPU power, you could record the tracks with their effects to them by routing them and then exporting each audio track to a seperately titled project, but that is a big pain.

Good luck and let me know if you need anymore help.
 
If I were a bit good I would have made already a song for you, Bass Master.

Sorry for the delay. Something smells funny on the lab and I am still searching for the causes.

Well... I found five minutes to play with the sends. Actually, the way to do it is pretty close to how you assign VST´s. Now I must find the right tracks to share the sends (mainly reverbs) and see how the overall load goes down. logically it will go down.

Funny: When I was doing this, I was monitoring the CPU on the TasK Manager, and I found that the bigger peaks (up to 100%) come when I move windows, for example, the inserts window, from one side to another of the screen.

I already played long time ago with the acceleration of the Graphics Card, to avoid the clicks when the screeen refreshes. I deactivated it, but the response of the screen was extremely slow. So I activated the acceleration back again,and it has been like this until now.

¿Can a simple Graphic Card make this mess? Mine is not fancy whatsoever.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help, guys. I am sure I am on the right way now.

Regards,

Alejo.
 
First, I would not reccomend measuring your CPU load with the windows tool, but rather with Cubase's vst performance meter. Secondly, graphics cards can definately destroy performance. Certain settings and in other cases certain models (the Matrox 4xx series gave a lot of people fits) can really destory certain aspects of audio recording.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top