Protools 10 crazy CPU usage.

[Robbiehouston]

Oh yeah. Obviously it is native.

[Robbiehouston]

7200 rpm I don't know where Rah came from.

[Robbiehouston]

Actually it is just a few sessions.

[Lenzo]

I've found that many times when I first load a session into PT10 it has trouble playing or won't play at all...both play and stop icon light when I push the space bar. I unload the session and load it back up and it plays fine...don't know what that is about and it's a real pain, as slow as 10 is loading some sessions, but that works here most of the time.
L.

[Doc Mixwell]

Originally Posted by Robbiehouston

So I just upgraded to a Mac mini server. Quad 2gig i7, lion. I was running pt10 on an I Mac dual i3 with snow leopard. I had some sessions that were almost maxing out my CPU on the iMac. When I open them on my new setup they play but just barely. The CPU is hovering around 70% and spikes up to 100 all the time. I can't get more than a few seconds in. I have os 10.7.3 and PT 10.0.1. I have checked all plugins for compatibility I have even removed one plug at a time. When I remove most of the plugs it plays better but usage is still like 40%. And spikes to 100%. There are only 20 tracks. I realize that the session is in 96k but come on. This CPU should laugh in the face of this session. I am using a pacific pro audio Oxford 911 7200 rah FireWire HD I have tried reformatting. Disk cleanup... Any ideas?

Not sure if this will help, really can't say what kind of demand you are punishing the computer with, or what plugs yer using [some are HOGS] but go into Playback Engine and "halve" the amount of cores in thread allocation. You can add one from there, but start with half of what shows. Then try 99% CPU usage. You may have to run a higher buffer setting to meet your demands. Personally, I don't use 96K anymore, if not for ONLY one reason; to save the amount of DSP, for other tasks. Higher sample rates are HOGGGG out the system, and I think it is not worth it. But that's just my opinion.

[shatz]

Originally Posted by Roc Mixwell

Not sure if this will help, really can't say what kind of demand you are punishing the computer with, or what plugs yer using [some are HOGS] but go into Playback Engine and "halve" the amount of cores in thread allocation. You can add one from there, but start with half of what shows. Then try 99% CPU usage. You may have to run a higher buffer setting to meet your demands. Personally, I don't use 96K anymore, if not for ONLY one reason; to save the amount of DSP, for other tasks. Higher sample rates are HOGGGG out the system, and I think it is not worth it. But that's just my opinion.

This is correct, it's what I had to do to make mine stable. It just takes some time and patience to find the sweet spot in the settings. For me, I have a quad core and it shows up as 8 cores. Having it set to 3 is the most stable. 85 or 90% CPU usage I believe, and if using Cache mine is set to 1 Gig. Choices for me are 256, 512, 1, 2 or 3 gigs.

[j200]

Originally Posted by Lenzo

I've found that many times when I first load a session into PT10 it has trouble playing or won't play at all...both play and stop icon light when I push the space bar. I unload the session and load it back up and it plays fine...don't know what that is about and it's a real pain, as slow as 10 is loading some sessions, but that works here most of the time.
L.

What I do to workaround this issue (hitting play and you get nothing - but the play and stop icon flash) is to change the H/W Buffer Size (Setup -> Playback Engine). I usually just toggle it to some lower value and then move it right back to where it was and then hit the OK button (or hit return). Presto the session plays fine. Much faster workaround than closing the session and re-loading it. Hope this works for you.

[Lenzo]

Originally Posted by j200

What I do to workaround this issue (hitting play and you get nothing - but the play and stop icon flash) is to change the H/W Buffer Size (Setup -> Playback Engine). I usually just toggle it to some lower value and then move it right back to where it was and then hit the OK button (or hit return). Presto the session plays fine. Much faster workaround than closing the session and re-loading it. Hope this works for you.

Thanks, I'll give it a try...I know I was using that for some other little bug I had going on...not sure why it didn't occur to me to try it on that, but that would be great if I could clear it that way.
L.

[The MPCist]

Originally Posted by j200

What I do to workaround this issue (hitting play and you get nothing - but the play and stop icon flash) is to change the H/W Buffer Size (Setup -> Playback Engine). I usually just toggle it to some lower value and then move it right back to where it was and then hit the OK button (or hit return). Presto the session plays fine. Much faster workaround than closing the session and re-loading it. Hope this works for you.

+1. Also, I think it needs some time to load into RAM... I have that problem but usually by giving it a minute or two to 'gather its wits together', it runs smoothly after that....

[Brentley Womac]

Originally Posted by The MPCist

+1. Also, I think it needs some time to load into RAM... I have that problem but usually by giving it a minute or two to 'gather its wits together', it runs smoothly after that....

My system does the same thing. I've got a 3 month old iMac i7. If the CPU meter is going nuts, I just stop playback, leave the session open & alone for about 2 minutes, then it calms down. I won't have a single problem after that. Just when I first open the file. It's strange but PT10 does seem to need time to allocate the RAM. Thing is... it doesn't happen allot.

[Robbiehouston]

update: after this issue things quickly went downhill and i eventually needed to get my motherboard replaced. It looks like that was the issue all along. thanks for all the advice everyone.