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-- Quad Core Dual Socket Xeon owner here @ 3Ghz - but where's the bottleneck?

Quad Core Dual Socket Xeon owner here @ 3Ghz - but where's the bottleneck?

Using Ableton Live which has never stuttered on me, I've just started using the instrument racks where I've been loading around 3 VSTi's in each.

I think I have about three of these racks Live and started playing my track, then I got Ableton stuttering and the CPU indicator up at about 85% and Disk overload lighting up.

Should I replace my 10,000 RPM Raptor disk with an SSD first or scrap that and get a more CPU heavy PC, like an intel i7 or something.

I have 8GB RAM.

Appreciated any tech help!

To run 3 measly instruments, you definitely don't need a fast computer or a fast hard drive. I was managing just fine with that load over 5 years ago, on not-so-state-of-the-art hardware.

The one thing you didn't bother to mention is probably the most important, and that's your sound card.

Are you using the worthless onboard "HD Audio" that came with your motherboard? Yes? Stop using it, and get an audio card that's designed for media production.

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut To run 3 measly instruments, you definitely don't need a fast computer or a fast hard drive. I was managing just fine with that load over 5 years ago, on not-so-state-of-the-art hardware. The one thing you didn't bother to mention is probably the most important, and that's your sound card. Are you using the worthless onboard "HD Audio" that came with your motherboard? Yes? Stop using it, and get an audio card that's designed for media production.

Bingo.

The other thing to check is that you have your chipset drivers installed for your particular motherboard and flash the latest BIOS.

I can't tell you how much my last PC DAW saw in improvement from that - it was like I upgraded to a brand new computer.

These men speaketh the truth.

Try turning them off 1 by 1 (instruments and effects) to find the culprit. Ableton is particularly bad with resources. You can max it out by running plugins that do not support multi core.

I had the same thing going on where my production partner had dual cpu quad core xeon and couldn't play the track while I had it running smoothly on an old amd 2500+.

Ok great thanks for these tips.

I'm using a USB2 Edirol UA-25 External sound card, not enough bandwidth via USB maybe?

I am using allot of samples but consolidate them down to single samples and I've also tried using the "load to RAM" setting Ableton has without much difference.

I thought windows7 automatically downloaded all the latest drivers but I can check the driver versions for the chipset.

I'll let you know how I get on with the driver update, any tips on the sound card I own appreciated too.

Updated chipset/BIOS no change. Soundcard?

quote:

Originally posted by daeus Updated chipset/BIOS no change. Soundcard?

Storyteller is right, disableton is a bit of a hog when it comes to resources and sometimes there's no immediately apparent logic to it.

However, you'll need to update the driver on your soundcard. That edirol needs to use the win7 64 bit driver in advanced mode, otherwise it will not give great performance,

Sell that PC and get a mac.

Then get logic

Hm.

Maybe its the project itself, I will create a new one and start adding iRacks and VSTi's to this to see what happens, I'll make a note of any cpu intensive Vsti's.

I know Mac OS is supposed to be more efficient but surely with the power I have it shouldn't be a problem.

By the way I have 40 channels in use, some have sounds I use from time to time others have midi patterns I don't currently use, I don't know if this is a problem.

Found an ableton live performance tool and users system comparisons so will spend some time figuring out where my machine stands.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111880

I run way more than that with duel core 2gb ram on xp...

Somethings certainly not right

quote:

Originally posted by Andy28 I run way more than that with duel core 2gb ram on xp... Somethings certainly not right

What do you run exactly?

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0GHz on a nvidia mobo cant remember what exactly not on my pc, but its about 4/5 years old.

Can run about 40 tracks with lots of plugs but I can get way more if I use only lives tools

Does your version of Win 7 support dual CPUs? Pro and Ultimate do But I dunno about Home. Take a look as that MIGHT be it, but I'm not sure.

IMO - First make sure both those CPUs are working. I had hell going to an AMD Quad on XP and Win 7Pro was the cure. But first, run some benchmarks and make sure the 'computer' itself is fully functional, THEN look for soundcard/driver/peripheral issues and other potential bottlenecks.

Test the Ram and make sure all the chips are the same speed/compatible with the motherboard and each other. Baseline everything from the ground up.

quote:

Originally posted by daeus Ok great thanks for these tips. I'm using a USB2 Edirol UA-25 External sound card, not enough bandwidth via USB maybe? I am using allot of samples but consolidate them down to single samples and I've also tried using the "load to RAM" setting Ableton has without much difference. I thought windows7 automatically downloaded all the latest drivers but I can check the driver versions for the chipset. I'll let you know how I get on with the driver update, any tips on the sound card I own appreciated too.

make sure your CPU is running at full speed - sometimes there is stuff in the BIOS that may need to be disabled or enabled, cant remember the exact terms at the moment, something like Speedstep or something i think

quote:

Originally posted by daeus Updated chipset/BIOS no change. Soundcard?

Have you tried other USB ports? I know both my laptops and my studio rig usually have one or two USB 3.0 and the rest 2.0.

I don't know much about your soundcard, but i know that Firewire > USB, and PCI > Firewire, so there's that... Just sayin'.. :P

I've tried different USB ports.

Its a Dell precision T5400 so I've purposely bought it so I don't have to ever worry about hardware limitations/issues and concentrate on the software side.

A new note, when the CPU bar overloads in ableton it goes up to over 150% but my actual CPU usage from the task manager does not go higher than 29% across all 8 cores.

I've also just read that Ableton Live 7 was much more stable still compared to 8, maybe need to switch back?

I hope there is a clear answer to all this as I've spent since 2005 dealing with system instability and never having enough power to run all the VSTi's using Cubase and now Ableton and I thought owning a power PC would solve this issue, maybe I'll just go back to DANCE EJAY or Magix music maker /facepalm.

Suggestion...

Open your task manager and repeat the "150%" problem while watching the individual cores to see if one o them is spiking. I just had a problem with 2 instances of Z3ta V1 maxing one of my 4 cores and going into stuttering fits. I had to view it in Task Manager as the regular 'speedo' and even Reaper were reporting like 30% cpu.

It turned out that Z3ta was only using 1 core and maxing it (the 2 instances were doing 6 osc string/pad stuff each...heavy load) while the other 3 were just cruising. Perhaps that might give you a direction (for lack of a better term) to look in/around. Hope it helps.

quote:

Originally posted by daeus I've tried different USB ports. Its a Dell precision T5400 so I've purposely bought it so I don't have to ever worry about hardware limitations/issues and concentrate on the software side. A new note, when the CPU bar overloads in ableton it goes up to over 150% but my actual CPU usage from the task manager does not go higher than 29% across all 8 cores. I've also just read that Ableton Live 7 was much more stable still compared to 8, maybe need to switch back? I hope there is a clear answer to all this as I've spent since 2005 dealing with system instability and never having enough power to run all the VSTi's using Cubase and now Ableton and I thought owning a power PC would solve this issue, maybe I'll just go back to DANCE EJAY or Magix music maker /facepalm.

I glimpsed through this thread and I didn't see anyone suggesting this, so sorry if this has been mentioned already but do you have multicore support enabled in Ableton? It's in Preferences > CPU. That problem you described sounds all too familiar back when I was using a single-core laptop, in ableton the CPU-usage meter would go over 100% and the sound would start stuttering.

Assuming you're using the correct ASIO drivers from your audio interface, what buffer settings are you using?

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Assuming you're using the correct ASIO drivers from your audio interface, what buffer settings are you using?

quote:

Originally posted by THa I glimpsed through this thread and I didn't see anyone suggesting this, so sorry if this has been mentioned already but do you have multicore support enabled in Ableton? It's in Preferences > CPU. That problem you described sounds all too familiar back when I was using a single-core laptop, in ableton the CPU-usage meter would go over 100% and the sound would start stuttering.

Yes Multicore support is on, all cores arnt being stressed over 30% when ableton tells me its over 150% itself.

thats gotta be your soundcard id say - also 288 is a weird number for latency setting, usually they go in multiples of 64

Turn your latency up

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