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PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
System:
Brand new Mac Pro 2 x Quad core 2.8GHz 10GB RAM OS X 10.5.6 PT 8.0 HD3 (also tried cs1) Drive 1: OS X 7200rpm internal SATA Drive 2: Dedicated Audio WD Raptor 10Krpm internal SATA Drive 3: Dedicated RTAS VI sounds 7200rpm internal SATA Drive 4: External eSATA Proavio EB10 10 x 1TB 7200rm SATA hardware RAID5 Digi/Magma EB7 PCIe chassis (HD3 cards, 2 x UAD2) Highpoint 2340 PCIe eSATA HBA Absolutely latest plug-ins from loads of vendors Problem: RTAS VIs clicking, popping, glitching, hanging. Here is a shortlist of RTAS VI plugs that I have tested so far and am having problems with. I have read all Digi FAQs/stickies on RTAS performance tuning, and the equivalent VI vendor advice. These plugs are having glitching/hanging problems on a stereo instrument track in a new 24 bit/44.1KHz session with no other tracks: - BFD2 (I have open posts on the fxpansion forum) - NI Absynth 4 - Omnisphere - Trilogy - The entire Arturia V Collection - SampleMoog, SampleTron - GForce M-Tron When used in combination with 1-3 other RTAS VIs, I also get problems with: - Stylus RMX (6-8 simultaneous patterns) - Xpand2! (3 or 4 simultaneous patches) - Hybrid (one or two instances) These RTAS VI plugs seem to be behaving: - Ivory (Grand, Upright) I have many more to test, but given the results above, this is not good. The common features of the problems I am experiencing are: - Clicking, popping, audio glitches - Sometimes the VI plug hangs, but PT does not (e.g. some BFD2 grooves hang after playing them for 1-3 mins, BFD2 standalone is ok) - Frequent RTAS CPU spikes (50-100%), regardless of using 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 cores of my new 8 core Mac Pro, regardless of CPU % setting, other Playback Engine settings etc. - Problems are independent of where the VI samples are stored - I have run tests against a dedicated internal 7200rpm SATA drive, and on an external eSATA 10 drive RAID5 array (Proavio EB10) which I have benchmarked at a sustained 350Mbyte/sec read performance. - Problems exist in PT HD 8.0 (DVD install) and cs1. They appear to be (perhaps) slightly worse under cs1. I have not tried cs2 as this does not (AFAICS) have RTAS fixes in it. Note that I have 2 other rigs in addition to the HD3 - both PT8.0 LE - and there are somewhat similar RTAS issues there. Can you confirm if the rumours about RTAS and OS X 10.5.x CPU spiking and audio glitching are true (as mentioned on DUC and hinted at by Spectrasonics, NI, fxpansion and others)? If so, is this being addressed, and what is the expected timeframe? Thanks raw |
Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Good Luck.......:rolleyes:
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Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Hi again
Here's some more info. 1. Which drive you're recording/playing back from Dedicated internal 10krpm WD Raptor 150GB SATA 2. If you have video in your session No 3. If you have any other peripherals connected to your computer and, if so, what are they. Digi/Magma EB7 PCIe expansion chassis, connected via Digi/Magma PCIe expansion card in Mac Pro slot 2 (x16 PCIe rev 2.0) Proavio EB10 eSATA 10 drive chassis, connected via Highpoint 2340 PCIe HBA in Mac Pro slot 3 (x4 PCIe rev 1). Note that I am not using this storage for these tests. 4. Have you tried reducing the number of processors by 1 and, if so, did anything change. Yes. No. 5. Did you do a clean install of Leopard or did you upgrade from Tiger? Clean. Brand new Mac Pro. 6. Did you do a clean install of Pro Tools 8 or did you have a previous version installed and just upgrade it? Clean. 7. Please post your plug-in versions Code:
/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins/AIRChorus.dpm 1.0.0.8542 Copyright 2005-2007 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc. 1.0.0.8542 |
Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Code:
/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins/Factory (Anth 2.0).dpm 1.2.2 (Anthology II), Copyright 1991-2008 Eventide, Inc. 1.2.2 (Anthology II) |
Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Code:
/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins/VW_UAD 1176LN.dpm 5.2raw |
Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
From what I can see, these are all incompatible:
AVOX THROAT.dpm 1.1.2, AkoustikPiano.dpm 1.1.3 MD3.dpm MD3 1.2.02 (update to 1.2.2) Prophet V.dpm 1.2 (update to 1.2.1) Trilogy and Atmosphere (neither are compatible with Intel Mac) VSS3.dpm VSS3 1.2.3.921 (update to 1.2.4) Waves - are there supposed to be all those different versions in there? I don't think that looks right... Also, did you see the following notice on the NI website? For the following NI products, enabling the Playback Engine option "Ignore errors during record / playback" within Pro Tools can help significantly to avoid eventual issues: ELEKTRIK PIANO 1.5 FM8 KORE 2 MASSIVE Now, also keep in mind that you're in an unsupported/untested configuration with those UAD cards in the chassis (or anywhere in the system, for that matter) and they may be contributing to the problem. The HBA card (Highpoint 2340 PCIe HBA) may also be contributing - it was never tested and is definitely not supported, especially in a RAID configuration. Even if it's not used for recording/playback, just having the card in the computer could cause problems. |
Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Hi DigiTechSupt
Thanks for looking at this. I really appreciate your help. I know there are lots of negative posts esp about RTAS but I'm just trying to stay positive and get this rig working. Jumping in with an x.0 version of any product is a risk and I accept that. The plug-in versions are a moving target - I spent several days going through them all about three weeks ago and I have a rather large spreadsheet now with version numbers, download info, file names, workarounds, settings etc! :rolleyes: I'll update those versions. Shame about Trilogy, it was a "go to" plugin on the G5 and previous versions of PT. Wrt Waves, FYI this is a vanilla installation of Waves Mercury TDM + SSL TDM. The Waves installer drops in various Waveshell dpm versions. In fact, it has done this for a number of years. I'm aware of the NI issues and quite frankly I've pretty much given up on the NI RTAS plugins. Hence I've gone to Synthogy Ivory. I haven't tested Guitar Rig 3 yet - this is the only one I'll probably continue to use if it works. Wrt the UAD cards, I'll remove them from the chassis and run the tests again. Wrt the Highpoint card, the RAID array is not intended for PT recording. I am fully aware that RAID of any kind is not supported as an audio recording drive. It is intended as a large, fast, redundant streaming device for audio samples in some plug-ins. I fully understand that this is not supported, hence I will remove it and run the tests again. Should I also uninstall the OS X driver for this card? Do you have any other advice about testing, and/or can you think of any other information I should be gathering or monitoring? Let's assume I have an infinite amount of time ;). Would it be worthwhile going back to scratch (new boot drive, fresh OS X, fresh PT 8.0 HD, minimal plugins)? Would it be worthwhile testing without the chassis - just the HD cards in the Mac Pro? Would it be worthwhile doing the same with PT7.4 as a comparison? Thanks for your valuable advice - I just want to find a stable platform. raw Quote:
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Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Quote:
If removing the plug-ins doesn't work, I'd move to removing either the UAD or HBA card and test again. Narrow it down piece by piece, only changing one variable at a time so that you can identify the cause. Only remove everything and start from scratch if you want to go in the reverse order of only adding one thing at a time. Either approach will work - what you do in either case is try to be methodical about it. Some of the plug-ins on the list, even though listed as compatible, will still require that you reduce the number of processors in the Playback Engine. I think you can safely reduce it by 1 and keep it there for all further testing. I do know this can work - I'm not sure about the UAD cards (if I could get them to send me free cards, I'd test it myself, just to see what happens), but I've heard of others having success with them. Personally I avoid all questionable plug-ins and mourn the loss of Trilogy and Atmosphere as, like you, they were the 'go to' ones when I had a G5. |
Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
Hi DigiTechSupt
Thanks. Just two - no, three - more questions before I embark on this. 1. Should I be testing using PT 8.0 cs2, cs1, or the default PT 8.0 HD DVD installation version? 2. At some point, if I do a clean install of OS X (from the 10.5.4 Apple OS X DVD) on a new boot drive, should I update it to 10.5.6 using the online "Software Update" facility in OS X, or should I upgrade using manually downloaded patch bundles from Apple? The reason for asking is that there is a Digi note that recommends upgrading to 10.5.5 via a manual patch bundle. It is not clear whether this applies to 10.5.6. 3. I'm putting together a list of tests. When using vanilla PT 8.0 HD with default plug-ins only, would it be reasonable to perform an initial test using a new 24/44.1KHz session comprising: 1 stereo instrument track (one Xpand2! insert with 4 simultaneous patches), plus 3 additional MIDI tracks (making a total of 4 MIDI sequences driving the 4 patches in Xpand2)? This is generating glitches in my current setup. Would you expect this to work without glitches in a vanilla install? Thanks raw Quote:
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Re: PT 8.0 HD RTAS VI glitches
P.S. I could loan you a couple of UAD-1e (PCIe) cards if you want to run some tests against them. They can run the latest UAD 5.2 software (including the latest RTAS wrapper thingy). Let me know if you want to try it out.
I could probably loan you one of the UAD-2 cards as well, as long as I could get it back at some point. ;) Regards raw |
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