What's the lag issue?
 

Howdy folks,

I updated my Dell G5 Laptop to Windows 10 1903 and I also updates my PT to 2019.6 and I'm having some issues.

My systems has the following specs:

Intel Core i7-8750H Processor 2.20GHz
16 GB Ram on 2666GHz (2x 8GB)
128GB SSD (Where Pro Tools in running from)
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB Interface
Pro Tools 2019.6
Windows 10 Build 1903 (May update)

The machine works alright for a little while until I take a little break from mixing/recording.
When I get back to my machine the whole thing is sluggish and is struggling to playback audio and do other task.
The only way to get it back to "normal" is rebooting Pro Tools.

Here a little video where you can see it lagging: https://youtu.be/g0nwhLtYJCI
You can also see my machine isn't using any of its power to speed things whatsoever.

And here are my Plackback Engine settings:
https://i.imgur.com/Xn8hUPr.jpg
(Do these look okay? I'm still exploring my new laptop)

What is my issue here? Is it my DAW being slow? Or is my PT not working optimal and not using any hardware to make things happen?


I hope y'all have some suggestions for me!

Thanks in advance,

Re: What's the lag issue?
 

Check your power settings (and do go to the advanced power settings in Windows.) Sounds like your system may be set to power things down (including USB) when inactive.

Pro Tools does not like that while open -- especially with a USB audio interface and USB iLok

Re: What's the lag issue?
 

That^^^^ is top of my list as well. Then, I would uncheck "Ignore errors...". What drive are you recording to? A 128GB drive may be enough for basic programs, but it would get too full really quick if you're recording to it.(recording drives sort of need some free space for decent performance. Maybe 20%). If you only have a single drive, I would buy a 500GB or 1TB SSD, clone your current C: drive and swap it out for the bigger drive. Just my 2 cents, but 500GB is the smallest system drive I would run(my average use for a full install of all software is around 350GB, even with sample libraries on their own drive):o BTW, make sure there is no disk in your DVD drive(if you have one). That's a known performance killer for Windows setups.

Re: What's the lag issue?
 

Thanks for the tips guys!!

My machine has a second drive in place. It's a 1TB 5400RPM drive, the way I use both is as following:

Protools is installed on my SSD which is my C drive. I have just one or two projects on my SSD at the same time. When my SSD hits the 20GB "free space left" mark I transfer the project to my second 1TB hard drive.

Usually I only mix projects that are on the hard drive. All my recording is done on sessions that are on my solid state drive. That's kinda my workflow and I assume this will give the best performance. But correct me if I'm wrong!

I ran through this guide last week:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...ndows-10-Guide

I haven't got the chance to record in the last few days. Lets hope that it is better now. However, if anyone has any suggestions please shout them out!

Re: What's the lag issue?
 

If you are still having problems...

I would exclude memory leaks as an issue here. Does the whole computer become sluggish? Try removing all .aaxplugin files and trashing prefs and seeing if this still happens.

Disk problems would not be top of my list.., but because it is being talked about...

“128GB SSD” tells us nothing really useful about that drive. What exact make/model SSD is it? SATA? PCIe/NVMe

When posting here please include the expected SiSoft Sandra report, that makes all these things clear... see under “help us help you” up the top of each DUC web page.

Why is your disk cache set so small? Even without having any clue what you are doing I would more typically expect it to be a few GB. Is this set low to help avoid running out of main memory because of lots of VI use? How large are your sessions (size of audio files in the session). does the disk cache meter show the sessions taking up a small amount of the cache?

You really should not be mixing on a 5400 rpm drive.

If that is only a SATA SSD it may not be a good idea to record to that drive, depends on what you are doing, and disk cache settings.

... There are enough questions here with your disk related setup that I worry that other things may not be setup well either. Good that you have gone through the optimization steps but there is more than that to worry about. Start with checking plugins if you are still having problems, ask here if you are still having problems and we’ll help get this sorted for you.

Re: What's the lag issue?
 

Hi Darryl, thanks for your reply!

Here's my Sandra report: