Just wanted to update with where I'm at. Since I'm going for Cross-DAW testing I decided to go with a clean install. I'm still waiting on the licencing key for the new DAW to arrive, so I jumped back into Pro Tools for a bit.
Now running Windows 10 64-bit
All plugins are updated to their latest versions
Still on 11.3.1 as apparently you need to pay for 11.3.2. Nope.
Still seeing the same CPU usage anomalies in the project, unfortunately. I was really hoping the OS environment was playing a part. While still under Windows 7 I systematically disabled all unnecessary drivers one by one after finding no issues in latencymon, just to be sure. No effect.
On to DAW number 2, which is supposed to actively manage plugins to reduce this type of overhead. After that VEP. I'd actually be overjoyed if someone pointed out something incredibly simple that I missed that just made all of the problems go away. I'd gladly pay 2 seconds of looking like a moron on the internet so I could go back to making music.
