16 core dual Xeon not enough cpu...

[analog orange]

HP Z840 workstation. 32gb ram. Avid certified.
Windows 10. Protools 2018.12.

And this is how it handles distributing cpu load. Any tips guys?

[jeam25]

Wow thats a huge spike !

Hi ! Start by doing your OS optimizations and Bios tweaks .

Any cpu power saving and stepping should be off and test withou hyerthreading too.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...oting/en367983

[BScout]

Audio is inherently a serial process (if you have a signal chain, try to process the compressor before the eq that sits before it in the signal path; if you have 4 notes in a bar, try to process the fourth note at the same time as the first note.)

That is why you end up with a distribution like that. It is also why, for audio work, higher clock speed is more important than more cores.

(to be clear, if you have multiple independent tracks, then you can load balance those better since the tracks have no dependency on each other until the are gathered for summing at the end for the output)

[Benoni]

As mentioned try turning off Hyperthreading.

It is a pain when using other programs that run better with hyper-threading ON, like Media Composer.

You may be OK with hyper-threading ON if you turn off Turbo Mode.

You'll just have to try different settings.

Try opening the HP Performance Adviser and select the Pro Tools profile to start.

I have a HP Z820 with 20 physical cores and 96GB Ram and I just have to laugh when I get CPU errors... oh Pro Tools

[analog orange]

I’ve done all the optimizations. HP actually has a wizard they built specifically for protools and their workstations. It’s always processor 8 that’s taking the most load. I also notice that the longer the session is open the higher the cpu load goes even if I’m not adding tracks or plugins. I reboot and it starts over at a lower level. Takes about an hour of edit time for it to get this bad.

Never heard anything about higher clock speed being better for audio than more cores. Our B room has exactly the same box but with a faster pair of xeons and we’re not seeing the same problems. Is there any documentation about that you can point me to? If that would fix things I’ll lobby the corporate powers that be to upgrade my box.

[analog orange]

I can’t laugh at these errors anymore. We’ve got a very tight production schedule and this is getting nuts. Been at this for well over 2 decades and I had fewer cpu errors running a single proc athlon on Ensoniq Paris 20 years ago. It just shouldn’t be an issue anymore.

[analog orange]

I’ll try turning on/off turbo and or hyperthreading and test things. Thanks for the tips.

[jeam25]

Well apart from hyperthreading another thing to check is your plugins . Maybe moving all of them to th unused folder and testing bringing them back to PT plugin folder by group untill you see the spike again if that the case .

[analog orange]

I’ll try that. I suppose it could be a specific plugin. Very strange though that after all these years Avid hasn’t figured out how to properly distribute instructions across multiple cores. Has anyone successfully used the processor scheduling app in the hp advisor? I tried disabling some cores but it didn’t seem to do anything.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by analog orange

Is there any documentation about that you can point me to? If that would fix things I’ll lobby the corporate powers that be to upgrade my box.

Not that I know of... it's a little like asking for documentation for water being wet from audio developers. You can ask any actual developer and they will tell you this (Charlie Steinberg, Gerhard Lengeling, Matthias Carstens, etc.) Audio works on a FIFO basis. Video (and rendering) can take advantage of parallel processing, audio not: too many serial dependancies. A faster clock cycle allows buffers and processing to operate... well... faster.

I reboot and it starts over at a lower level. Takes about an hour of edit time for it to get this bad.

If this is true I'd look for something that has recursive processing or convolution as a culprit. Years ago, traced an error to a big name plugin developer's convolution reverb that would bring down a system after 3 hours. The convolver was feeding back into itself at minuscule levels (inaudible -- no waveform even visible) for "infinite" tails. It was a process that should have terminated.