CPU overloads with Sierra and Pro Tools HD 12.6?

[ThosSounds]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this or if I'm just missing something, but... I recently upgraded to Pro Tools HD 12.6.0 from an earlier Pro Tools HD 12.x and at the same time went from Mac OSX 10.9.x to Sierra 10.12.1. I'm now finding that while working in Pro Tools HD, I'm having CPU overload issues much more often than I used to. With my old configuration, I was typically using a HW Buffer of 512 samples. On small sessions I could get away with 256. Now I'm finding on a small session (10 or fewer tracks at 32bit float, 96k) 512 has fairly regular errors. So far I moved the HW buffer to 1024 samples and things seem better (too early to call them "perfect").

I went through Avid's optimization recommendations and changed a few things with no perceptible difference.

Hardware is: HDX1, running an Avid 16x16 and an 8x8x8.
Mac Pro (mid 2010) 2 x 2.4 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon.
24GB 1066 MHz ram
Internal system drive, all sessions and audio to external FW800 Oxford 911 drives.

I'm wondering if this is a software bug or setting? Or maybe the sign of a newer OS pushing an older machine? My plan at the moment is to leave Apple's Activity Monitor utility running in the background and if a CPU error occurs again, see if I can identify a process that's doing it.

Any thoughts? Thanks!
Tom

[cwsand]

Originally Posted by ThosSounds

Mac Pro (mid 2010) 2 x 2.4 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon.

I'm wondering if this is ... the sign of a newer OS pushing an older machine?

I don't know for sure, but this seems suspect.

[centerstage]

I'm using 12.6 with Sierra 10.12.1 and running into the same problems. System is 3 weeks old . 2010 3.2 12 core Mac Pro. 32 gigs of ram. My old TDM rigs never had this issue. I can't tell you how much is tied up in this new system.
Tim

[JFreak]

I just clean-installed Sierra and PT and made a test session. Using only native processing and 32 sample buffer I was able to instantiate 640 (64 tracks of 10 plugin instances = dummy test) SSL Channel plugins and this is relatively old late-2013 MBP. It would have taken +20 HD cards to be able to do the same

[centerstage]

Jannee. Could you tell us what CPU you're using. OS. Ram. Thanks Tim

[squareneck]

Same problems here MacBook Pro 2015, OS X 10.12, HD Native, PT 12.6.1. Crazy CPU spikes and AAE-9093, AAE-9172. Can reproduce the problem with 1 single audio track @ 44.1, 24 bit, when recording with buffer size 32.

[ilovemyssl]

I did brand new installs on 2 machines at the same time... A mid-2010 12-core Mac Pro (64Gb RAM) and a 2014 15" Macbook Pro (16Gb RAM)

I installed 12.6.1 HD software on both machines. The Mac Pro has an HDX card, the Macbook Pro is running a UAD Apollo 8P

BOTH MACHINES had this problem for the first week... I couldn't open a session without the mac fans going in to overdrive and the system monitor maxing out WAY past its limit.

I stumbled on a post somewhere on the forum where someone from Avid made an ambiguous statement that there was something to do with macOS Sierra that sent the background processes in to overdrive for the first few days after install....

I guess that Sierra has some stuff going on in the background when you first install it that interrupts with Pro Tools processing ability and clamps down the system.

Thankfully after a week (or maybe 2) it seemed to fix itself on both machines.

[jjnssn]

Originally Posted by ilovemyssl

I did brand new installs on 2 machines at the same time... A mid-2010 12-core Mac Pro (64Gb RAM) and a 2014 15" Macbook Pro (16Gb RAM)



I installed 12.6.1 HD software on both machines. The Mac Pro has an HDX card, the Macbook Pro is running a UAD Apollo 8P



BOTH MACHINES had this problem for the first week... I couldn't open a session without the mac fans going in to overdrive and the system monitor maxing out WAY past its limit.



I stumbled on a post somewhere on the forum where someone from Avid made an ambiguous statement that there was something to do with macOS Sierra that sent the background processes in to overdrive for the first few days after install....



I guess that Sierra has some stuff going on in the background when you first install it that interrupts with Pro Tools processing ability and clamps down the system.



Thankfully after a week (or maybe 2) it seemed to fix itself on both machines.

Thanks for sharing. I had read that the spotlight indexing was building during this time frame. I wonder if this could explain some of the issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Aderra]

I am running 12.6 vanilla on a brand new iMac. It gives me a -6101 CPU error every 5-20 seconds unless I have my buffer at 1024. The latency using MIDI is unworkable. Is there a work around? Does 12.7 fix this?

[minister]

Not sure if this helps, but, I am running a Mid 2012 Mac Pro 2 x 2.4 6 Core with 32GB Ram, OS 10.12.2 and PT 12.7. Not seeing this problem at all.

In general 12.7 has been smooth for me. Consider updating.