Errors and hyperthreading

[bom619]

I have been plagued by work stopping 6101 errors since the update. Cant even play through song without it stopping dead! Opened a support ticket but nothing Avid suggested helped at all. Someone on Gearsltuz mentioned something about hyperthreading so I did some digging.

Test session was 24 tracks (from analog tape) at 88.2k buffer set at 64 samples. 120 instances of mono D-Verb. Im using https://www.whatroute.net/cpusetter.html to turn off hyperthreading. Will now cruise all day long at 80%+ without stopping. With hyperthreading enabled, I cant even put it into record without redlining. Distribution on processors changes dramatically between playback and record but at least its usable. Sorry about the extra text box.

Saw no performance difference with the new "Parallel task optimization" option high/off.

Mac OSX 10.13.3, Pro Tools HD 2018.1, Mac Pro 5,1 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon, 32 GB 1333 ram, all OWC SSD drives, Orion 32, ATC SCM300a

Update: Yes... Pro Tools HD (not vanilla). Session stopping DSP surges only occur once an hour now which is very manageable compared to performance before disabling hyperthreading.

[john1192]

Originally Posted by bom619

I have been plagued by work stopping 6101 errors since the update. Cant even play through song without it stopping dead! Opened a support ticket but nothing Avid suggested helped at all. Someone on Gearsltuz mentioned something about hyperthreading so I did some digging.

Test session was 24 tracks (from analog tape) at 88.2k buffer set at 64 samples. 120 instances of mono D-Verb. Im using https://www.whatroute.net/cpusetter.html to turn off hyperthreading. Will now cruise all day long at 80%+ without stopping. With hyperthreading enabled, I cant even put it into record without redlining. Distribution on processors changes dramatically between playback and record but at least its usable. Sorry about the extra text box.

Saw no performance difference with the new "Parallel task optimization" option high/off.

Mac OSX 10.13.3, Pro Tools 2018.1, Mac Pro 5,1 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon, 32 GB 1333 ram, all OWC SSD drives, Orion 32, ATC SCM300a

are you on PTHD ??

[s.d. finley]

Originally Posted by bom619

I have been plagued by work stopping 6101 errors since the update. Cant even play through song without it stopping dead! Opened a support ticket but nothing Avid suggested helped at all. Someone on Gearsltuz mentioned something about hyperthreading so I did some digging.

Test session was 24 tracks (from analog tape) at 88.2k buffer set at 64 samples. 120 instances of mono D-Verb. Im using https://www.whatroute.net/cpusetter.html to turn off hyperthreading. Will now cruise all day long at 80%+ without stopping. With hyperthreading enabled, I cant even put it into record without redlining. Distribution on processors changes dramatically between playback and record but at least its usable. Sorry about the extra text box.

Saw no performance difference with the new "Parallel task optimization" option high/off.

Mac OSX 10.13.3, Pro Tools 2018.1, Mac Pro 5,1 2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon, 32 GB 1333 ram, all OWC SSD drives, Orion 32, ATC SCM300a

very interesting. I am having all kinds of cpu spikes with PTHDN 2018 PCIe card, El Capitan. Mac pro 5.1 dual hex core. I will have to try this out and report back.

[TNM]

well this is VERY interesting indeed.. If the low buffer size spikes can be stopped by hyper threading turned off, i have to check this out.

To the OP.. of course you don't need that many d verbs, this was just a performance test, correct?

And just so I understand right, these tracks were armed to *record* at 64 samples with d verb on, correct?

[TNM]

edit, nope, doesn't help here

[TNM]

Oh well that excitement was short lived.. once i put on a cpu intensive synth, like codex for example, i could not play a single chord at 32 OR 64 buffer.. with hyperthread on or off. All cores spiking to max in both cases. In logic and Cubase i can play away at 32 buffer with only one core being used.

So it makes absolutely no difference here, my initial excitement had me overlook there was a light instrument in the slot (fab filter twin)...

So here at least it makes sense not to turn HT off at all.

[bom619]

Answering a bunch of questions at once:

Yes... this is HD Pro Tools without a Hd native card. Dverbs were on record enabled audio tracks. Dverb (unlike many plug-ins I use) are something everyone has in their system so comparing load results can be consistent between users (of course there is no musical reason to ever use that plugin; absolutely terrible).

Also things I tried while troubleshooting (we have several similar Mac Pro's in the machine room here):

Swapping Logic boards
Swapping Video Cards
Removing all third party hardware drivers (Antelope, SSl, etc)
Sessions at 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96k

Like I said in my edit to the original post, session stopping seizures are down to about once an hour but they still happen. DSP efficiency is actually better than it has been in some time and I have had very few reasons to work above buffers of 128 samples.

[s.d. finley]

Ok, downloaded and ran CPU setter. Disabled hyper threading so I 'only' have 12 cores. And, works like a charm!! An 18 track session that would barely playback at 128 buffer now has no issues what so ever and CPU is no longer spiking at all and all is good. @64 buffer cpu jumps little bit from 15 to 20%. Before turning HT off, I could not even play the session at 64.
Maybe its a MacPro issue with Hex cores and HT? Anyways I am keeping hyper threading off.

[TOM@METRO]

"Hyperthreading off" works best here. (Increased stability.)

[s.d. finley]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

"Hyperthreading off" works best here. (Increased stability.)

Hi Tom, are you using a mac or pc? Also, turning hyper threading off should be a sticky.

oh never mind I see windows 10 on your profile!