Constant CPU Errors Making Sessions Slow and Unworkable

[alanbenj]

Hey guys, first time poster, long time listener.

Been constant CPU errors hindering my sessions. These are not huge sessions, I'm talking, 40-50 tracks, not a ton of plugins, and to my knowledge, using mostly low-cpu plugins), freezing or committing software instruments as I go... trying to overall keep the sessions streamlined for optimal CPU usage. I am also operating off of two separate external ssd's (one for studio, one for samples).

When I first open the session, things are usually fine. Total CPU usage hovering around 40%. When I press play, total CPU usage around 55%. All core's between 30-45% usually. As I dive deeper into the session for a longer amount of time (I'm talking minutes - like 10-15) the CPU will randomly spike to 100% and give me:

"Pro Tools ran out of CPU power. Try de-activating or removing Native plug-ins. (AAE-9173)."

I'll also occasionally get "increase hardware buffer size" in the mix as well. I've played with that a bit and haven't found that it helps a ton either way.

I am running off of:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
512gb SSD

Issues also happen in Logic. The system will just completely bog down and everything becomes super slow... even scrolling, opening plugins, etc. And then of course the constant errors and stops in playback. The sessions becomes unworkable when this happens - things that should take me 2 hours end up taking me 5 because of how slow the workflow becomes.

I've tried all of the easy tips/tricks I can find in the forum (turn wifi off, make sure pro tools is only thing running, operate off of externals, etc etc) so I'm kind of at a loss next to upgrading my system, which obviously I don't wanna do cost-wise if I don't absolutely need to.

Am I missing something? Is this a common issue with my set up? Am I just an idiot? Just seems like my CPU can't handle what I'm doing, but what I'm doing *should* be able to be handled by CPU.

Thanks for any input. If I left any key info out, lemme know and I'll post.

[Darryl Ramm]

What macOS... if Mojave Try disabling hyperthreading (widely discussed on DUC...)

What IO buffer size and sample rate are you trying to operate at, is it stable at large buffer sizes?

Get your system fully optimized.Every last thing done. Disk cache set to a few GB, ignore errors not checked (while troubleshooting), dynamic processing off..

One session or all having problems? If one session it may be corrupt.

Try standard troubleshooting steps, especially trashing prefs, moving aside plugin files. Looking for denormalization issues (search/google that), testing with built in output as the playback engine, creating a new admin account and testing there with a new empty session...

Start at “Help us Help you” up the top of each DUC page.

There is not much anybody here can do for you until you do that work and if still having problems report back clearly all the things you tried.

Telling us stuff like you have an “SSD” is not a lot of help, what exact make/model SSD attached exactly how (USB2, USB 3.1 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 2....)

[Downtown_BE]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

What macOS... if Mojave Try disabling hyperthreading (widely discussed on DUC...)

What IO buffer size and sample rate are you trying to operate at, is it stable at large buffer sizes?

Get your system fully optimized.Every last thing done. Disk cache set to a few GB, ignore errors not checked (while troubleshooting), dynamic processing off..

One session or all having problems? If one session it may be corrupt.

Try standard troubleshooting steps, especially trashing prefs, moving aside plugin files. Looking for denormalization issues (search/google that), testing with built in output as the playback engine, creating a new admin account and testing there with a new empty session...

Start at “Help us Help you” up the top of each DUC page.

There is not much anybody here can do for you until you do that work and if still having problems report back clearly all the things you tried.

Telling us stuff like you have an “SSD” is not a lot of help, what exact make/model SSD attached exactly how (USB2, USB 3.1 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 2....)

dynamic processing off? never heard of that one - does it work?

[wwittman]

I'm never clear if that's sensible or not.

Shouldn't dynamic plug in processing be SAVING CPU in between regions/clips?

[Darryl Ramm]

... maybe if it worked as intended, and it does not always. Early comments from some developers were it was just not a good idea.

None of the issues people face are really running out of CPU... it’s the micro-latency with plugin thread processing occurring inside the system that causes problems. Want to think about how a dynamic scheduler affecting plugin processing might cause problems there...

But either way when things are not working you try stuff...

[jasonkalman]

Originally Posted by alanbenj

Hey guys, first time poster, long time listener.

Been constant CPU errors hindering my sessions. These are not huge sessions, I'm talking, 40-50 tracks, not a ton of plugins, and to my knowledge, using mostly low-cpu plugins), freezing or committing software instruments as I go... trying to overall keep the sessions streamlined for optimal CPU usage. I am also operating off of two separate external ssd's (one for studio, one for samples).

When I first open the session, things are usually fine. Total CPU usage hovering around 40%. When I press play, total CPU usage around 55%. All core's between 30-45% usually. As I dive deeper into the session for a longer amount of time (I'm talking minutes - like 10-15) the CPU will randomly spike to 100% and give me:

"Pro Tools ran out of CPU power. Try de-activating or removing Native plug-ins. (AAE-9173)."

I'll also occasionally get "increase hardware buffer size" in the mix as well. I've played with that a bit and haven't found that it helps a ton either way.

I am running off of:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
512gb SSD

Issues also happen in Logic. The system will just completely bog down and everything becomes super slow... even scrolling, opening plugins, etc. And then of course the constant errors and stops in playback. The sessions becomes unworkable when this happens - things that should take me 2 hours end up taking me 5 because of how slow the workflow becomes.

I've tried all of the easy tips/tricks I can find in the forum (turn wifi off, make sure pro tools is only thing running, operate off of externals, etc etc) so I'm kind of at a loss next to upgrading my system, which obviously I don't wanna do cost-wise if I don't absolutely need to.

Am I missing something? Is this a common issue with my set up? Am I just an idiot? Just seems like my CPU can't handle what I'm doing, but what I'm doing *should* be able to be handled by CPU.

Thanks for any input. If I left any key info out, lemme know and I'll post.

I've had the same problem. Recommend moving over to Logic Pro X until the 2019.5 update fully supports Mojave. You don't have to change any settings on your computer and it just works.

[climber]

Originally Posted by alanbenj

Issues also happen in Logic..

perhaps the person suggesting the OP trying Logic didn't catch this...

[dezst]

I had the same problem alot... with 16GB RAM as you have, and with smaller sessions than yours. Nothing to do with Mojave vs latest version of Pro Tools as I had the problem before I upgraded.
And increasing the hardware buffer above 512 Samples completely screwed up my session so I wouldn't advise that.
The only way I was able to solve the issue was to max-out to 32GB RAM.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by dezst

I had the same problem alot... with 16GB RAM as you have, and with smaller sessions than yours. Nothing to do with Mojave vs latest version of Pro Tools as I had the problem before I upgraded.
And increasing the hardware buffer above 512 Samples completely screwed up my session so I wouldn't advise that.
The only way I was able to solve the issue was to max-out to 32GB RAM.

If you had relatively small sessions that needed 32GB of memory then you likely had a corrupted session or maybe plugins with memory leaks in them.

Increasing the IO buffer size until (hopefully) the session becomes stable is exactly one of the first tests anybody should be doing with CPU errors. The OP mentioned changing that but no useful clue about what exactly... like was it working at 1k or 2k samples? That is very useful info. That you had a problem at 512 samples points out something was very sick with your system.

[RyanC]

Bumping to say definitely trash prefs and AAE prefs, this app is easy to use on mac-

http://petegates.com/pg-pt-prefs.html

I've needed to trash prefs for every .x revision of PT since 2018. But then it runs well after so no biggie...