Macbook Pro 2018 w/ UAD Apollo 8p and PT 2018.7 Performance Issues

[Dudiester]

Hey all,

I apologize for the small novel I am about to write but we are currently troubleshooting worrisome performance on the new 15” Macbook Pro 2018 i9 with 32gb of ram. When comparing directly to our MBP 2013 performance is far less stable within pro tools, to the point it is almost unusable. To give a bit of background we are using Pro Tools as a live mixer with a professional gigging band that plays mostly corporate events and weddings. We use two UAD Apollo 8ps connected to each other via Thunderbolt 2 and to our new MBP through Apple’s TB3 converter.

Our current specs are:

15” MBP 2018 i9 with 32gb of ram, and AMD graphics
OSX High Sierra 10.13.6
Pro Tools 2018.7
UAD Apollo 8p Black (TB2)
UAD Apollo 8p Silver (TB2)

Before we get the obvious replies I would like to mention that we are using the latest drivers and console application for the UADs, and have already installed the hotfix to correct thermal issues on the new MBP. We also have a third party fan control program that is kicking in the fans sooner, and letting them run at full potential as noise isn’t an issue for us. I have also batch removed plug-ins from the folder to ensure we do not have any compatibility issues.

Our current goal is to run the live session at 64 samples. Our MBP 2013 could handle 128 samples easily and was super close to running 64 samples, but there was occasional drop outs which we cannot have in a live environment. Given the power bump of the i9 processor this task should be easily doable. Since I have not come to any meaningful conclusions from our testing I will simply list some observations below and hopefully somebody may have some ideas of possible fixes or improvements to our current situation.

- Our main and most easily noticeable problem is that PT is not using all of our cores once input monitoring is enabled. PT will not use cores 1, 11 or 12 whatsoever (see image below). We believe this to be the core of all our issues but cannot think of any way to engage these cores. At 128 samples, cores 1 and 12 seem to be used slightly more, but still do not fully engage, although this curve seems to be much more normal and less worrisome (see second image).

PT Sys Usage 64.jpg PT Sys Usage 128.jpg

- We used Intel Power Gadget to get a better idea of what was going on and during our CPU spikes the processor speed jumped down by about 1ghz for no reason. There was no heat bump before this moment and no difference in pro tools, or other programs that would warrant the cpu to drop. (See images below with circled areas). In one isolated instance the CPU did jump to 100 degrees which would of course initiate throttling (See second pic).

PT CPU 1.jpg PT CPU 2 Heat.jpg PT CPU 3.jpg

- We have used a program called tinker tools to activate a setting that keeps all the cores fully powered up at all times. Testing this setting directly against not using this setting showed that the setting gave a fairly big performance bump. With or without this setting, we were still not using cores 1, 11 and 12. With or without this setting, 64 samples was still unusable due to unpredictable CPU dips.

- Comparing CPU usage to a similar session in Logic produced similar results (although logic is currently only using 6 of our 12 available threads.. but that’s another issue all together). Using Reaper we could actually obtain 48+ tracks of input monitored audio and still maintain very stable CPU usages.

- Using the “Macbook Pro Microphone” as an audio interface within Pro Tools and assigning all of the inputs in our tracks in the same testing session to the microphone produced
extremely stable results. This session at 64 samples ran much better then the UAD driven session at 128.

A couple questions that we have but do not have answers for to date are:

- Does the model of thunderbolt 2 to thunderbolt 3 converter have an impact on performance?

- Although everything we are using is listed as compatible on their own websites with High Sierra, is there some sort of bug or incompatibility in one of the programs/drivers that’s driving down performance?

- Does the Macbook Pro 2018 still have some issues with its CPU that weren’t fixed in the hotfix? (We are not witnessing high temperatures of the CPU resulting in throttling but maybe the band-aid patch introduced some sort of latency?)

- Are there any other tweaks people have made in third party programs such as tinker tools or deeper that have shown unquestionably positive results that may help?

Thanks in advance for any feedback on these issues! For a brand new $4000+ machine, sporting an impressively powerful CPU with the i9, we are getting very disappointing results in days of testing now.