Pro Tools Ultimate CPU Spikes.. come on!!!!

[marcsprotools]

I’m running PT on Mac in Yosemite. It was good up until Ultimate.. now I get codec errors and video engine errors and sometimes the video doesn’t move when playing. If I restart sometimes that fixes it. But I don’t have time to play that game so I’ve gone back to 12.8.3. It’s so disappointing. I want to say all good things about PT because it’s been so great.. but this is trouble for me. Anybody have a suggestion other than go to Sierra?


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[toolz]

Beginning to get to the bottom of the issue.

Originally when I moved the machine from PT10 system to Yosemite PT12, the video was a bit laggy so I updated the graphic card to a:

Apple (Nvidia) Quadro 4000 2GB

This card was sold as an update from apple for the 2012 machine, for graphics guys.

The original card is a ATI Radeon HD 577 1GB

I've been on FaceTime with two people with identical machines, and identical spec, and the graphics card is most certainly the issue, as the same test at the same buffer gives no spikes, with ATI graphics.

I had updated the Nvidia Cuda drivers for Sierra, just to be sure, without difference.

Assuming it's an Nvidia issue.

[toolz]

Unfortunately returning to the stock ATI HD5570 graphics card that's standard with the Mac 5,1 showed no luck with the CPU spikes, as it's the stock GPU, and it's a qualified machine, I need to rule out this.

I'm not sure what to do next:

It's not a plugin, as I only have core plugs installed.

The Mac 5,1 12 core is a qualified machine with Ultimate, and latest version of Sierra, HD Native and 3 HD I/O

My test session has one stereo audio track with no audio. I just hit playback and click the cursor randomly to spike the CPU to 100% (24bit 96Khz 128 buffer, my normal tracking settings)

I've now booted back into Yosemite 12.7.1, to work tomorrow. (all is smooth, with a massive session)

Any suggestions are welcome.

[toolz]

Ok.. Looks like it's the Apple mighty mouse that causes the issue, soon as I go to a wired USB mouse all is fine! CPU is happy.

Suggestions please.


Wrong... Nope... not the Apple mighty mouse!

[LDS]

Originally Posted by toolz

Ok.. Looks like it's the Apple mighty mouse that causes the issue, soon as I go to a wired USB mouse all is fine! CPU is happy.

Suggestions please.

Do you mean the bluetooth magic mouse? The Mighty Mouse is a wired USB mouse (with the little scroll ball in the middle). I am running a very similar Mac Pro and I can't say I have noticed the spikes - certainly not to the extent you have mentioned anyway. I will take a closer look at it though.

Could it be narrowed down to bluetooth in general? Perhaps a replacement wireless/bluetooth PCIe card might help the cause (something that I have been considering because the bluetooth connectivity on my Mac Pro is terrible)? Is there anything else on the Mac Pro that is using bluetooth? Waves NX head tracker for example always opens with the plugin... it is CPU intensive too, so I went to the effort of manually deleting the head tracker app entirely.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Originally Posted by LDS

Do you mean the bluetooth magic mouse? The Mighty Mouse is a wired USB mouse (with the little scroll ball in the middle).

I have both wired and wireless Mighty Mice. But I use the Magic now. Which they jacked up by getting rid of replaceable batteries in favor of rechargeable built in, but the connector goes on the bottom rendering the mouse useless when recharging. Steve Jobs is dead...

I use the magic mouse without issue.

[innesireinar]

How is set the hw buffer in the playback engine?

[toolz]

Originally Posted by innesireinar

How is set the hw buffer in the playback engine?

128 samples 24/96k, this is my usual tracking settings, and just one stereo audio track

[toolz]

2012 5,1 12 core 64Gig Ram HDN PCI 3xHD I/O

24/96Khz

Buffer 128

10 audio tracks

No plugins!

Only core audio plugins installed.

Feel my pain.. https://youtu.be/bM2A6C9HoGM

The same system booting in Yosemite with PT12.8.1 runs perfectly, 128 tracks with 100's of plugins with no errors.

[LDS]

Does activity monitor give any hints about what might be happening?