Re-reminded that BIOS optimizations are critical

[ejinbc]

Biker

I looked at your profile. Your system is 'similar' to mine.

Did you do the BIOS changes - C-states and Speedstep OFF are both critical for 24/96 at 64 buffer.

I would recommend trying (1) unplug ALL USB devices except the interface, mouse and keyboard and plug in the interface to a port on the back of the machine, mouse and keys on the front ports - definitely no USB hubs; (2) disable all onboard devices that you can in BIOS (you might need the network card for licences); (3) unplug the video card and run off the 8700K (maybe driver/card problem - I have a 950); (4) if your motherboard has a HPET turn it OFF in BIOS; (5) disconnect (unplug) from all networks (my DAW partition never sees the network - use dual boot); (6) disable all security software including WIN 10 built in stuff (not on the Net, so don't need it);

There's a few ideas. Post more info about your system and I'll think about it some more.

BTW, do you have spikes even when you have nothing monitor or record enabled ? - if so that's really weird, I would bet on a hardware problem.

Free advice, standard disclaimers. Hopes this helps.

E

[Indub]

Hi .
I have a similar system (Cpu overclocked to 4.69 and MB) as you and was curious about the set Affinity tip so I tried it as you outlined and did not notice much if any difference when running at 512 buffers . Then I decided to exclude core no 6 ( the one that shows most usage in CPU Meter ) manually via Task Manager and lo and behold much less spikes in CPU as in momentarily hitting 100% before and max 56% after. I would love to know why this should be so any insights would be most welcome.
Cheers

[polyh3dron]

Originally Posted by ejinbc

After a quick Google I found a way to set affinity when Pro Tools is being loaded. Google "CPU Affinity Shortcut for a Program - Create in Windows"

For my 8700K i7 system with Pro Tools, I have found that leaving 1 core for the operating system is optimum for best low latency performance - no clicks/pops at 64 buffer when recording 16 audio & 3 Kontakt VIs with midi at 24/96 for over 3 hours.

For example, the command line to start Pro Tools using only 11 of 12 cores for my install:

cmd.e x e /c start "ProTools" /affinity FFE "C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\Protools.exe

<remove spaces in ".exe" above - required for posting on duc>

What this does is reserve one processor for the operating system. It seems that at low latency this decreases task switching on the core and thereby reduces CPU spikes - or something like that. If you look at the CPU load in Windows Performance Monitor, at low latency (64 buffer, 24/96) there is steady 10% activity on the released core, so Windows is doing lots of work to get the audio through the ASIO driver. Note, I use a MOTU 1248 interface with USB. At higher buffer settings this is not necessary on my computer.

I do not believe there is an easy way to do this on Macs.

Apologies for the necromancy, but I've been in a rabbit hole dealing with this same issue of CPU spikes and playing around with my ASUS BIOS settings with a X570 mobo and Ryzen CPU, and couldn't help but notice that you were talking about using 12 cores on a 8700K. This means that your hyperthreading is active, since that is a 6-Core CPU. Is it stable for you?

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by polyh3dron

Apologies for the necromancy, but I've been in a rabbit hole dealing with this same issue of CPU spikes and playing around with my ASUS BIOS settings with a X570 mobo and Ryzen CPU, and couldn't help but notice that you were talking about using 12 cores on a 8700K. This means that your hyperthreading is active, since that is a 6-Core CPU. Is it stable for you?

You would probably be better served by starting a fresh thread(but here we are....). Hyperthreading is really down to a case by case scenario. You need to try it ON and test, then try again with it OFF and test(use the same session for an accurate comparison). Posting a Sandra report is often the best way to get advice(because it can expose hardware issues).