Hardware Setup App

[LightUnderTheDoor]

I've been optimizing my system in an attempt to squeeze a little more CPU power into Pro Tools. While doing so, I encountered a glitch that makes the basic System Preferences application launch when I click on the Launch Setup App button in Hardware Setup. As it stands, I can't customize CPU usage or any other such parameter.

I've found nothing at all online about this rather odd issue, so any hints would be very welcome. So far, I've followed the Avid system optimization guide, ensured all my software and drivers are up to date, installed 11.3, and repaired disk permissions.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: thought my system specs would list automatically, but they didn't, so:

Mac Pro 5,1 2x2.66 6-Core Xeon / 48GB 1333 DDR3 / Pro Tools 11.3 / Mac OS 10.9.5 / MBox 2 Pro

[bradch00]

I am guessing you may have the Mac's Built-In Output selected as the hardware interface. Go into Setup > Playback Engine and select your interface from the pulldown list at the top, or press "N" when you start PT11.

[LightUnderTheDoor]

Thanks for the reply, but that ain't it. Sorry. I've had trouble in the past with PT10 randomly switching me out of the MBox or identifying it as an Aggregate, so I'm always careful to ensure the MBox is enabled in Playback Engine before I check anything else.

The MBox is connected FW400 from a Sonnet PCI-e card, and the only output that I'm using from the Mac is optical. PT is seeing the device, and everything is working fine except for the Setup App (that I've noticed).

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by LightUnderTheDoor

I've been optimizing my system in an attempt to squeeze a little more CPU power into Pro Tools. While doing so, I encountered a glitch that makes the basic System Preferences application launch when I click on the Launch Setup App button in Hardware Setup. As it stands, I can't customize CPU usage or any other such parameter.

I've found nothing at all online about this rather odd issue, so any hints would be very welcome. So far, I've followed the Avid system optimization guide, ensured all my software and drivers are up to date, installed 11.3, and repaired disk permissions.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: thought my system specs would list automatically, but they didn't, so:

Mac Pro 5,1 2x2.66 6-Core Xeon / 48GB 1333 DDR3 / Pro Tools 11.3 / Mac OS 10.9.5 / MBox 2 Pro

PT11 did away with cpu usage customization as that's taken care of automatically. The only parameter you can set are record buffers.

I've never had to use Hardware Setup inside PT. Once I have things set up in OSX audio/MIDI setup and I select the 11 Rack as my audio interface in PT I'm all set.

[Park Seward]

I had trouble with Hardware Setup like described. I think it was caused by the 002. When I changed to the Saffire Pro 40, everything worked fine.

[LightUnderTheDoor]

Originally Posted by musicman691

PT11 did away with cpu usage customization as that's taken care of automatically. The only parameter you can set are record buffers.

I've never had to use Hardware Setup inside PT. Once I have things set up in OSX audio/MIDI setup and I select the 11 Rack as my audio interface in PT I'm all set.

Ah! I suppose this could at least alleviate some concern, though I'm quite sure I'd adjusted all the CPU parameters more than once since installing PT11... Besides which, the Setup App should still be accessible, just because it should be, really.

CPU usage has never been a concern for me until my current project, which is at 24/96 with a single particularly heavy plugin. When I monitor CPU usage, all 24 cores are active at about 2% to 4%, with a spike from cores 11 to 13 peaking on core 12, which maxes out around 10% or so, yet despite the massive amounts of available "headroom" on all the active cores, the overall CPU usage level averages 60% with frequent spikes up to 80% or so. I've never paid close attention to allocation behavior in Pro Tools, but it strikes me as odd that there's still so much CPU power apparently being unused, and that a Xeon chip could be so quickly loaded to capacity by essentially a single reverb plugin.

Not sure what I'm getting at with that last bit other than "is this the correct behavior"?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by LightUnderTheDoor

Ah! I suppose this could at least alleviate some concern, though I'm quite sure I'd adjusted all the CPU parameters more than once since installing PT11... Besides which, the Setup App should still be accessible, just because it should be, really.

CPU usage has never been a concern for me until my current project, which is at 24/96 with a single particularly heavy plugin. When I monitor CPU usage, all 24 cores are active at about 2% to 4%, with a spike from cores 11 to 13 peaking on core 12, which maxes out around 10% or so, yet despite the massive amounts of available "headroom" on all the active cores, the overall CPU usage level averages 60% with frequent spikes up to 80% or so. I've never paid close attention to allocation behavior in Pro Tools, but it strikes me as odd that there's still so much CPU power apparently being unused, and that a Xeon chip could be so quickly loaded to capacity by essentially a single reverb plugin.

Not sure what I'm getting at with that last bit other than "is this the correct behavior"?

What you're seeing is pretty much normal for the current state of PT.

And once again there are no cpu parameters to adjust in PT11; the only thing you have control over is the record buffer size.

[LightUnderTheDoor]

Fair enough, I suppose...

So it's all normal? I mean, not just the Setup App no longer being necessary or even available, but the CPU allocation also seeming so wonky... It's all just the way Pro Tools manages its resources?

What should I make of all the apparently unused CPU power? Is this a "metering" illusion in CPU Usage? Is there some way to get all that empty chip headroom as a useable resource? I'm assuming there isn't, but I have to ask.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by LightUnderTheDoor

Fair enough, I suppose...

So it's all normal? I mean, not just the Setup App no longer being necessary or even available, but the CPU allocation also seeming so wonky... It's all just the way Pro Tools manages its resources?

What should I make of all the apparently unused CPU power? Is this a "metering" illusion in CPU Usage? Is there some way to get all that empty chip headroom as a useable resource? I'm assuming there isn't, but I have to ask.

I never said Hardware setup wasn't available just that I never needed to use it once I had things set up in OSX audio/MIDI setup. It is still available and when I click on said menu item up comes a window in PT showing my choice of audio I/O which in my case is my 11 Rack.

Repeating what I wrote earlier:
With the stock Avid plugins there's not much you can do to use the unused cpu power. Depending on how third party vi's are set up you can spread things out amongst cores by using many instances of a vi with maybe one or two instruments instead of cramming say 16 instruments into just one vi instance. For instance in a session if I have instruments with two articulations for each instrument I would put the two articulations into one vi instance. Additional instruments would each get their own vi instance. At least for EWQLSO in Play 4 this spreads out the load amongst my cores.

For some odd reason fx plugins tend to load up on core 4 of my iMac (see sig file for config) and don't spread out to the other cores.

[LightUnderTheDoor]

My current project is post-production for film rather than music, but I get what you're saying. Thanks for the help!