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  #11  
Old 03-04-2018, 11:32 AM
StillHollow StillHollow is offline
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Default Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Has anyone tried this yet? It sounds to me like the equivalent of a upgrade to everyone’s PC without the investment. Thanks Athlon!
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  #12  
Old 03-04-2018, 12:18 PM
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YYR123 YYR123 is offline
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Default Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

It’s interesting that it’s so simple and it works (I haven’t tried it yet)

I have been doing this for years but manually, and never for pro tools, just other programs
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  #13  
Old 03-04-2018, 01:20 PM
StillHollow StillHollow is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

I am sad to say that this did not work for me. I seem to have an eight core CPU and the benefit in my system was most 1 to 2% and sometimes the performance was actually worse. I may have missed a step but I tried it many times and reread Athlon’s instructions very carefully. Can someone else try this and see if you have better luck?

I have attached a screenshot of my processor.

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  #14  
Old 03-04-2018, 03:49 PM
guitardom guitardom is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Quote:
Originally Posted by StillHollow View Post
I am sad to say that this did not work for me. I seem to have an eight core CPU and the benefit in my system was most 1 to 2% and sometimes the performance was actually worse. I may have missed a step but I tried it many times and reread Athlon’s instructions very carefully. Can someone else try this and see if you have better luck?
You are pulling CPU power away from Pro tools and leaving it for the OS. You will for sure lose power to Pro Tools. If you are not having problems to begin with, there is no reason to do this. It is only for troubleshooting.
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  #15  
Old 03-05-2018, 02:44 AM
athlon64 athlon64 is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Quote:
Originally Posted by StillHollow View Post
I am sad to say that this did not work for me. I seem to have an eight core CPU and the benefit in my system was most 1 to 2% and sometimes the performance was actually worse. I may have missed a step but I tried it many times and reread Athlon’s instructions very carefully. Can someone else try this and see if you have better luck?

I have attached a screenshot of my processor.

Because you are probably mixing at a 1024 buffer and in that case this is not very usefull. It's mostly a huge help when recording at a buffer of 64 for an example.
You should explain the situation better. Are you mixing or recording. What buffer are you using. Are you having CPU usage spikes or not?

Does the script work, have you checked that it disabled the usage of 2 cores in task manager?
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  #16  
Old 03-07-2018, 12:47 PM
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abc1mce2 abc1mce2 is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Athlon64, when you say " i can literally record 200 tracks with a 64 buffer and have live monitoring", what bit depth are recording at on your native system, 48 or 96K?
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  #17  
Old 03-07-2018, 05:43 PM
athlon64 athlon64 is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Quote:
Originally Posted by abc1mce2 View Post
Athlon64, when you say " i can literally record 200 tracks with a 64 buffer and have live monitoring", what bit depth are recording at on your native system, 48 or 96K?
When i was first testing this out i opened up a 96khz session even considering i usually use 48/24. In that session i tried out recording 50 tracks, i sent some signal to my focusrite 2i4 preamp, created 50 tracks and set the input to the focusrite input 1 on all tracks. Recorded for maybe 10 minutes with no problems, monitored live trough the headphones and heard no cracks or pops.
I considered this to be the most intensive recording scenario i will ever be in with this computer.

Later, just for a test i opened up a 48khz 24bit session and did the same thing with 200 tracks in it. Again, with no problems at all.
Rising the track number didn't seem to make that much of a cpu usage difference at all and since i'm running an NVME SSD with maximum write speeds of up to 2GB/s. I wasn't running out of SSD write bandwith either.

A more realistic situation in which i pushed the P50 to the limit happened a week later when i recorded guitars and bass for a band, while the player heard 10 tracks of drums and his guitar live in the headphones with the buffer of 64. But since i did some mixing with the drumtracks while i waited for guitar recording time to come, this session was running with about 15 fabfilter pro Q2 and pro C2 plugins. An izotope ozone 8 too.
With these plugins and at a buffer of 64 this 48/24 session was hitting the limits of what i could get out of the P50. It did the job well but the cpu usage sometimes started hitting red. So i don't think i had much cpu power left at that point.
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  #18  
Old 03-07-2018, 07:24 PM
guitardom guitardom is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Quote:
Originally Posted by abc1mce2 View Post
Athlon64, when you say " i can literally record 200 tracks with a 64 buffer and have live monitoring", what bit depth are recording at on your native system, 48 or 96K?
I do it at 48k and can have tons of plugins. Would not imagine a problem with 96, except of course less plugins. Here is a video of it at 48k. The CPU is in and out of the red a bit because I am stressing it beyond what it should be doing, but it still keeps recording. I could take a few tracks off and the CPU would be well under.
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  #19  
Old 03-08-2018, 02:54 PM
StillHollow StillHollow is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Quote:
Originally Posted by athlon64 View Post
Because you are probably mixing at a 1024 buffer and in that case this is not very usefull. It's mostly a huge help when recording at a buffer of 64 for an example.
You should explain the situation better. Are you mixing or recording. What buffer are you using. Are you having CPU usage spikes or not?

Does the script work, have you checked that it disabled the usage of 2 cores in task manager?
Yes I am mixing at higher buffers (512) but to test your theory I just did as you suggested and pressed play to look at the meters. The cpu usage was very high with and without the suggested tweaks at 64 buffers.

I have not tried the script, I did everything manually. I will be happy to try the script and report back but in essence the script is the same thing as the manual process from what I gather.

To clarify, I was very excited about this because I hit the wall on system resources from time to time on a mix so this is in no way an effort to rain on your parade. This seems like a nice little free upgrade to my rig, I just wish I could take advantage of and maybe I can if I realize I made a mistake somewhere. I just unfortunately didn't have any noticeable gains as a result of trying it. I haven't seen anyone else report back who is trying this for the first time so am certainly hoping we get a few more people trying this and I can figure out if it is an issue on my end or a more broad situation.
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  #20  
Old 03-08-2018, 06:08 PM
ejinbc ejinbc is offline
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Default Re: Protools 12.XX performance optimization script and important tips!

Hi

The Processor Affinity topic comes up every once in a while. I thought I might summarize my efforts for stable low latency performance for people following this thread. So taken from a few earlier posts...

Recent attempts at achieving lower latency while recording a band in PT 2018.1 / Win 10 using a mix of VIs and 12 x 24/96 kHz audio channels. We monitor midi drums (TD6V, Abbey Road Modern Kit), Various Kontakt Keys (2 players), acoustic guitar, and 4 x Vox live through PT during recording. See below for system build details.

With a MOTU 1248 (latest drivers and up-to-date Win 10) I can record without clicks or pops at 24/96 kHz with a 64 sample audio buffer and 32 sample PT output buffer (MOTU allows these to be set separately) for at least 3 hours continuous without issue. Some things that have helped:

1) Use a CPU affinity of ‘FC’ when launching PT ('FFC' for 8700K processors) – this frees up one core for background audio processing on an i7 CPU. This is required on my system to achieve click/pop free operation at low latency – otherwise I get random CPU spikes which will halt recording. At higher buffers (e.g. 256) it is not needed.

This can be achieved on Win 10 with the command line for my install:

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

(note remove space before exe to use these command lines - spaces required to post in forum)

2) Minimize the use of serial processing - recently someone on GS was discussing optimizing your DAW setup to minimize serial processing of audio signals – the more parallel the signal path, the easier it is for the program to schedule across all cores (makes sense). So I route all signals straight to Master Output channels for monitoring. I have one send setup for Vox slapback (HDelay) echo during recording for monitoring.

3) Read the chapter on Groups in PT - Groups can be used for level control to minimize the need for Aux channels (e.g. drums master) – left click to adjust the group (like a VCA), and right click to adjust an individual group members level (wow). I have also started to mix more like this and for many tasks it keeps the mix simpler and easier for me to control. Aux channels can lead to extra serial processing ???


I just built the 8700K system linked below - running Win 10, ProTools 2018.1, MOTU 1248 USB, Waves Gold + HEQ, Kontakt Komplete:

System Builder https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/6nmc3F - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core, GeForce GTX 950 2GB FTW ACX 2.0, Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker Canada

If you want low latency, the 8700K system is probably the way to go because of the faster single core performance.

I overclock to 5.0 GHz. Overclocking is trivial (see YouTube e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoUtA7DKXhU) and completely stable on my system. Actually, I find overclocking gives better stability/performance for DAW work. I disable all clock and power switching in the BIOS. I setup a custom fan profile in the BIOS for quieter operation. Airflow is important for overclocking. With the Noctu cooler I reverse the normal case airflow to draw in from the back directly onto the Noctu Radiator, and exhaust out the front. This gets the coolest air over the Radiator for cooling. The CPU never goes above 70C when using ProTools on a busy project.

I am very happy with the 8700K. I had been using an overclocked 3770K (4.5 GHz) for several years waiting for a worthy upgrade. This was it. The single core performance allows me to run at 64 sample buffer 24/96 kHz for recording (16 audio, 16 midi, 6 instances of HEQ, 1 HDelay, 1 Kontakt running AR Modern Drums, 1 Kontakt running Pianos, and then other instances of Kontakt instruments as required), and the 6 cores allow me to run many more CPU intensive plugins during mixing. All good.

I did not delid my CPU; it should not be necessary for 5 GHz. Get the thermal paste right and make sure you have the coolest air possible moving over the radiators. I just used the asus overclock profile for 5 GHz on the Asus Z370 Prime A motherboard and adjusted the XMP for my memory. Once it was working, I lowered the CPU voltage from the overclock default until my system wasn't stable in a stress test then upped the CPU voltage back a few mV. Done stable and cool.

Also note, there is a big difference in CPU load (temperatures) between running a DAW with a busy project and running a Prime stress test. On a stress test the CPU temp cycles from 60 to 85 C, but with a full DAW load it only goes up to 70 C max.

Happy Camper, Hope this helps someone.

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