CPU (RTAS) meter bouncing around

[rhumphries]

Is the CPU(RTAS) meter in the system usage window supposed to jump around wildly? It seems to regularly jump from a number in the teens up to 30%, 40% etc. I've noticed this on several of the systems I've worked on.


-Richard

[pneyrinck]

The answer might depend on what plug-ins you are using and the engine playback buffer size. For each playback buffer, all the plug-ins are given time to do their processing. If a plug-in does irregular amounts of processing for each buffer, the CPU usage will vary. A common example is convolution reverb which has to perform FFT processing at irregular intervals. Other examples are our Neyrinck Dolby Digital, Dolby E, and DTS decoding plug-ins which decode blocks of data at intervals that are different than the playback engine buffer sizes. Typically, increasing the playback engine buffer size tends to smooth out the CPU usage.

[rhumphries]

Thanks Paul! That was it. I just shut off a Convolution reverb that is iin my template and the meter settled down.

-Richard