CPU overload on a brand new 12 Core Mac Pro

[travisrex]

Having invested serious money in a new 12 Core Mac Pro, it pains me to say I'm having CPU performance issues Running Pro Tools 11.3.1

I mainly do music and sound design to picture, I use a lot of VI's and plug-ins and I output my video with a Blackmagic Intensity Thunderbolt.

Today I have been working on a 40second trailer with no VI's and minimal plug-ins. I have the System Usage window up and I'm barely hitting 8% of CPU power yet I'm getting overload messages whilst simply editing audio.

I'm working from an AAF with MXF HD video (633MB) which looks like its chewing up quite a lot of RAM but I'm still only at 33% (of 32Gig). The Disk meter isn't registering at all so I don't think the HD is the problem. Baring in mind AAF with MXF is an Avid format, surly this should run without problems?.

I'm loathe to keep bumping up the H/W buffer as I spent a lot of money to have a low latency workstation.

I'm also getting serious problems when doing realtime bounces (offline works fine).

Does anyone out there have any advice?

My system:

Late 2014 2.7GHz 12 Core Mac Pro
32Gig OWC DDR3 1866MHz RAM
G-Raid 8TB Thunderbolt Drive
Avid 003 Factory
Pro Tools 11.3.1
Blackmagic Intensity Pro Thunderbolt

[Darryl Ramm]

Where are all your files? Video, audio, samples? On what exact drive/ partitions. How is that G-RAID configured... JBOD hopefully?

What exact Pro Tools version?

If you have HD are you using timeline cache? How large a cache?

Is the computer fully optimized? Every last thing done?

Is there anything else on the 003 Firewire bus?

Are the G-RAID and Blackmagic on completely independent Thubderbolt busses? There are three busses coming out the Mac Pro on 6 ports, make sure these are on independent busses, I would hope that is not an issue, but just test it.

What standard troubleshooting have you done? Trash prefs? Tried starting with a new empty session?

As always plugins are a suspect, even if not instantiated. Are they all up to date and compatible with the OS X and apro Tools Version? Move all plugins out of their directory to somewhere else, trash preferences, and start Pro Tools, it will automagically back the standard Avud plugins, what happens if you try again?

[travisrex]

Hi Darryl, thanks for your reply

I'll answer your questions

Where are all your files? Video, audio, samples? On what exact drive/ partitions. How is that G-RAID configured... JBOD hopefully?

I keep all my Video and Audio together on the G-Raid in Session Folders. The Drive is an unpartitioned, Dual SATA III 7200 RPM, RAID 0

http://www.g-technology.com/sites/de..._0114_LR_0.pdf

All my samples are on the Internal 1 TB SSD drive

What exact Pro Tools version?

Pro Tools 11.3.1

If you have HD are you using timeline cache? How large a cache?

I don't use PT HD

Is the computer fully optimized? Every last thing done?

I don't know what you mean. Any tips/links would be appreciated

Is there anything else on the 003 Firewire bus?

No, the 003 has its own bus.

Are the G-RAID and Blackmagic on completely independent Thubderbolt busses? There are three busses coming out the Mac Pro on 6 ports, make sure these are on independent busses, I would hope that is not an issue, but just test it.

I have the G-RAID, 003 and the Blackmagic all on separate busses.

What standard troubleshooting have you done? Trash prefs? Tried starting with a new empty session?

As always plugins are a suspect, even if not instantiated. Are they all up to date and compatible with the OS X and apro Tools Version? Move all plugins out of their directory to somewhere else, trash preferences, and start Pro Tools, it will automagically back the standard Avud plugins, what happens if you try again?

I laboriously updated all my Plug-ins when I set the Mac up. I'll try what you suggest however
__________________

My system is very new and clean ie I did a fresh install of all my software when I got the computer. In theory I should be running a modest mix session (I'm just using 27 Stereo tracks x8 Avid Channel strip, Altiverb 7 x 4, waves Ultra Maximizer x1, 40sec HD MXF video, 24bit 48KHz) at 32 or 64 buffer samples without interruption no?

[Darryl Ramm]

Systems optimization instructions are in your Pro Tools 11 Installation Guide and also under the "Help us Help You - READ THIS Before Posting!" link up at the top of this web page.

So for starters...

11.3.1 is giving some users problems, solving problems for other users. With your system as poorly set up as it is, I would start by addressing the issues below and if still stuck then try rolling back to some earlier versions of Pro Tools. You can read the issues others are having with 11.3.1 on DUC (but be aware with every new release there are always some complaints of issues, often caused by plugin compatibility, but there just seems to have been too many instability issues with Pro tools 11 releases)

Many times CPU errors are caused by underspec and improper disk configuration. And your disk is not set up properly.

Pro Tools should not be using that drive as a RAID volume, certainly not for audio file storage. Your video files should be on a separate drive from your audio files (at least two separate drives, not two drives RAIDed together).

If you want to use a box like the G-RAID you should have run in in JBOD mode as two separate drives.

An old-fashioned slow spinning HDD seems an awfully low-end storage to connect to a new 12 core Mac Pro. It's internal PCIe based SSD for example is so much faster it's a joke. If you really want to get the maximum performance out of this ststem you shoudl be lookign at somethign like the LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 external drive... and run that as JBOD. That gives you two PCIe based SSDs of 512GB each with performance close to the internal Mac Pro SSD. If you don't go to that, at least go to SATA based SSD for your audio file storage (e.g. LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt).

For a quick test you can leave the video on the striped G-RAID and move all the other session files to your Mac Pro internal SSD (make sure all audio content actually gets moved over to the SSD). See if that makes the problem go away.

Even if the problem is still there you need to leave the IO set up at least half decent, just leave the audio files on the internal SSD or spit your external drive into two JBOD disks, you need to get that set up correctly for other testing.

Especially if you intend doing much video work I would consider Pro Tools HD for it's timeline cache and other video capabilities. Timeline cache will make lots of IO setup issues go away, but I'd still probalby look for higher-end storage for your Mac Pro.

I have no idea if a single 7,200 rpm drive will meet your video needs/expectation.

----

In case you are not clear on what I meant by separate thunderbolt buses (I don't just mean separate Thunderbolt ports), read this. http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/mac-pro-...lt-performance. Just be paranoid and make sure your display and video output device are all on different thunderbolt buses than that G-RAID drive. I would put the 003's Firewire adapter at the end of the G-RAID drive Thunderbolt chain.

----

What exact AAE CPU errors are you getting?

Make sure you have "ignore errors" unchecked in the playback engine dialog panel... you want to see all errors possible while tryign to debug things.

What are your CPU meters doing in Pro Tools when you get these CPU errors.

When you get these errors plugins are you running and how many instances? If the CPU usage is high are you using SanAmp?

Try toggling on and off dynamic CPU processing.

If troubleshooting the improper storage setup does not help don't waste too much time before you start temporarily removing third party plugins from the plugin folder putting them back in batches etc. looking for bad plugins. Again, they don't need to be instantiated to cause problems, just installed in the plugin folder.

[crizdee]

Hi,

Any difference if you remove the black magic intensity out of the equation?

Any serious CPU hog plugins that don't like llow buffer settings?


Chris

[Darryl Ramm]

And to be clear on hardware buffers, if you are not tracking audio, the hardware buffer setting should not affect your problem. With Pro Tools 11's dual buffering, you'll actually be getting 1k or 2k plugin sample buffer size depending on sample rate.

Be careful interpreting things, low disk %usage does not necessarily mean the disk is OK (it takes just one physical IO that is a little too high a latency..)

Low CPU metered usage does not mean you don't actually have a CPU problem (the meter can't resolve spikes in CPU usage, which might be a problematic plugin or a bug in Pro Tools ).

[dankin]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

And to be clear on hardware buffers, if you are not tracking audio, the hardware buffer setting should not affect your problem. With Pro Tools 11's dual buffering, you'll actually be getting 1k or 2k plugin sample buffer size depending on sample rate.

I know that is how it's supposed to work on paper, but in my experience with 11 the input buffer still plays a large roll in performance. I still have to run it above 512 to keep from getting errors when mixing bigger sessions.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by dankin

I know that is how it's supposed to work on paper, but in my experience with 11 the input buffer still plays a large roll in performance. I still have to run it above 512 to keep from getting errors when mixing bigger sessions.

it is certainly easy to have sessions where this *does* matter.

Make sure you don't have any record enabled or input monitored audio or aux tracks. They will operate at the input buffer size.

[albee1952]

I would also try running a session using Core audio(IOW, without the 003) just to see if it makes a difference

[travisrex]

Thanks for the information.

Ok, I'll take a look at the storage. I intended to use the G-RAID as a back-up disk from the start but ran out of budget. I never would have guessed I'd be getting CPU spikes from this. I find it a little ridiculous that I need to split Audio and Video onto separate drives in this day and age, but so be it.

My internal SSD drive is pretty full with my samples. I was under the impression having samples on the internal drives and media files externally was the way to go.

I have my eye on this as a solution
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/pro...magicmultidock

I am aware that there are 3 Thunderbolt Busses and 6 Ports. I had it set up correctly from the get go.

The Error I have been getting is AAE -9173. Ignore Errors is active. The CPU Meters are at 8% maximum, the Disk Meters 0% and Memory 30%. This is with 27 Stereo tracks x8 Avid Channel strip, Altiverb 7 x 4, waves Ultra Maximizer x1, 40sec HD MXF video, 24bit 48KHz

The Session works without problems with 512 samples buffer - I could easily run this at 32 samples on my 3.1 Macpro 8 Core (OWC PCIe SSD Bootdrive), PT10, internal SATA drive and Thunderbolt PCIe card.

Thanks for all the advice.