Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

Question to the Win PC Pro Tools guys:


Avid advises to disable Hyper-Threading on Win10 PCs. In practice, is there a considerable loss of CPU performance, comparing to a MacOS with a Hyper-Threading? Is it really halved?


It goes without saying that this hypothetical assumes the same CPUs is/ are installed on an Apple and a PC Pro Tools system.

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

Hyper threading is/was *never* a promise of doubling performance. There are no extra full cores, it is in part an illusion. Nice marketing. A hyperthread gets to do useful work if the core it is a part of is not fully busy, so the answer is it’s complicated.... depends on workload, plugin, etc. and not as simple as CPU meters imply.

Disabling hyperthreading with Pro Tools 2018 on *Mojave* sure provided a huge stability improvement for many folks. And that seemed to be initially found by users. I don’t think there was anything quite as dramatic seen on Windows 10.

I do not understand why you are talking about comparing Apple with Windows 10.

On macOS *Mojave* turning on hyperthreading did not increase, let alone get near doubling performance, it often went the other direction, to zero. Are you experiencing errors/crashes? If not I would have left hyperthreading enabled, even the old optimization guide kinda tries to warn your mileage may vary.

With such dramatic changes/improvements to threading and plugin performance in 2019.5 (thank you Avid), and who knows what other bug fixes, I have re-enabled hyperthreading on my i7 MBP running Mojave. Seems OK.

I have no clue about the current reality on Windows 10, but I would not be assuming old general advice still stands with 2019.5 unless you hear it does—or just experiment. It may always be possible that somebody finds specific plugins and workloads that might be improved by disabling hyperthreading... so whatever the general recommendation, if chasing down issues trying to disable it is a tool at your disposal.

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

Only because I currently saw that Avid advises to disable Hyper-Threading on Win10. I haven't seen the same recommendation on MacOS. Perhaps it's there but I didn't come across it.

I was completely unaware that this was an issue, nor I ever came across to a scenario that required it.

I am currently building a big HP Server for a several purposes (Atmos Rendering and for VR playback) and I am investigating how it could work as Pro Tools PC as well.

Darryl, could you please give me an example of a Pro Tools issue that was solved by disabling Hyper-Threading on a Mac?

Since I initially posted this today, I have been researching further into this matter, reading online and posting the same query on an FB group. Yes indeed, HT might not be doubling the CPU prowess but some reports refer to a 30% increase. Of course, it depends on plugins used, etc.

I'll try and disable Hyper-Threading on tomorrow's project and compare the System Usage window to the one with Hyper-Threading enabled to check whether there might be any difference at my system.

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

I'm not Darryl, but disabling Hyper-Threading on my 2018 Mac Mini solved CPU error messages at buffer sizes below 128 (ie: Tracking).

I would not be concerned about the "CPU hit" of doing this; I've found the difference to be negligible in my work (average "rock band" track counts/plugin counts).

Hope this helps!

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

DUC is full of users posts advising disabling hyperthreading on Mojave with 2018. I’m happy to answer questions but you will get more done if you work out how to search these forums. This is *the* place that was discussed you don’t need Facebook groups or other stuff.

Avid advises disabling hyperthreading on Windows 10. But its last of a list of optimization steps and I would treat that one as soft-advice more to try not an absolute. But I don’t use Windows much. What happened on macOS Mojave may be completely irrelevant to you... but what actual problem are you trying to solve?

The problem Pro Tools 2018 on Mojave (mostly -6106 errors, but can be others as well) that users here discovered were dramatically improved by disabling hyperthreading. And it was users here promoting that. Avid should have updated their recommendations, not sure why, they did not, maybe they want to keep emphasizing Mojave was not officially supported. Avid could have done better there, but to be fair they were busy working on 2018.5... and wow.

Bottom line with all this is if you are not having CPU type errors then there is no need to change stuff. And if you are not on 2019.5 yet I’d be getting a plan to test that. Carefully, on a new/separate Windows 10 partition.

You are *completely* wasting your time doing tests looking at CPU usage meters. Again what actual problem do you have that your are trying to solve?

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

As a windows user I would recommend leaving hyperthread alone unless you have an issue. On three separate windows systems I have found that disabling hyperthreading causes problems rather than curing them. The only peeps that should worry about this are on Mac IMHO.

Windows , of course, has a whole different set of issues.:rolleyes:

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

^^ yes!!

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

My own 2 cents on this; it really (on Windows) is a case by case thing. My simple test is to pick an average session(for me) and run at buffer settings of 64 and 1024 and note the system usage cpu(total, not each core) with hyperthreading ON. Then repeat with hyperthreading OFF. The numbers tell the story. If they are significantly better, either way, I will run the way that reports the lower cpu usage(unless it suffers stops or error messages). If I see no difference, I tend to leave it ON. In the past, some users with very similar computers would have very different results(why I feel its a case by case thing).

FWIW, 2019.5 seems to show insignificant changes in cpu usage with HP on vs off, but the good news(for me, anyway) is that 2019.5 is way easier on cpu than any previous build. I am now running sessions at a 64 buffer that would never run before without stops and 9xxx errors(even with Melodyne and Ozone 8 in play):D

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

Our main Windows rig is happier with Hyperthreading off. But as said, it's a case by case issue.

Re: Win10 Disabling Hyper-Threading question.
 

Hi 64GTOBOY, what are the issues you had with hyperthreading enable ?

I'm quite interessed about that because I've a customer with a Z4 and PT 2019.5 and they have latency when scrolling, in the edit window, saving, opening audiosuite plug-ins, zoom etc...