10.3.3/Lion/2009 8 core. Experience is sluggish

[tribase]

Hi there,
I went through all versions of ProTools 10, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 etc. Am now at 10.3.3
Everything works and plays. Big sessions (200 voices, 150 plugins, mixed rtas, aax and aax dsp). But everything is a little sluggish, click on an automation lane with the grabber, and the breakpoint appears like half a second later. Everything feels not snappy, even though it never gives up.

It's a 2009 8core. Lion 10.7.2. set to either 7 or 11 cores (no difference). 512 buffer. 14 gb ram, 7 of which for ram caching. HDX.
Reinstalled, permission repaired, spotlight privacied (is that a word?) Nothing. Just molasses feeling.

Any ideas out there?

[producerdna]

I have HDX with 8 core Mac pro with 12GB Ram. It looks like you're close to hit the ceiling. My sessions are usually 120~160 tracks with generous amount of plugins (100+) and if I get close to 200tracks, it's pretty sluggish. I was thinking about buying an another Card but I'm just waiting tip PT11 comes out.
I'd definitely put at least 48GB Ram for disk caching and native plugs..

[tribase]

Hmm. well.
The whole idea of the HDX card is that I shouldn't have to think about the number of tracks. Most of my channel strips are in DSP. The CPU usage meter is at 28% or so, so nowhere close to the ceiling.

48GB seems excessive. ProTools can't access more than 4 and most sessions fit in the 7gb ram cache (it's always green, as in fully loaded into RAM nothing missing). Even at a full session, I probably still have 2-4 GB of RAM unused.

But thank you!